The language of wounds and scars in Edwige Danticat's "The Dew Breaker" : a case in trauma symptoms and the recovery process

Abstract

This article examines the representation of a violent and traumatizing past in Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker (2004), a collection of short stories that depicts the effects of a torturer’s atrocious crimes on the lives of his victims and their descendants. The contribution argues that this work of fiction by the Haitian-American writer is structured upon the principle that traumatic experiences can only become intelligible – and, therefore, “representable” – by considering the severe psychical wounds and scars they leave on the victims. These scars habitually take the form of paranoia, nightmares, ghostly presences, schizophrenia, and “dead spots” that have a very difficult time finding their place in the protagonists’ consciousness and language. In spite of the fragmented and discontinuous character of these representations, the writer manages to unveil the kind of psychological and social dysfunctions that often surface when people have not fully accepted or assimilated aspects of the past that keep itching in their unconscious. However, despite the prevailingly bleak tone of the stories, Danticat still leaves some room for hope and recovery, as many of the victims find ways to come to terms with and overcome those individual and collective dysfunctions.

Keywords

• haitian history
• edwidge danticat
• violence
• memory
• trauma theory
• recovery strategies