The Dew Breaker

How are our characters connected to the world?

The Dew Breaker is a novel published in 2004 by Edwidge Danticat. This book has a collection of 9 short stories that has no connection superficially. Characters from each stories had pain directly from the dew breaker. The dew breaker character is a barber in America.  Before he moved into America, he worked for Haitian government helping dictate and torture people. He is important man in the Haitian community like a leader in America. He is a respected leader helping people well settled.  But he was the person murdered their parents, daughter and son. In Bridal Seamstress, The father who is the dew breaker wanted to rape her, she said no, he whipped bottom of her feet and made her walk long trip with bloody bare feet. In the funeral singer, the woman who sings at the funeral whose husband he killed. By telling individual chapters different stories we see how crossed over and interrelated the crimes people, places are. We learn more about the father.

Author didn’t judge character.  The dew breaker is in both their life in Haiti and America. He is the reason why they couldn’t live and could live. Even though he did not reveal himself to them and say that he was the dew breaker, he pays off and repents what he has done in his country by his own way.