KK blog post 4

Question 1: In what ways is the story of Caroline's Wedding similar to the epilogue?

 The role of the woman has been discussed throughout the book. The conflict between the tradition of Haitian women and desire of education and equality is explored by Edwidge Danticat particularly deep in the story ‘Caroline’s wedding’ and the epilogue. The theme of struggle has especially empathized in these two stories, which is the similarity between the two. Grace as the support of the family has been struggling to find her true identity throughout the story. At the end of the story when she is helping her mother to cook the soup and ask her mother about her future, it shows that she is still questioning herself as either a Haitian or American. Her mother, on the other hand, insists that she will live the Haitian way. The story ends there, but the problem is not solved. In the epilogue, the author reiterates the view of traditional Haitian women, she says ‘always use your ten fingers, which in her parlance meant that you should be the best little cook and housekeeper who ever lived.’ This quote shows that Edwidge Danticat has the same struggle with Grace, which is to choose between the two sides. Therefore, between the two stories, the similarity is the struggle of identifying themselves for two women and how both Grace and the author herself are facing a racial problem that is difficult to be solved.  

 Question 2: Which Character couldn't fight with his/her difficulties and gave up?

 Throughout the book, under different types of pressure such as poverty, war, discrimination, and sexism, the theme of desperation is explored deeply. However, unlike other characters who are trying to fight through their difficulties, Celianne, the young mother in the story 'children of the sea', chose to end her life. In the story, because there is not enough supply of food and water, the captain asks Celianne to threw her new-born baby overboard. At first, Celianne refuses to do so and even keeps her eyes open at night to avoid people take her baby. But then, after the useless fighting, she knows that there is no humanity such thing on this boat. Therefore, she decides to throw her baby off the boat, and then go die with her baby. On page 23, the male narrator describes the scene of Celianne throwing herself overboard vividly. He says 'She threw it overboard, I watched her face knot up like a thread, and then she let go... They went together like two bottles beneath a waterfall.' The lexical choices used in this quote shows the hopelessness of Celianne and her willingness of dying with her baby. As a weak and young mother, Celianne does not see any mercy shown by the captain or any others. She feels disappointed and hopeless to the world and clearly understands the fact that the only way to escape this tragedy is to finish her life. To sum up, Celianne is the character who did not fight with the harsh reality, and then eventually decided to finish her and her baby's life, because she sees through the cold world and knows that there is nothing she can do to change this reality. 

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