Krik? Krak!

“All anyone can hope for is just a tiny bit of love, manman says, like a drop in a cup if you can get it, or a waterfall, a flood, if you can get that too.”

Central to this story is the idea that love takes many forms; in this passage, the young female narrator is thinking of romantic love, specifically for her lover. Although she feels her love has been taken from her, the story indicates that her father’s love for her caused him to sacrifice his home and livelihood in order to save her life. At the end of the story, as her lover dies, she acknowledges her father’s sacrifice, suggesting that both loves are endless.

“I must throw my book out now. It goes down to them, Célianne and her daughter and all those children of the sea who might soon be claiming me.”

The title of this story is a reference to the 1.8 million enslaved people who died at sea during the Middle Passage, some by choice, and others as a result of the horrific conditions in which they were transported. In this passage, the young lover, who knows he is about to die, imagines the children of the sea as a welcoming reception, and a refuge from the horrors of his escape from Haiti.

“I held out the small statue that had been owned by my family ever since it was given by my great-great-great-grandmother Défilé by a French man who had kept her as a slave.”

This passage points to the complex relationship between Christianity and slavery in Haitian history. The Madonna statue was likely given to Josephine’s enslaved ancestor in an attempt to convert her, and is therefore a powerful symbol of colonialism. Nevertheless, its treasured place as a magical object in Josephine’s household demonstrates the uses of Christianity in Haitian culture.

“‘At least I gave birth to my daughter on the night that my mother was taken from me,’ she would say. ‘At least you came out at the right moment to take my mother’s place.’”

Josephine’s grandmother was murdered on the day that Josephine was born; her body was cut up and thrown into the same river that Josephine’s pregnant mother escaped across. In this passage, Josephine’s mother explicitly suggests that Josephine was born to continue the spiritual, feminine line her own mother began, highlighting The Resilience of Women Across the Haitian Diaspora and foreshadowing the end of the story, in which Josephine cares for her mother through her death, and takes up her role as a spiritual leader.

“It was obvious that this was a speech written by a European man, who gave to the slave revolutionary Boukman the kind of European phrasing that might have sent the real Boukman turning in his grave. However, the speech made Lili and Guy stand on the tips of their toes from great pride.”

Little Guy’s role in his school play is that of Dutty Boukman, a revolutionary leader and Haitian Vodou priest; these lines suggest that the play was written by a European, and that the speech therefore lacks authenticity. Nevertheless, Lili and Guy take great pride in their son’s efforts and the spirit of revolution the speech evokes. This tension highlights Haiti’s complicated relationship with its colonial history.

“‘I don’t want him on that list,’ she said. ‘For a young boy to be on any list like that might influence his destiny. I don’t want him on the list.’”

Guy is 78th on the waiting list for permanent hires at the sugar mill; in this passage, Lili rejects Guy’s suggestion that they should put Little Guy on the same list so that he has a chance of securing employment as an adult. Although Lili is thinking of her son’s chances beyond the sugar mill and their shanty, Guy takes this as a criticism of his own position in life, and his potential as a man.

“There is so much sadness in the faces of my people. I have called on their gods, now I call on our gods. I call on our young. I call on our old. I call on our mighty and the weak. I call on everyone and anyone so that we shall all let out one piercing cry that we may either live freely or we should die.”

These lines, which are italicized in the original to indicate that they are quoted from Little Guy’s play, come from the end of the story, as Little Guy recites his speech over his dead father’s body. In the context of the play, the lines represent Boukman’s plea to his countryman to join the revolution and fight for their freedom. Here, they suggest that Guy decided to end his life rather than live under the tyranny of poverty.

“He always slaps the mosquitoes dead on his face without even waking. In the morning, he will have tiny blood spots on his forehead, as though he had spent the whole night kissing a woman with wide-open flesh wounds on her face.”

This passage is indicative of the blurred lines that result from the anonymous narrator’s sex work in close proximity to her son. The narrator’s use of sexualized metaphors to describe her sleeping son is evidence of this lack of boundaries. The fact that she connects his sexual potential with violence shows how deeply her survival sex work has traumatized her and shaped her perspective.

“After he leaves at dawn, I sit outside and smoke a dry tobacco leaf. I watch the piece-worker women march one another to the open market half a day’s walk from where they live. I thank the stars that at least I have the days to myself.”

The title of the story references the narrator’s distinction between women who work in the night and women who work in the day. This passage suggests that the narrator prefers her night work to that of these women, who walk for hours during the day in order to work at a market. However, the story also indicates that she dreads the night, suggesting that there are few good options for poor women in Haiti.

“She might have been some kind of wanga, a charm sent to trap me. My enemies were many and crafty. The girls who slept with my husband while I was still grieving over my miscarriages. They might have sent that vision of loveliness to blind me so that I would never find my way back.”

This passage suggests that the narrator, Marie, experience mental health challenges as a result of her many miscarriages. Marie’s grief and trauma have made her deeply paranoid, and she is initially worried that Rose is a wanga, or a magical object. It is unclear at this point whether she knows that Rose is dead.

“There was my great-grandmother Eveline who was killed by Dominican soldiers at the Massacre River. My grandmother Défilé who died with a bald head in prison, because God had given her wings. My godmother Lili who killed herself in old age because her husband had jumped out of a flying balloon and her grown son left her to go to Miami.”

This passage is the first indication that the stories in Krik? Krak! are interconnected. It suggests that the narrator of this story, Marie, is the daughter of Josephine, the narrator of “Nineteen Thirty-Seven,” and that Lili, the female protagonist of “A Wall of Fire Rising,” may also have been a survivor of the 1937 massacre. These connections complicate both characters: It suggests that Marie’s mental health challenges may be the product of her isolation from female community, and adds a disturbing finale to Lili’s tale.

“I stuffed my mouth in shame. ‘Intelligence is not only in reading and writing,’ I said.”

Throughout the story, Lamort (also known as Marie) repeats her grandmother’s favorite sayings as a way of responding to difficult situations. In this instance, Lamort is trying to affirm her intelligence to Emilie, the American tourist, even as it is revealed that Lamort can’t read. Although she feels inferior to Emilie in this moment, Lamort ultimately has the social intelligence required to save their lives in the interaction with Toto and Raymond.

“Two other soldiers passed us on their way to the field. They were dragging the blood-soaked body of a bearded man with an old election slogan written on a T-shirt across his chest: ALONE WE ARE WEAK. TOGETHER WE ARE A FLOOD. The guards were carrying him, feet first, like a breech birth.”

This passage is indicative of the unquestioned authority under which the Tonton Macoute act. As a result of their history of violence, the soldiers are able to commit extrajudicial murders in public without fear of retribution. The reference to breech birth indicates how deeply violence permeates life in Haiti from birth until death.

“One day Catherine hoped to get Princesse to roam naked on the beach attempting to make love to the crest of an ocean wave, but for now it was enough for her to make Princesse comfortable with her nudity while safely hidden from the sight of onlookers.”

Although Catherine admires Princesse as an artistic subject, this passage suggests that their relationship is fundamentally exploitative. Catherine either doesn’t understand or doesn’t care that for Princesse to be seen naked in public would have drastic social consequences. Her primary concern is for her own artistic production and legacy: Ultimately, Princesse is an object for her to paint.

“First she drew a silhouette of the old man and then his wife with her basket on her head, perched over him like a ballerina, unaware of her load.”

The end of the story suggests that Princesse has been listening closely to Catherine’s thoughts on painting, and that she is developing her own artistic identity. This passage indicates that her artistic vision is informed by a deep respect for and understanding of her subjects. In this case, she endows an old Haitian woman with the grace and strength often associated with and reserved for ballerinas.

“My mother never shops outside of Brooklyn. She has never seen the advertising office where I work. She is afraid to take the subway, where you may meet those young black militant street preachers who curse black women for straightening their hair.”

This passage is indicative of the intergenerational tensions within immigrant communities. The narrator, Suzette, is resentful of her mother’s apparent lack of interest in her career, and doesn’t understand her mother’s confusion about Black American culture. By the end of the story, she has found a new appreciation of her mother’s sacrifices.

“The child given to my mother has frizzy blond hair. His hand slips into hers easily, like he’s known her for a long time. When he raises his face to look at my mother, it is as if he is looking at the sky.”

When Suzette realizes that her mother is working as a nanny, her initial emotional response is jealousy. This passage suggests an intimacy between Suzette’s mother and the young boy that Suzette never felt with her. However, she comes to realize that this job is another way that her mother has proven her love for Suzette.

“You’re so good anyway. What are they going to tell me? I don’t want to make you ashamed of this day woman. Shame is heavier than a hundred bags of salt.”

In the closing lines of the story, Suzette’s mother explains why she never attended any of Suzette’s parent-teacher conferences: She didn’t want to embarrass her daughter. The fact that Suzette’s mother continues to hide her work suggests that she still feels Suzette would be embarrassed that her mother is a working woman. This passage highlights both the intergenerational tension between the women and the importance of empathy when dealing with elders.

“‘In New York, women give their eight hours to the white man,’ one of the worshippers said in the poor woman’s defense. ‘No one has time to be cradling no other man.’”

This passage demonstrates the ways in which immigration and assimilation are uniquely difficult for Haitian American women. Because of the demands of life in New York, the woman in question is unable to fully respond to her husband’s emotional needs. The passage indicates that this is a uniquely gendered problem, and that men are not criticized in the same way.

“The red for the world to see meant that our mourning period had ended, that we were beyond our grief. The red covering our very private parts was to tell our father that he was dead and we no longer wanted anything to do with him.”

The tension between reality and appearances in Haitian culture is central to the collection, and evident in this passage. Externally, the girls perform a Christian-based mourning practice in order to indicate to others that they are grieving their father. Privately, they’re also supposed to be practicing a uniquely Haitian tradition of wearing red underwear to scare off the ghost of their father.

“These were our bedtime stories. Tales that haunted our parents and made them laugh at the same time. We never understood them until we were fully grown and they became our sole inheritance.”

This passage serves as a thesis for the collection as a whole. Although the reference here is to a joke about the Haitian dictator, the stories in Danticat’s collection suggest that the act of storytelling is essential to the longevity of the Haitian people.

“Papa got a visa by taking vows in a false marriage with a widow who was leaving Haiti to come to the United States. He gave her some money and she took our last name. A few years later, my father divorced the woman and sent for my mother and me. While my father was alive, this was something that Caroline and I were never supposed to know.”

This passage suggests that Grace’s guilt and anxiety comes from her feeling that she is the reason her father left Haiti, and that her mother has not forgiven her for it. After Grace’s birth, her parents were forced to look beyond Haiti in order to support their family. It is revealed that her mother felt betrayed by her husband’s decision, and may resent Grace for causing the change in their family.

“No, women like you don’t write. They carve onion sculptures and potato statues. They sit in dark corners and braid their hair in new shapes and twists in order to control the stiffness, the unruliness, the rebelliousness.”

Although the epilogue is dedicated to describing the struggle faced by female Haitian writers like Danticat, this passage indicates that all Haitian women are creative. Even if they can’t write, Danticat suggests, these women still display the skills and temperament of artists.