blog #8

      There is a storytelling tradition that has passed down from generation to generation in Haiti ---- the storyteller begins by asking, "Krik?" and those listeners answer "Krak!". Influenced by such beautiful traditional storytelling ritual, Edwidge Danticat writes down this novel which was made up by ten different stories, and within each story, there is someone telling a story. 

      In the first story, "Children of the sea", there are two storytellers. The female letter writer tells a story about the miserable life under the Duvalier regime to the male letter writer. Even though the letters will never be delivered, and it's more like her own diary, she also expresses her missing to her lover. From the male letter writer perspective, instead of telling a story about his experiences on the boat only to her lover, when he realizes that he could die anytime as the boat keeps sinking, he is telling a story to those people outside Haiti, letting more and more people to know what Haitians have been suffering and save them from the Duvalier regime. Thus, storytelling not only can send a message of love and missing but fear, pain and despair. 

      In the "Night Women", the storyteller is the night woman. As a mother, she tells interesting bedtime stories to her son: stories about mountain, stories of the ghost women and the stars in their hair ... As a narrator, she describes her life of being a prostitute, and how she tries to hide the truth of her job from her son for protecting his innocence. At this time, I guess the listeners of her story might be those "piece-worker women". She wants to tell them that she is never ashamed of her job, instead she feels lucky about all her free time during the day, and proud of her actions for her son. The story portrayed by the night woman is the great love from a mother. 

      And the genuine storyteller, the author, Edwidge Danticat, eventually appears at the last section of the book, telling her story as a writer. Like those women who are struggling with the hardships of life, she also has been struggling with being a writer, which is a dangerous and useless job in her parents' eyes. However, those characters created by her are exactly the reason that encourage her to keep chasing her writer dream. And eventually, she not only becomes a real storyteller, writing down the various stories to her number readers, but also inspires many of those who have experienced the same sufferings with her to overcome the struggles. 

      In Haiti, storytelling is a kind of tradition used to preserve the country's cultures and customs. But Edwidge Danticat turns it into the most powerful weapon, revealing the tribulation people have been suffering in silence.