All Aunt Hagar's Children 1

I have reached to the chapter "A Poor Guatemalan Dreams of a Downtown in Peru" of Jones' novel, "All Aunt Hagar's Children." So far, each chapter seems to be about a different person and I can't really connect the people together at all. The only thing I think might be a connection is the apartment some of the characters live in in Washington, D.C. However, I can't tell if they are living in this apartment building at the same time, or if some events happened much earlier than others. The book is written in third-person and seems to be a free indirect discourse, where the narrator can tell the inner feelings of a few characters in each chapter, but mostly only one character so it could also be classified as a limited omniscient.
All of the stories so far seem to deal with a lot of loss in the characters' lives. The first tells a somewhat cold story about a husband and wife losing thier love for one another rather suddenly after they take in a baby that isn't thiers. Another chapter is about another couple sadly falling apart due to emotional distance and untruthfulness. In another is a beautiful yet very sad death of a woman that a man had once loved, so he tries to make her look beautiful and innocent in her death. In each chapter so far I have noticed this theme of loss. There is also a sense that the characters are getting over thier loss and moving on. For example, Ruth takes the baby back to Virginia I believe and lives with her family again. But Aubrey seems to still be suffering greatly. In "Resurrecting Methuselah," Anita seems to have gotten over her husband and leaves the hospital not caring much, but her husband seems hurt that he has almost lost his life and he has no family to lean on anymore.
I'm really not sure what to make of this book right now. I like it, but I am very confused as to its underlying meaning or themes, other than loss. I also can't see a huge connection to it's being an "African American" novel. The characters might be African American, but I don't see the same oral traditions and diasporic, home-searching themes as the two previous novels. These characters seem to be at home in Washington, D.C. Ruth didn't feel at home there, but she went back to her home. If anyone reads this and has something to add to what makes this novel African American, please comment!

The Dew Breaker #2

I just finished reading Edwidge Danticat's "The Dew Breaker." I found that the end of the story did tie up a few loose ends. It cleared up the fact that the "Book of the Dead" and "Book of Miracles" was the same family, with the dialogue about Anne's younger brother dying, and the father's scar across his face. There was a definite connection between physical and emotional hurt throughout the book. I think the physical hurt got worse as the story progressed and took us deeper into Haiti. It started with the scar across the man's face, the girl who lost her voice, the blind aunt, and many others.

The story ended with Anne's brother burning himself, which Anne could never get over because he left behind no corpse to bury. I think this particular brother was her stepbrother, the preacher, since I think her younger brother died in the ocean while she was having a seizure. I think she felt as if she never had closure for these people's deaths since they didn't leave behind a corpse. I saw the corpses as symbols for the people of Haiti's many traumatic secrets during this time. I think Anne just wanted to see them, just like Dany really wanted to bring his secrets out into the open and talk about them. The physical pain had a lot of symbolism to it; for example, the girl with the lost voice could have symbolized any of the characters in this story, especially Dany, Estime, Beatrice, Anne, and the preacher. They all had things they wanted to say, but couldn't. The blinded woman could have symbolized those who blinded themselves trying to do something which they thought was heroic at the time, such as the father.

I think the main point to this story was that everyone has these traumatic secrets, and that trauma is what makes life what it is. Like the preacher says, "What would be the meaning of life, or death, without some lingering regrets?" (227). Regrets are not necessarily trauma, but trauma could be a part of it. Also, I saw a very important connection when the woman is describing the man who tortured her in prison, and when the preacher is describing Ka's father. The woman says, "He'd wound you, then try to soothe you with words, then he'd wound you again. He thought he was God" (199). The preacher says, "He made you uncomfortable, then pretended to relieve your discomfort, so you'd feel grateful to him and think he was on your side" (224). I think here the author is trying to describe the way life works. You'll get hurt, then something good will happen and you'll think you are finally happy, when sometimes it will all come crashing down again. It was very interesting how the woman said he thought he was God. Mostly, I just think this book is about the interesting secrets every person keeps, and how these characters could relate to any family coming out of this disaster in Haiti.

The Dew Breaker #1

Recently, I've been reading Edwidge Danticat's The Dew Breaker for African American lit. Reading to the chapter, "Night Talkers," I have noticed a theme of traumatic events happening to the mian characters of the story. We talked about this a little in class today. The first character experiences the trauma of learning new information about her father which completely changes her view of his past, which also alters her past in a way. She finds that instead of being tortured in Haiti, he was a torturer. The next two characters are married but were separated for seven years after they were wed, and were just now getting to reunite. They hold the secrets that they have both been seeing other people while they were away, and this is a form of trauma in the form of guilt. I'm sure it also drives them crazy wondering what the other was doing while they were apart. The next character was in love with the married man, and had an affair with him while his wife was away. She went through the trauma of loving a man who was unavailable, and becoming pregnant with his child and having an abortion. She too is feeling guilt, remorse, and I think she feels very degraded. I think she still longs for the man.
There is also a minor character who loses her voice, which symbolizes the shock people go through when they lose something they took for granted. I think all of these characters took something for granted. The first girl took for granted the idea she had always had of her father; she took for granted that he was an innocent, good person. The couple took each other for granted, and thier marriage as well. The other girl took her child for granted, and was going through the shock of losing it, even though she chose to do it. She knew the man was unavailable, yet she fell in love with him and is now going through extreme heartbreak. I found it interesting that she could tell the readers that the patients of the hospital were always shocked when they had no voices, even though they knew they were having the procedure done. Yet she doesn't realize she has done this to herself as well.