Amy Klind
History 315
Critique #2
March 29, 2005

 Krik? Krak!: Survival and Love

              Story telling is used in various cultures not only for entertainment but also for the preservation of history and the memory of significant events, morals, and folklore from one generation to the next.  Story telling uses the power of verbal communication and words to express critical moments in time.  Edwidge Danticat in the book Krik? Krak! portrays the power of story telling and how the brutal history of Haiti and its people has been molded by slavery, revolution, war, poverty, depression, and horror.  Danticat does not focus on the exact historical accounts of Haiti , but instead uses short stories to depict different themes throughout time.  With her short stories, Danticat captures the historical memory of the Haitian people including not only horrific brutalities, but also the existence of love, family, and what people will do to survive at any cost.  Survival is represented in each of Danticat’s stories and struck me as a powerful representation of what the Haitian people were fighting against.  The Haitian people struggled to stay alive through the horrendous events in their history.  Danticat’s stories provide a powerful picture of this.  I will discuss how the themes of survival and the deep value of family and love are weaved throughout the book, creating not only a historical account of a nation, but also a powerful, well written page turner.

In the story “A Wall of Fire Rising,” the two themes of survival and love become apparent.  The story depicts a typical Haitian family living in a small shack.  Guy and Lili hope to have enough food on the table, raise their son (Little Guy), and keep the family afloat.  Because of the extreme poverty in Haiti , the family is plagued by constant stress to survive.  Like many families, they keep this hidden from their young son.  Guy gets a day’s work at the sugar mill scrubbing the latrines, but this fact is overshadowed when Little Guy comes home from school and announces he is in a play.  Memorizing Little Guy’s lines is the major focus of the family, taking attention away from Guy’s lack of employment.  The boy does not know of his father’s troubles with work and instead is consumed with what many boys would be, learning his lines.  Daniticat captures this family’s love and connection by showing just how committed Lili and Guy are in helping Little Guy with his lines, when in reality they are working every day to keep the family alive. 

Aside from the love two parents have for a child, Danticat also articulates the love a married couple has for each other.  Lili shows her love for Guy when he asks her how a man is judged when he is gone and she replies that “a man is judged for his deeds.”  Little Guy always had food and what he needed to survive (Danticat, 74).  This affirmation of Guy as a father and man conveys the love Lili has for her husband.  This love is also depicted in the tragic ending to the story, when her husband (in what many consider a selfish act) kills himself by jumping out of the balloon.  Danticat writes, not of Lili’s anger, but instead of her searching Guy’s face trying to find the man she married and allowing his eyes to stay open because “he likes to look at the sky” (Danticat, 80).

The overpowering presence of love even in the most dire conditions is depicted in several of Danticat’s other stories.  In “Children of the Sea” a pregnant women will not let go of her dead baby and refuses to throw her child overboard as the boat sinks.  Instead of living without the child, the mother plummets into the ocean with the child in her arms.  Danticat’s portrayal of love in this story is powerful and creates an image in my mind of a mother who at any cost is not willing to let a child go.  In the story “Night Women” a hopeless mother works as a prostitute trying to provide for her son.  She says, “The night is the time I dread most in my life.  Yet if I am to live, I must depend on it” (Dantikat, 83).  Her commitment to her son overpowers her hatred of a demoralizing job, which further expresses Danticat’s theme of love.  Another representation of love comes in the story “Nineteen Thirty-Seven.”  Even though a desperate daughter cannot bring herself to speak to her imprisoned mother, she visits her often, bringing fried pork and the Madonna.  Danticat focuses on the encounters of the mother and daughter and not on the details of the massacre (ordered by El Generalissimo, Dios Trujillo) of the Haitians at the border with the Dominican Republic .  Stressing the relationship and love of the two women, and not the historical details of the Massacre River , makes Danitcat’s book unique.  She does not get blinded and bogged down in details that can bore many readers.  Instead her stories inspire analysis and reflection of the horrific conditions in Haiti (it did for me).  Danticat provides a vivid picture of Haitian people and the atrocities they faced.