LOVE, SUFFERING, AND HOPE IN EDWIDGE DANTICAT’S “CHILDREN OF THE SEA”

Abstract

Edwidge Danticat was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on January 19, 1969. She is a Haitian-American diasporic writer who writes in English. Danticat’s first novel Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) had been selected by the Oprah Book Club in 1998. Her short story collection Kirk? Krak! published in 1995, became a National Book Award finalist. The first story in the short story collection KK is “Children of the Sea”. In this story, Danticat vividly pictures the political violence in Haiti, which is located in the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea. Haiti gained its independence from France in 1803. The aftermath of the political situation and the ruthless regimes threatened the very existence of humanity. Amidst the violence and suffering, Haitians continue to love and remain hopeful. Haiti, widely popular for its poverty and repression, has an overlooked story of resistance. Haitians have played a remarkable role in shifting the correspondence of political and social power, even as they have endured distressing state-sponsored violence which includes torture, abuse, illegal arrest, disappearance, and assassination. Danticat, who is concerned with the plight of Haiti and Haitians, fuses the political with the personal in her stories and thereby she creates testimonials which aim to address the social injustice. This paper attempts to picture the unyielding spirits of the Haitians even in the face of unfathomable loss.