Blog Post #8

Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak! is a book tells the life story of Haitians in a unique way. Like its name, “Kirk?” and “Krok” is used at storytelling in Haitian culture, the book presents the natures of Haitian through different pieces of stories. Ms. Danticat changes narrator's’ perspective to tell those pieces of stories, which appear different from each other but actually are linked together throughout the book, to show me the beautiful and cruel world of Haitian.

At the first story Children of the Sea, Ms. Danticat tells the story from two perspectives, the Boy at the sea and the Girl at Haiti. The story is written in the form of letters between the boy and the girl. Though reading those letters reader know the country’s mass in the dictatorship and the hardship of normal Haitian faced in those days. In the boy's’ letter, the form is more formal. There are periods, capitalize letters, and the using of the words are more natural. These fit with the setting that the boy is an educated student, who worked in the audio and wanted to have school in America. On the other side, the girl’s letter appears less formal. There are no periods between sentences, no capitalizes, the way narrator speaking appears very young, unthoughtful to audiences, as well as the words are typed in Bude. The differences of the letters are specifically shown to help me understand the setting. Also, Children of the Sea is the first story in the book. The author use it as the introduction by stating the name of the book “Krik? Krak!”. The boy words and explain the Haitian culture of storytelling in his letter. For me, I feel this story is attracted because of this form of storytelling. For example, I have to contract the information that author gives from the two letters to get the full picture of the story. It’s like figuring out a puzzle, that has my interest immediately.

Besides this specific story, when I connect all the little pieces in the book together, I see that the book is undoubted “Krik? Krak!”, that like the boy and other people at the sea, they tell a series of stories one by one. As a whole book, all those stories combine together, each story has connections with each other. For example, the mother from Caroline's Wedding went to a mass for a refugee woman, that appears to be Celianne from Children of the Sea. This lets the separated stories link to each other, and give me both the bigger picture of the entire book as well as the detailed experience of the characters. Furthermore, the author also uses secondary perspective to write the epilogue Women Like Us. The secondary perspective “you” make me feel more understanding to her points. I feel the story is not about other people, but about me when I read the epilogue. It is very impressive to see the author natural switches between perspective in the book.

I remember when Ms. Danica comes to our school and gives us a writing excessive. During her comments to each group of us, I clearly remember she talks about the perspective, which she says is a good way to strength the story. Krik? Krak! is just like its name, it is a collection of stories that bring me into the world of Haitian.