1) Do you think the dew breaker described by Beatrice is the same man who tortured her back home in Haiti? Can the Dew Breaker be seen as a metaphor to represent her attempt to escape from her past? (pg. 131-132)
2) In "The Funeral Singer" the speaker of the story encounters other people who have left Haiti like herself. Each character leaves Haiti in an attempt to escape from something, however, once they arrive in United States, they continually share their story. Since these characters are constantly retelling and reliving the horrid experiences that drove them from Haiti, have they truly escaped?
3)"'Isn't it amazing? Jackie Kennedy can go to Haiti anytime she wants but we can't," (pg.179) What does this statement imply in regards to the political and cultural aspects of Haitian culture during this time?
4) What could have been some of the "political" factors that may have caused Monsieur to Christophe to not recognize Michel as his son?
5) What does Romain mean when he says that the president used to be a short tailed monkey, but is now a long tailed one? Why does he think this?
1.With the help of prof. Davis, we found out that Beatrice is most likely a mentally sick person. The dew breaker described by her doesn't live by and definitely doesn't follow her. I think that with Beatrice's story author showd that many people during that time were tortured in Haiti and anywhere they escaped they lived with that horror for the rest of their life. Even being so far away in another country, Beatrice was still afraid of the person that made her suffer many years ago.
ReplyDelete5. While their president stayed in their country and hoped to have a lifelong presidency he was a short-tailed monkey. He didn't need to escape and look for another home,("another tree") to move. And now, since the president "might be fleeing the country", he is a long-tailed monkey, in order to adopt to the new environment.