KK Blog Post 4 due.

1.What is the general theme throughout the whole stories? How does it explain the historic background of Haiti and gender roles?

In most of the stories, the general theme is the relationship between parents and their children, showing their sacrifice and devotion made to support their kids. For example in "Children of the sea", the girl main character has a huge conflict with her father since he prevents her sending a boy letter. However later, she notices that her father makes a huge devotion to save her from getting accused, then eventually she shows her appreciation toward him. In the story of "A wall of fire rising", although they is no huge devotion made by parents to support little Guy, there is a huge argument between Guy and his wife because of Little Guy's future. The wife wants to send him to school and get educated so that he doesn't have to get a same job with his father. However, Guy rather focuses on little Guy having stabilized job which can maintain his lifestyle although it is not a successful job which can support his future life. The story of "Night women" shows the biggest aspect of parental care and their love, sacrifice. Although prostitute is a humiliating job for women, the mother in the story chooses to be a night woman to support her son and for his better life. The mom even hides her job and lies to the son by saying "I will tell him that his father has come, that an angel brought him back from heaven for a while", in order to protect his immaturity and innocent. "New York Day Women" has a lot of similarities with the "night woman" since it also talks about the mom's devotion to work as a nanny to support the family, and the mother lies to daughter and keeps distance to hide her identity. However, those two women stories further indicate the gender roles in Haiti. Haitian women have no enough chance to be educated or express their voices to the public, so they often work in the marketplace or even become prostitutes. The stories not only show the gender roles, but also the historic background of Haitian culture that most of people were poor and had no opportunity to be educated, so they often had unstabilized jobs which provide just small amount of money; therefore Haitians are suffered from starvation. The Haitian government was also very harsh and strict so they tried to control the freedom of Haitians, so a lot of Haitians during that time were accused and killed by militaries. 

2.  Which characters give you the most impressive? How and Why?

Personally, night woman was the most impressive character among all the stories in Krik Krak. Although other characters made such huge devotions to save their kids from the harsh society,  night women impressed me the most since I am also a woman. Since I am a woman and know how humiliating her job is, I respected the bravery aspect of her, and other brave mothers in the world. She could have choosen other easier jobs like market merchant; however, she choosed to be a night woman, which could hurt one's mental and physical, just to support his son. The story further made me to think what I have chosen if I was in her perspective. Although I hope my son to be educated and well-grown, I would never be able to sacrifice myself in that way to support my child. Additionally, the other reason that the night woman was so impressive to me was because that the story was so realistic. Other stories, like Children of the sea or A wall of rising, took me awhile to understand because the stories  were deeply based on Hatiian history, and they could barely happen in our today lives. However, the story of night woman was so realistic that even today there are so many women like the main character, who become prostitutes to pay their college fee, support their families, and pay the debt. The story made me to think of the realities of poor women in the society, and their hopes of their generations to go through better lives than themselves.