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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.
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