Edwidge Danticat's Krak ! Literary Analysis

Many people throughout the world live in a place where they are unable to obtain the necessary resources needed to survive unless they’re risking something. They’re trapped in this nearly never ending circle day to day, doing the same thing to keep themselves and their families alive and in a better place then they were. In the short stories of Edwidge Danticat’s novel Krik? Krak! The author follows the fictional lives in a town called Ville Rose, in Haiti. Her stories convey that at a time in which people feel trapped they’ll risk a lot, even sacrificing themselves, to gain or assist others to freedom.

People will make the choice to face a death sentence that has a chance of freedom, rather than go through being trapped or tortured

He kept his eyes closed, his fists balled at his side as he continued with his newest lines. '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” (66). The son had been chosen to play a part in his schools play, and he had been reciting those lines for days, but know you get the sense that part of the young boy finally understands what his lines truly mean. His father’s sacrifice causes him to see the injustice of the world and the circle that many many families are trapped within. Then, in “ Between the Pool and the Gardenias” the narrator reveals that she is related to many of the woman in the previous stories. She speaks about her connection to Lili, the young boy’s mother. “ 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” (82). So, even though it took many years, Guy’s sacrifice to help his son see the truth in what the country was doing assisted him in making the decision to try and reach