Edwidge Danticat's Night Women: Literary Analysis

470 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Narrative essay about immigrants

Since the beginning of time, our ancestors have made sacrifices for the next generation that brought us to where we are today. This idea is woven throughout the book Krik? Krak! Where the author, Edwidge Danticat, portrays fictional short stories people that live in the impoverished nation of Haiti, and how hard it is for families to stay together, provide for each other, and reach their goals of freedom. Danticat uses the motif of generations to illustrate the ideas of hope and survival to develop the theme of sacrifice for a better future of the youth. Parents make sacrifices in order to provide an opportunity for their children to escape from Haiti to live a better life. In the short story Night Women a mother prostitutes herself to provide

Show More
Related

  • Bois Caïman Ceremony Research Paper

    591 Words  | 2 Pages

    The entire story is an allusion, or a reference to the Hatian Revolution, and its themes of hope and escape, along with the poverty that follows it. The poverty is the first thing the readers are introduced to in this story. It was found that in 1985, 90 percent of the Haitian population was earning less than 150 USD per year. (Coupeau 103) Danticat is able to portray this well in her story, using little details throughout to signify that the family the story is about is living in poverty. This is best described on page 369, where she

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Elie And Anne Frank In The Book Night

    478 Words  | 1 Pages

    How would you react if you were taken from your friends and family? Both Elie and Anne had to experience their family being taken away from them, possibly forever. Even though their most loved ones were taken, they still stayed strong. Elie and Anne had similar situations at the concentration camps when they went there.

    Read More

  • Edwidge Danticat's Krik? Krak!

    751 Words  | 2 Pages

    Danticat's Krik? Krak!, are a collection of short stories about Haiti and Haitian-Americans before democracy and the horrible conditions that they lived in. Although it is a mistake to call the stories autobiographical, Krik? Krak! embodies some of Danticat's experiences as a child. While the collection of stories draw on the oral tradition in Haitian society, it is also part of the literature of diaspora, the great, involuntary migration of Africans from their homeland to other parts of the world; thus, the work speaks of loss and assimilation and resistance. The stories all seem to share similar themes, that one story could be in some way linked to the others. Each story had to deal with relationships, either with a person or a possession, and in these relationships something is either lost or regained. Another point that was shared throughout the short stories was the focus on the struggles of the women in Haiti. Lastly they all seem to weave together the overarching theme of memory. It's through memory and the retelling of old stories and legends that the Haitians in Danticat's tales achieve immortality, and extension to lives that were too often short and brutal.

    Read More

  • Women In Tales From The Thousand And One Nights

    1156 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout history, women were not always well regarded by men. Because of this, most societies treated their women as second class citizens. The stories from, Tales from the Thousand and One Nights, illustrate how the portrayal of women affected Muslim society in the Ninth century. Sometimes women were seen as mischievous, unfaithful temptresses. Other times they were depicted as obedient, simple minded slaves looking to please their master.  With the use of charm, sex and trickery, they used the labels that they were put in, to their advantage; demonstrating that women during this century were clever, smart, and sly.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis Of Night By Elie Wiesel's Night

    2077 Words  | 5 Pages

    The book Night by Elie Wiesel is an autobiography that describes Elie 's time in the Holocaust. He is a sixteen year old jewish boy in the Auschwitz concentration camp. He is a thin scrawny boy, but is very strong. His hair is coal black, but looks bad because it is very short and greasy. His eyes look dark and cold with sadness in them because of the loss he’s experienced in the concentration camp. His hands are torn to pieces because he is a hard worker. He is very dirty due to not being able to shower often. Bruises are found all over him from the beating he often gets if he does not follow protocol in the concentration camp. His feet are cut up and often bleeding because he is on them so much. The bags under his eyes are so distinct because he gets no sleep. His body is broken down and hurt, even after he gets out of the concentration camp his body has still not recovered from the scars.

    Read More

  • Sweat Shops

    522 Words  | 2 Pages

    Many children in these Third World countries have no other option but to go to work and help support their families. Otherwise they are left to survive for themselves on the streets ruled by crime and danger. Cathy Young strengthens this point by saying, “Some children, left with no other means of earning a living, may even be forced into prostitution.” Yes, to most people, working in a sweat shop does not seem like a good option but for some it is the only one so why get rid of it.

    Read More

  • Essay 2

    1014 Words  | 3 Pages

    Sethe is an extremely devoted mother who is willing to go great lengths to protect her children. Although she cannot even recognize her own mother from anything besides a scar (72) she still understands the importance motherhood can play in a woman’s life. As a slave, Sethe is stripped of her rights to obtain an education, a career and so much more, however, she does not allow her rights to be a wife, a mother, and to bear children get taken from her because she knows these are a few things in life that are only granted to women. When she d...

    Read More

  • Edwidge Danticat's New York Day Women: Analysis

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    The sky. Open, blue, and vast. People who have been skydiving may describe the experience as amazingly freeing. However, some people may never experience this feeling of freedom in their lifetime. For the people of Haiti, even a brief moment of this feeling seems out of reach. And for them, it usually is. The experiences of fictional Haitians have been compiled into a book of short stories by Edwidge Danticat, entitled Krik? Krak! She portrays their harrowing struggles for freedom, whether the characters remain in Haiti, or have already escaped. But just escaping isn't enough. Danticat illustrates that Haitians are never truly free from the clutches of Haiti’s oppression, poverty and loss. They only achieve true freedom in death.

    Read More

  • Amazing Grace

    1937 Words  | 4 Pages

    At first glance, it seems that the author is going to take us on yet another journalistic ride through the land of the poor. Similar to the ones you read about, or hear in the news. However, this is not the case; the real underlying theme is what is society doing about the plight of the poor? Kozol uses the views of children to emphasize that these reports on living conditions are not being obtained by “disgruntled” adults, but from innocent, learning children whose only misfortune was being born to this particular area.

    Read More

  • Another Holiday for the Prince

    1168 Words  | 3 Pages

    In “Another Holiday for the Prince” by Elizabeth Jolley, the author draws upon many themes, one in particular that Jolley illustrates is how poverty influences changes in the individual lives within one family. To begin with the head of the family; a father is never mentioned in the story, not even once. But by not having a father figure in the story, the reader can understand a lot. In society the man is the one who earns the money and provides all the essentials for his family, however this story is presented in a society where the mother has to be the man of the family. Ones self-esteem can be diminished as a result of poverty, alienation and the destructive effects of a weak personality or society on the individual.

    Read More

  • The Boat, by Alistair Macleod

    843 Words  | 2 Pages

    The mother is a selfish and stubborn woman. Raised a certain way and never falters from it. She neglects help, oppresses education and persuades people to be what she wants or she will cut them out of her life completely. Her own morals out-weight every other family member’s wants and choices. Her influence and discipline brought every member of the family’s future to serious-danger to care to her wants. She is everything a good mother isn’t and is blind with her own morals. Her stubbornness towards change and education caused the families state of desperation. The realization shown through the story is the family would be better off without a mother to anchor them down.

    Read More

  • Examples Of Sacrificing In Edwidge Danticat's Krik

    906 Words  | 2 Pages

    What is it about sacrificing for a family member that makes the relationship between them stronger? When you sacrifice something for someone, it essentially means that one is giving up something to protect someone else. In Edwidge Danticat’s, Krik? Krak!, this act of sacrificing is a common act, because there is so much less for Haitians to hold on to, that family is one of those things that are they hold dear. The strengthening of the bonds between parents and their children due to their sacrifices for each other are featured favorably in the following chapters: “Children of the Sea”, “Nineteen Thirty-Seven”, and “Night Women”.

    Read More

  • Edwige Danticat’s Tones in We Are Ugly, But We Are Here

    561 Words  | 2 Pages

    When I first read “We Are Ugly, But We Are Here,” I was stunned to learn how women in Haiti were treated. Edwige Danticat, who was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1969 and immigrated to Brooklyn when she was twelve years old, writes about her experiences in Haiti and about the lives of her ancestors that she links to her own. Her specific purpose is to discuss what all these families went through, especially the women, in order to offer the next generation a voice and a future. Danticat writes vividly about events that occurred in Haiti, leading up to an assertion about the strength of Haitian women. Her essay is powerful in large part because of how she manages tone.

    Read More

  • Incest Case Study

    728 Words  | 2 Pages

    Likewise, their economic conditions were in the ranges of extreme poverty, the father worked in a plastic factory as laborer and earned $80.16 pesos per day (approximately $ 4.00 USD per day). On the other hand, the mother was victim of domestic violence, many times the mother got unconscious after brutal attacks by the drunk stepfather. Yet more, to understand more I questioned Martha to see if the alcohol was a factor of the constant abuse, and she described how her father at first started touching her when he was under the influence, but after a year of constant sexual abuse the father started to have sex with her constantly. In both instances the Stepfather did not present any remorse, it is seen how the stepfather’s objective was to satisfy his sexual desires rather than reproduce, because he did not really care if his stepdaughter was pregnant or not at the end he ended up exposing their children to whoever wanted to take them, two of them were adopted by their uncle, but the third child did not have the same luck, she was taken by a totally

    Read More

  • The Key Game Ida Fink Analysis

    711 Words  | 2 Pages

    In her two short stories, “The Key Game” and “A Spring Morning,” Ida Fink explores the role of family and the importance of heritage to each of her characters. In both stories, the families are loving, and their members care for one another. This is, in some ways, a juxtaposition of the unkind and terrible circumstances that the families are living in. The focus of both stories is on the children, even though the parents play significant roles. The children are aware of their

    Read More

More about Edwidge Danticat's Night Women: Literary Analysis

Open Document