All through life, there are sure occasions that leave people perpetually scarred and searching for and physical and emotional relief, regardless of whether they are the prey or predator. The novel, the Dew Breaker composed by Edwidge Danticat, shows this thought through the characters who share trauma from the frightening occasions made by Duvalier’s (Papa doc) tyranny in Haiti. Danticat intentionally split the novel up into nine stories that at first appear to be disjointed yet are in reality particularly connected in many ways, with helping the reader see how one individual could influence the lives of various people. The inescapable topic of the past and remembrance of it in The Dew Breaker hovers around the possibility of a lot of emotional and physical scars. So I argue can past scars and traumatic events affect a person’s future and behaviour?
The novel gave numerous stories demonstrating physical and emotional traumas. In the chapter, The Bridal Seamstress a bridal seamstress named Beatrice who was the victim of a Tonton Macoute because of the fact that she declined to go on a dance with him. As the reaction to her refusal, the torturer captured her and “whipped the bottom of my feet until they bled. Then he made me walk home, barefoot” (Danticat 132). The extreme physical torment Beatrice endured on account of her faithfulness and love for the man in her life caused her devastating scars. She locks up those bad memories behind a organized pattern of making dresses and so forth. Beatrice left Haiti and began another life but the painted past keeps on surfacing in her regular daily existence it keeps her from having a spouse, children or friends that are close. Beatrice adjusts for this vacancy in her life by giving her customers a chance to call her mom and calls them her children/girls. Beatrice utilizes these affectionate nicknames additionally to disguise her being unmarried. The Bridal seamstress’s awful experience has another impact on her life. Beatrice suffers from paranoia in order to cope with the past. She envisions the “Tonton Macoute” who tormented her in Haiti is going and following everything and everywhere she goes. Along these lines, she resigns from her sending notes to her customers with a specific end goal to stay under the radar and escape from her nonexistent persecutor. For Beatrice, “there is no such thing was, because past is.” Beatrice has a perspective on life that says,”Everything happens when it’s intended to happen” (Danticat 125). To explain that statement is how Beatrice accepts the feeling of being hopeless and powerless to control her lives future since it’s tormented by her past.
With that stated the argument that was brought up is proven right that the scars from the past does affect one’s behaviour patterns and future.The three ladies of The Funeral Singer understand that their past is a piece of their future lives and can’t be avoided. In this way, they begin to discuss it and wind up concluding that in managing their horrendous past it is important to converse with somebody and letting up. The trio winds up creating a connection to their nation. Much the same as the dew breaker chapter in the book with the fundamental character being Ka’s dad who was a dew breaker, Although numerous families and people were put through a ton of devastating trauma on account of Ka’s dad, he himself endured trauma, however predominantly from guilt. He is known as the “Dew Breaker” hence the chapter title. It’s a term used to portray jail watchers like him in the Haitian autocracy. Normally they “Come before dawn, as the dew was settling on the leaves, and they’d take you away” (Danticat 131). Before he met his wife Anne, he slaughtered numerous individuals whose relatives still lament from their lost. Ka’s dad ended up killing a well known preacher because of his misleading from the dictators ways towards the people and with trying not to kill the preacher he got a scar on his face from trying to withstrain him. Ever since that moment Ka’s father has being self-conscious about his scar from feeling guilt to not take pictures to whenever his past comes up he tries to run away or tell lies about it.
Audrey Hepo in a well written poem on her website explains how scars and trumas play on a person This quote from the poem refers to a person being the temple holding their fears,traumas and distress within them keeping it hidden from the outside world holding it in so they can’t get hurt from their past, which is very relatable to the constant theme in the book The Dew Breaker with everyone hiding scars. The poem states,“My temple is covered in scars, each scar telling a story… and so I covered the temple with scars, attempting to hide the true tale,then locked myself behind these bars In the end to no avail.”[Audrey hepo] This is seen in the book through all nine stories it’s the factor of everyone not having someone to really talk or relate to about the traumatic events that happened to them are their just too ashamed. The author Lance Brown added a resolve to emotional scars and physical events through the non-fictional cite of his article on physical and emotional scars,“You may be able to heal without speaking to anyone else about it, but you probably will need to speak to yourself about it quite a bit. The key isn’t who you talk to about it, it’s how you approach the talk”(Brown Quora). This statement means it doesn’t matter if your too scared to talk to anyone but as long as you can sit down one and one with yourself, you can push through your problems.In conclusion, I have proven the argument to be correct that physical trauma and emotional scars do play a major role on an individual’s aspects of behaviour and upcoming future. Through my essay I elaborated on the different ways how the past manipulates a person to even terrify them to a point where they are powerless. I also added solutions on a counter to how people could deal with their tragic trauma and emotional suffering.