Project #3

Makensie Roderick

Project # 3

Professor Nicholas Helms

11/28/2020

Representation of Ghost of the Past– Unessay

Representation of the theme Ghost of the Past is obvious to us readers in Edwidge Danticat’s, The Dew Breaker. The Dew Breaker is a collection of nine separate but interconnected stories. The first entry, The Book of Ka, is narrated by a young woman from Haiti named Ka who lives in New York but finds herself traveling to Florida. Along with her is her father. Ka was on a mission to sell a sculpture of her dad to a famous Haitian television woman. Ka and her father arrive, and the story picks up quickly.

Ka’s father goes missing during the middle of the night while they were in the hotel and did not return till morning. Ka was confused because her sculpture was now missing, she demanded when her father returned to know where he had been and what had happened to her work. Ka’s father took her to a lake where he had dumped her sculpture into the water. Ka was furious and demanded an explanation immediately. The answer he provided to her was that he felt he was not worthy of being immortalized as art. Ka was confused as to why her father would feel, say, and do such a thing. This then moved him to confess that the stories she’s heard all her life about him being imprisoned in Haiti are not true. That in fact, he was employed to kill and torture many of those prisoners, but he had begged her to believe he regretted his actions and is no longer capable of doing such things. In the reading, “There was no way to escape this dread anymore, this pendulum between regret and forgiveness.” (Narrator, The Dew Breaker) i chose this quote because it is the exact opposite of what the point of the theme the ghost of the past is all about. Although there are many evident themes throughout the stories like nature, oppression, violence, and others the theme that was most obvious to me from the first story is the theme of Ghost of the Past.

The theme Ghost of the Past is throughout all the stories in the Dew Breaker and this was evident from story one, The Book of Ka. The entire collection of stories revolves around multiple different people. All of them have their very own story to tell from their past. Either from the time when they lived in Haiti and experienced violence and oppression or the heartache and trauma that follows them still, their stories are all similar in their darkness. The point of the theme of the ghost is that people want to escape from their past and hope that no one knows about their past so that they can start a new life.

This theme is evident in the story to us readers through Ka’s father. in the book of Ka there is a quote that says, ” Do you recall the judgement of the dead” my father speaks up at last, “when the heart of a person is put on a scale? If its heavy, the heart, then this person can not enter the other world. “( Narrator, The Book of Ka) I chose this quote because Ka’s father must’ve been carrying a heavy heart because of his past. The fact that he throws his daughter’s sculpture of himself into the water, could be seen not as an act of repenting for what he had done, but a sign of self-awareness and awareness of the horrors of his own past. Despite the story showing his side as a loving father and husband, we the readers should still not forget that he was a killer. He knows he will never be able to take back what he has done and make things better but he knows that he’s changed and will continue to better himself. This is exactly the theme of the ghost of the past.

We see the theme of the Ghost of the past in our everyday lives today. I see the theme of the ghost in my very own personal life. I see the theme of the ghost in my own life when it came to starting my new life here at Plymouth state university. I was excited to get away and start my freshman year back in 2018. While in high school it was never expected for me to continue my academic career at a 4-year school after graduating high school because of financial struggles. This quickly changed because it ended up not being the case at all. One of my teachers senior year had sat down and had a meeting with my mother and I about why he believed I would do great at a 4-year college and that there were so many opportunities to make that dream of mine come true. No one in my family has ever been to college. I’m a first-generation college student to be exact in my family and that is a lot to hold up to. I had been accepted to Plymouth fairly early. Once being accepted to schools I had applied to it all seemed to become more real. I hoped by going off to college that I could maybe give myself the opportunities and chances I never could have had growing up. Not that my mom hasn’t always given me and my sister everything we wanted, and she could give to us, but it would definitely be nice to let go of my past and start creating my own future. That is the opportunity that the Plymouth state has given to me. Coming to school here I was opened to so many new experiences and new people to meet. This is how I see the theme Ghost of the Past in my own personal life. The story on the other hand can be realistic in the sense that it shows how that sort of man could escape unharmed (for the most part) and form a good life and have a good family, while he prevented many from that fate.

            Above I decided to incorporate a photo of one of me and my really close friends on a hike while here at school in Plymouth for the semester. This is my friend Laura. I met her freshman year of college. She and I live very far away from each other based when were at school. Without the opportunity I get to come and do school at Plymouth state university I probably would’ve never met her. I’m thankful for all the experiences I’ve gotten and the friends I’ve made (so far) along the way. Thankful to have had my own ghost of the past to get me to where I am today!