In order to begin, let me start by saying that I am deeply touched by reading Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat. I never realized how easy and how priviledged my life was here in America until I got a better glimpse of life in Haiti. The part I'm going to blog about that REALLY touched me emotionally is from chapter 2 entitled Nineteen Thirty Seven.
Throughout this chapter, the narrator (a young woman, I'm assuming now) visits her mother, a woman whom she was incredibly close to growing up, in prison. Her mother, named Manman, was arrested because she was accused of killing a neighbor's child she helped look after. Throughout the course of the chapter, the narrator re-tells her story of the remaining time she spent with her mother.
On page 46, Danticat introduces a strange woman who appeared at the narrator's door one night. Jacqueline, her name is, further on explains to the narrator that she knows her through the river, a blessed place where a united group of women go and mourn/rejoice the lives of their late mothers. Danticat writes, " Sister, I do not want to tell you this, but your mother is dead. Her blood calls to me from the ground. Let us go see her." The way Jacqueline says that, so matter-of-factly as if it's nothing, is something that strikes me as funny. How can a person tell their friend that their mother is dead? It made me contemplate about how different our clutures are here... if this were in America, it would take time for the friend to even utter the words to the one losing her mother.
On the contrary, it is ironic to how deep her friend, Jacqueline, can get. She says to her, "her blood calls to me from the ground." Now let's Americanize that a little. The reader can wonder, what does this even mean?! This can come off as being very religious, like an Upper Power is telling her this. What I took this statement as is this: "My intuition is telling me bad fortune is to come. We must go and seek the truth."
The part that REALLY got to me was on page 48. They are finally at the prison cell, awaiting the burning ceremony of the narrator's mother. Danticat writes, "She then gave me the pillow, my mother's pillow. I hugged the pillow against my chest, feeling some of the hair rising in clouds of dark dust into my nostrils." To me, that is so personal and vulnerable. I see this as the narrator's inner feelings coming out. She clutches the pillow like a little girl, afraid of the dark at night, and to me, she is holding on to the last peice she has of her mother. The way Danticat describes the hair in the pillow is both disturbing and touching. While it's disturbing to think of something like her mother's hair that she was forced to shave off fall out of a pillow like told secrets, it's touching, as well .It describes the remnants of her mom, the last remaining tangible parts.
It really made me re-evaluate my own relationship with my mom. There are days when I just WISH I was on my own, and days our fights are tumultuous and out of control. We say things we don't mean, and are downright cruel to one another. But at least I have that option. Reading these specific parts of the chapter really made my chest feel heavy and made me extremely worried about my mom. What would I do if I lost her? I give the narrator a lot of credit, because she really held it together and remained strong through it all. If that were me, I'd be hysterical in tears, not knowing where to put myself. I think because our cultures are so different, the narrator was taught to be strong and that's why she did not show emotion. She held it in the inside.
This section REALLY affected me, and anyone who is close to their mother can understand why. In this moment, it made me think... how would I handle this, which I think Danticat wanted to make her readers ponder.
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