Discussion Questions - Analyze With Direct Quotes

KK Blog Post 4 due. Choose two of the discussion questions posted on the blog. Use/analyze at least 2 direct quotes in your writing. 500 words.

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Stella Question:

5. What is the purpose of the "Epilogue: Women Like Us"? Especially the part where she explain her choice of writing and her mother disagree with it.

By putting in an epilogue that has stark contrasts with the rest of the story Danticat is displaying her own truth and meaning. The epilogue is almost like a poetic piece of her own life. Danticat says, "Someone was crying. You and the writing demons in your head. You have nobody, nothing but this piece of paper, they told you. Only a notebook made out of discarded fish wrappers, panty-hose cardboard." (192) Danticat uses very sober, poetic language in this paragraph to demonstrate her internal and external struggles without focusing the camera on herself. Danticat uses her book to connect people and show the true terrors that still go on today from through a different lens than is usually done. Danticat also makes in well known that these stories are about the people of Hati and that they are much less about her own experiences, stories, and life. Danticat is injecting small amounts of her own emotion and life into this story. Danticat knows that writing isn't necessarily something that she should be doing which is why she includes this specific portion that focuses on the frustration of her mother and her initial reaction to the offensive language. "her disappointment when you told her words would be your life's work, like the kitchen had always been hers. She was angry at you for not understanding." (193) Danticat is focusing her epilogue as her own goodbye to the stereotypes that she addresses in her stories. Danticat shows us the importance of the connection between generations and the gaps that it causes without having it. She displays the importance of history and past, knowing what your history as a people is and where you fall, for her the disagreement between her and her mother is just like the characters in her story but, in the end, they always realized what their parents sacrificed for them, Danticat, on the other hand, seems to know just what her mother sacrificed and rather than being angry with what reaction her mother is getting, she plays a More understanding angle that has tones of anger and sadness. Overall, Danticat adds the epilogue to give us how these stories relate to her and how they could relate to us all, she approaches this ending as something more than a character but as a reader, and an author displaying a truth that many people can connect with, understand and appreciate. 

Nia's Question:

what do all the stories have in common?

Together these stories combine a lot of different themes that have an overarching connection to history and identity. Knowing your past, 1937, understanding where you have come from and knowing why your family does things a certain way, Carolines Wedding. All of these stories also push on the fact that there is a generation gap between what traditions ard used and accepted as normal, or meaningful enough to pass on. The entire book shows in multiple ways children being unaware of what their parents are really doing. In Nigth Women, the son has no clue what the mother was really doing, the same goes for New York Day Women the children in these stories are/have grown. 

Discussion Questions

1. What is the purpose of Dandicat adding the Epilogue and focusing that on connections with people, the audience, when most of the book involves a form of segregation and separation?
2. Why is the chapter named New York Day Women, as opposed to something else, and what does both NYDW and Night WOmen have to do with taking care of children?
3. WHy would Dandicat organize these stories in this specific way, What meaning does it have?
4. Why did Dandicat include Caroline's wedding in her selection of stories, how does it fit with the others, and why is it different. What would be a better last story to the book instead of carolines wedding?
5. 
   

Epologue

• Lots of You statesments
• Possibly Danticat herself
• Mentions a lot of teh themes athat are in the whole nbook, age gape etc
• there is an explination of writing and the moticves behind such tasks
• Talks abotu how poeple dont write their own stries btu sit in teh dark corneers
• talks about the women whisperinf and pushed the sotires to be told
• Short piece
• Almost like an explination and a reasoning into why the book was written
• 
  

Carolines Wedding Class - Theme

Superstitions are often a means of communication and storytelling, to keep people connected with their culture and know their identity and their past. Quite similar to family heirlooms.


Second Paragraph on page 150

Carolines Wedding

- grace gets American citizenship
- Family doesn’t seems super impressed or happy. Tells her to put it away
- Hermine is excited, wants her to go and get a passport.
- Mother IS excited and she goes to fi”e for a passport.
- Family is nervous about papers because of past experiences.
- Has to trad in naturalization papers to get passport.
- Celebrate with bone soup, something to cure all ills
- Wants to get Caroline away from her fiancé
- Caroline doesn’t have her forearm, soup to cure Caroline doesn’t like it and is tired of it.
- Caroline is an American citizen becuSe she was born there and now grace is one aswell.
- So their identity’s are muddled, is Caroline Haitian or American and the superstitions confused her possible because of her different upbringing?
- Hermines husband died and she wants boho daughters to Mary Haitian men.
- Hermine is from Ville Rose and knew Josephine was in

- Mother has a memorial service and wants daughters to go

- graces oges and caroline does not

- Prayr for Celianne, presuably, about her

- Caroline is leaving and packing clowly so that she doesnt worry her mother.

- Father died of cancer

- Girls would dream of  him and disobey and father would visit them in his dreams.

- Never told mother baout dreams becsue o fher beliefs.

- Mrs. Rutz son killed trying to take over a plane.

- Eric goes to dinner, and has a learning disability making him talk slow.

- Grace keeps dreaming of the father

- Caroline was nicknames NEw York Childbecasue of where she was born.

- caroline has phatom limb pain andwears a prostetic arm.

Hermine comforts Caroline when she feels ill and doesnt try ot get her not to get married.

• Grace gets her passport
• Caroline leaves for honneymoon
• Caroline sends roses

Blog Post 3

KK Blog Post 3 -- Compare Night Women to New York Day Women. What new opportunities do women have in the US vs. Haiti? What experiences are similar in both stories/places? What does this suggest about gender roles? 500 words.

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Word Count: 383

While at first glance Night Women seems vastly different than New York Day Women, it is creditable to note that there are actually a vast number of similarities. For example, in Night Women there is a divider int eh shack that keeps the mother separate and away from the sons eyes, the mother in New York Day Women (NYDW) has a metaphorical sheet up against the daughter, the line where Suzie says that she left her mother with newspaper for rollers in her hair and bathrobe on but then sees her dressed and walking through the city is  the daughter pulling the curtain down on her mother and revealing something that she didn't know. Both children also have education, the little boy is sent to school and Suzie has a job in which she needs to have some education and talks about parent-teacher conferences. NYDW is different in the fact that there are more opportunities for women who have to work aside from their husbands. First, the mother is a nanny and the daughter is in an advertisement. It is important that not all jobs for women are extremely strenuous or a very high education level required. There are different levels for the women based on the education and what they want, this gives women choice, something they don't have in Haiti. The women also are given freedom, something you don't see in Night WOmen, they have options to choose and have the ability to refuse someone or something. They are much more human-like in NYDW.

While the husband is still relevant in NYDW it is important to note he doesn't seem like much of a father figure and of much importance to Suzie. Also, the fact that Suzie didn't know about what her mother was doing for so long almost give hope to the woman in night women because she is trying to keep her own secrets away from her son and if this mother could do it then so could she. It is also important to take into consideration that the mother in NYDW is only ever called mother, and this could be a respect metaphor but it shows that there is a connection and that she is seen as a mother first before anything else, just like the night woman.

New York Day Women

• My Mother
• Repetition feels a lot like a poem
• Dialogue is in bold 
• In Brooklyn
• Mother seems like she is a more of a naturalist
• More street smart
• Not a lot of education
• Mo5her walks through the city
• Gets a child from a mother who looks like she is going on a run
• The mother might be a babysitter
• Switches salt is heavier than shame to shame is heavier than salt
• Doesn’t want her daughter to be ashamed
• Older women that had to work
• Daughter learns to appreciate her mother and what she does only after following her through the city
• Mother and Daughter both are day women 
• No mention of the father really, so a presumably single mother is a day woman in the U.S but not in Haiti
• Women's rights and available jobs
• Mother still doesn't have a high paying job
• Daughter seems more grown in this one
• More of a memory, not so much of a written work, not much like a story.

Author Visit Discussion Questions

1. Why did you tell this story through an animal lover as opposed to any other person? (Zookeepers wife)
2. Why is there so much science in your writing, how did that shape your storytelling ability and methods?

Seeing Things Simply 10/11/18

Seeing Things Simply

• Princesse hears shouting from  school yeard, crosses the street to watch the roosters battle
• The Banyan tree holds "Vodou" ceremonies at night but people use it during the day for weddings. funerals, and in this case animals fights
• Women are working, selling drinks and lottery tickets. 
• A woman telling her husband to leave in which he replies to leave him alone and he "puts a spell on her" to make her mute.
• The wife laughed and walked away and he cursed her more as she walked

Seems to me like this girl believes in Vodoo and that this man is really putting curses on the woman and she might be a little bit scared. But at the same time, it is a third person communal language which makes e think that she is also not feeling this way at all and its all the author describing what common belief 

• Princesse is 16
• The old man winked and called out to the girl telling her she was pretty
• Shooting away his wife with spells that never worked"
• Maybe she knows that vodoo isn't real
• Reached for the hem of the girl's skirt while talking to her
• Catherine has come into the story seems like maybe she is wealthy
• Has a bathing suit and a cover to go over it much different from the scraps the other families had
• Catherine is 27
• She paints in the sun
• loves to sunbathe and doesn't tan all that much
• Princesse is taking off all her clothes and Catherine is sketching on paper 
• Princesse lays down on a white sheet on the Veranda
• says that princesse is comfortable with her nudity since she is hidden from others views
• Catherine is sketching and painting princesse 
• Catherine is telling her to relax that nobody will see these paintings in the village
• Catherine will bring that painting to face or Guadalupe
• A man was crying about one of his roosters dying in the fight.
• MAn is sad his father gave him the rooster that died and now that hsi father is dead he is giving the bird back to his dad
• Catherine would not always draw and paint her naked
• Catherine is telling princesse about her life back in Paris and teaching her what she learned while she is drawing her' Princesse would go every day on then one day Catherine wasn't there 
• SHe went to the beach and wished she could paint the sly
• Catherine gave Princesse a painting of herself 
• Princesse wants to paint and make pictures
• 
  

Reflection - 10/9/18

Post a short reflection on your blog -- what did Tuesday's in-class performances reveal about the characters and stories presented? What was interesting and what did it make you think about or realize? 250-300 words




Jacob Ivan

Ivan

Doing actions to sow the shack that they are in. Tucking the boy in

Knock on door
Jacob
Closing doors not sure who he is supposed to be

Job for money maybe also a night woman not clear for the longest time until he feeds us a lot of information.

Supposed to be talking to herself. Not having an interview. Carification would have been better

Nia Jack

Facing each other, possibly in conversation

Jack Starts outside, walks in

Reading off the screen

NIa

Gasping and surprise

Maybe she is Lili, not sure but surprised from who walks in

Says Lili is a night women. Now makin that connection that may or may not be tru


Jack

Seems to be guy

Talks bout the balloon’

Coming after death being an angle

Guy says that he is happy now that he is dead and


Leslie Jasmin

not use who either of them are supposed to be

Oe of them is supposed to be pregnant
Girl is pregnant with no husband

Jasmin is supposed to be a night woman had to give us those wording for us to know would havelikes to know more

Leslie is Celine JAsmin again had to blatantly say who they ar otherwise I would have had no idea who thy were

No emotions very monotone

Not sure what the scene was or where it took place
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I think that overall the performance were good because there was so little time, I also thought that the scene that my groups di wasn’t very strong, there were very few movements and it wa all improvised. I thought there wasn’t good dispersion of lines and it was kid of like what do I say next to keep this moving and you didn’t quite know what the others would do. I also thought that thee were quite a few times when in each of our performances it wasn’t clear who each character was, for Leslie and Jasmins I had no idea who either of them were until Jasmine told me who they both were while she was acting. I needed a verbal cue becuse they didn’t put through the specific characteristics of the character. I also had a hard time telling who characters were because a lot of The performances were monotone and I didn’t get a old feel for what the scene overall was supposed to be. I would have much rather enjoyed more emotion and character details but I think that wasn’t possible because of the time constraints. I would had liked to see more stain in all of the groups, Ivan used quite a bit which helped a lot with telling who their character was which I liked and I liked Nias reaction when Jack first walked into The room. Overall the performance were good considering Everything but a lot of people were the night women and Guy and I think hat there were definitely plenty of other options that people didn’t pick‘.

Krik Krak Blog Post 2 - Uta Hagen

KK Blog Post 2 due. Choose one character from the first 4 stories and do a character analysis using Uta Hagen's 9 questions. 500 words
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Character: Guy


1. Who am I?

Who is your character? Identify all the details: name/age, physical traits, relatives, education, personal opinions, likes, dislikes, hobbies, fears, ethics, and beliefs


2. What time is it?

The year, the season, the day, the minute. What is the significance of time?


3. Where am I?

Identify the country, the city/town, the neighborhood, the building, the room, the specific area of the room.


4. What surrounds me?

What is happening in the environment around you? Weather, landscape, people, animate/inanimate objects.


5. What are the given circumstances?

Identify events in the past, present, future. What has happened, what is happening, what is going to happen?


6. What are my relationships?

This is more than your relationship to other people. Think about your relationship to objects, characters, and events.


7. What do I want?

What do you want immediately? What does the character want overall?


8. What is in my way?

What are the obstacles to getting what you want?


9. What do I do to get what I want?

What actions do you take (both physically and verbally)? What tactics?

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Character: Guy

Guy is an Adult male living in Hait, therefore he is a Haitian male who is married to Lili and has a son, Little Guy. He has a somewhat part-time job working but has a hard time supporting his family. He wants to be able to do this though, support his family it is something that he stressed through the entirety of the story. Guy is very headstrong and likes to do things his way, he argues often with Lili about lots of things but mainly about signing little Guy up for the list which will allow him a better job in the future than what he got. Guy doesn't have a good education if one at all.  he wants freedom as well as the ability to support his family, so he is willing to go to extreme lengths to gain his freedom such as the air balloon scene. Haiti is very hot so his job is very taxing on his body and there is little reward for all of his labor. Guy and his family live in a small shack that is dirty and most likely falling apart at the seems. Guy becomes obsessed with the balloon and starts to lose connection with his family and reality a little bit, he has a madness forming to take this ballon for it to be able to fly and give him some freedom. But he faces obstacles, like his love for his family, his ability to get to the balloon fly it without being caught, having to abandon his family. Guy has all of these obstacles floating around in his space. Since its so hot out and the sun is described often I would say that it was around summer time in Haiti during this and they are located in a small rural ton almost off the map. Guy loves the sky for its freedom properties, the never ended-ness, and the vast space that he could be in so when he died it is easier for him to keep his eyes open and look at the sky. 

In Class Writing - Kirik Krak 10/4/18

Chose and compare a common theme with at lest two stories
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Theme: Blood is thicker than water
Stories: Children of The sea
Night women
1937?
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Blood Can Not Crash On The Shores, It Is Too Thick

Edwidge Danticat focuses on a family for each of her short stories in the book Kirk? Krak! Among these stories is become evident that there is a sacrifice, but more than that this sacrifice is for family each and every time. Danticat focuses on what the families are willing to do for each other and the survival of their loved ones, mainly when The outcome for them is often death. In the First story Children of the Sea Danticat uses the father, who is portrayed as a villain in the daughters' eyes, risk everything for that same daughter who hates him so that she can survive. “some nights papa sleeps at his brothers, uncle pressoir’s house. uncle pressoir sleeps at our house, just in case they come. that way papa will never be forced to lie down in bed with me.”(11) When first reading this line I thought that he was doing it for himself to keep his own reputation clean because the story portrays this father as a man who is angry and selfish, but after knowing the ending I come back to this line and realize that he wasn't her to be safe more than he fears about his own reputation. Later in the same passage is says they knew a girl who got pregnant that way, and the father doesn’t want his daughter to feel the same of that rather than himself, because he could live with that but he wants to protect her. You can see this again when he says “papa hear about it. He wet to the post and paid them money, all the money he had. Our house in port-au-prince and all the land his father had Leif this, he gave it all away to save my life”(21) These two lines are only ten pages apart but the daughter goes from angr towards her father to great fullness and understanding. Similarly in Nineteen Thirty-Seven the grandmother dies in the crossing of the river so that she can protect her daughter and future granddaughter who would be born that night. The mother then keeps Vodoo from her to keep her safe and protect her so that she doesn’t have The possibility of getting caught and stays alive and out of prison. These sacrifices that happen for Josephine to be able to live a long and happier life than what had been given to her mother or grandmother. "on that day so long ago, in the year nineteen hundred and thirty-seven, in the Massacre River, my mother did fly." (42) Josephine has realized previously in the book how her mother created the Madonnas tears and knows hoe the voodoo things she does have secrets that will become clearer with age, but she also knows that Voodoo meant for her and how to embrace it and makes the conscious decision to continue and share the stories of the flying women from across the river and continue her legend. Josephine learns the importance of her mothers' sacrifice and her grandmothers too beyond the gift of life, the gift of freedom to be the best version of herself that she could be in these horrific circumstances. Josephine learns to find comfort where she couldn't before and bond that had long been forgotten with her mother. Overall, Dandicat uses her ideas of family and family connections to dive in deeper with the story and add elements fo realism to it overall. Dandicat makes sure that we know how much sacrifice people are making in their daily lives for their family and the gratefulness or anger that poeple feel for it. 

Kirk Krak Notes 10/4/18

Style:

• Depressing tone
• reveals truth (even if negative) - real life scenario
• Detailed
• Reader feels the suffering
• Facts
• Emotions
• Personalized 
• Wats readers to know what its like
• Uses repetition
• Analogies/symbols
• Angles
• Wings
• Butterflies
• Sky
• Flying
• Simple stories/ language
• Almost like a diary 
• Action/Reaction - Dramatic 
• Multiple Persepctives
• Sounds like poetic language 
• Repetition 
• Symbolic language 
• Not always linear story 
• Goes ina circle not nessisarily a straight line all the time
• Realism
• Depiction of violenc 
• Contrasting to the poetic language that often depicts beauty 
• CONTRAST 
• Describing the style 
• Why
• Reflection of theme
• Hope/future v.s Hoplessness/past or present 

Discussion Question:

1. What is the point of Dandicat describing the woman’s scarf as blood red in Night Women and why does she have the son, who is presumably innocent wearing it rather than the mother who because of her prostitution has a negative connotation of stains? 

Krik Krak 4 - Night Women

Talked in class about the possibility or Lili being the mother and the son is Little Guy. Keeping that in mind while reading the story I took the following notes

• 'Tonight I am much older than the twenty-five years that I have lived" 
• The mother is remaining unnamed which leaves the question as to who it is, and if it really would be Lili.
• She has to live in prostitution because she is, first of all, a woman meaning that she can't get many jobs and there are a few maid jobs but those are so hard to find.  
• She does have a son
• Seems to be young enough to buy the lie that angels come
• Old enough to be called a man in the lines 
• Said to be big enough
• There is little to no money and they mention being in one sack and having scraps if things nad nothing new 
• Red scarf 
• If Lili is the woman it old represent the blood of her husband's death
• Son wears it oo 
• Tempt suitors
• If Lili again she couldn't really find another man because of her husbands legacy
• Wearing his Sunday clothes to bed
• Usually formal and he is careful not to wrinkle them so he knows that he has to keep them clean and not messy even though he is sleeping
• SOn wears the scarf to have something of her further pushing the blood of the farther
• Talks about the sky
• Lili didn't close her husband's eyes so that he could look at the sky 
• Holes int eh ceiling so suitors can look at the sky
• "I am stuck between the day and night in a golden amber bronze"
• Lili used to be a day woman but now that her husband is gone she is a night woman
• She believes that ghost women are with her so that they can stay 
• Mention the butterflies again
• remembrance is all over this book
• Remember the people that are there and remember what their lies are like
• 
  

Krik Krak - 10/1/18 - 1937 and A wall of Fire rising

Read the next 2 stories in KK. Write a blog post in response to the first 3 stories. Choose a theme that you see to be common in all 3 and explore what Danticat is showing us or asking us to think about this theme. Analyze 2 direct quotes. 500 words 

516 WORDS

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While there are endless possibilities to chose from it became apparent to me while I was reading that a common theme between all three stories was that of theft. This is clear to me because in Children of the Sea the couple had their love stolen from them by the Haitian government. The split due to the fear of the man being caught and destroying them both, in this was the Haitian government stole their future together and eventually the boy's life, regardless if they actually killed him on their own shores. "They were going to peg me as a member of the youth federation and then take me away" (21) This quote while not directly speaking about the stolen future the lovers would have shared it touches upon the taking of a life. A theft that can never be justified, and the government's desire to kill and steal lives from people is common throughout. The government is posed as a constant terrorist to the people and displaying just how much they can take from you in even the smallest of ways. In 1934 this 'stealing of life' is not death but imprisonment that these Haitians face, "She was being pulled along by two policemen, each tugging at one of her arms as she dragged her feet."(35) This passage speaks about the mother being taken after the accusations of Voodo and witchcraft were made because a child had died in the same house as her. Danticat shows us this in a very visual way by describing it not from the mother or some bystander but rather straight from the child's mouth making the passage all that more impactful. Using just these two stories it is fairly evident that Danticat is showing how much the Haitian population suffered and what the government takes from them by implementing harsh rules and their execution. Having some knowledge about Haiti's past it helps to form the opinion that the constant battle in Haiti around this time period especially the massacres that occurred, namely 1937 one, is a constant impact for her own identity and the formation of who she is and her viewpoints. It's important to note that while the third story in this book doesn't have the same theft connotations it is still very prominent in the theft of lives by Guy jumping out of the hot air balloon and the list that little guy was going to be but on. With Haiti's constant battles lives are always in the balance and many of these lives that are ended are that of civilians with no purpose to the war efforts and their punishment is death for their uninvolved innocents. Danticat is trying to get outside people to understand the turmoil that Haiti faces in the present as much as int eh past and how often lives were ended and why it is so important to understand a nation's past. Danticat is focused a lot on trying to get the knowlage of Haiti across and what the lives of these civilians, freedom fighters, and families that happened to be Haitian.