Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Dew Breaker, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Grief, Memory, and Erasure
Victims vs. Perpetrators
Love, Hope, and Redemption
Violence vs. Care
Diaspora, Interconnection, and Haunting
Summary
Analysis
Anne, Papa, and Ka are driving to Christmas Eve Mass, and Anne is talking about miracles. Ka announces that she was an atheist while in college, and this, combined with Papa’s obsession with the Ancient Egyptians, makes Anne feel as if she is “outnumbered by pagans.” They pass a cemetery and Anne holds her breath. When she was a child, Anne’s three-year-old brother drowned in the ocean back in Haiti. Anne often has visions of her brother’s spirit wandering through cemeteries, looking for a tombstone that belongs to him. She thinks it’s strange and disrespectful to have built a busy road right through the middle of a cemetery.
The first story illustrated some of the ways in which Papa was haunted by his past, but here readers see that Anne is haunted by the past as well—for entirely different reasons. Anne’s habit of holding her breath while passing cemeteries could be read as another kind of grieving ritual. It may not obviously resemble one on the surface, but it constitutes a way for Anne to deal with the pain and horror of losing her younger brother.
Themes
Every time Anne passes a cemetery she also closes her eyes. Ka vaguely knows that her mother’s intense relationship to cemeteries has something to do with her life back in Haiti. Ka asks Anne to tell them about another miracle, and Anne wants to mention the miracle of Papa’s transformation from someone who hurt people while working in a prison in Haiti to the calm husband and father driving them to Mass today. However, instead she tells a story about a young Filipino man who saw the Virgin Mary in a rose petal. The family discusses how foreigners have more religious faith than Americans, who prefer rational explanations.
This passage proves that Ka’s intuition was right: there is a connection between Anne’s intense religiosity and Papa’s past as a perpetrator of violence in Haiti. In choosing to interpret Papa’s transformation from a violent man to a loving father as a miracle, Anne indicates that God is on the side of Papa and the rest of the family. Yet of course, a serious question remains of whether Anne’s faith can encompass forgiveness of Papa’s crimes.
Themes
When Ka was little, all the families in the neighborhood would compete to put up the most extravagant Christmas light display. Anne and Papa never did this, fearing the attention it would draw. In reality, “it was their lack of participation that made them stand out.” Ka was never very interested in Christmas, though she enjoyed the ritual of touring the neighborhood light displays and critiquing each one. When they get to the church, Ka smokes a cigarette outside before going in. Anne tried to persuade Ka to wear a dress or skirt, but instead she is wearing her usual “paint-stained blue jeans.”
This passage contains an important point that the book illustrates through its portrayal of people who attempt to erase the past. Such attempts are doomed to fail in part because, in trying to conceal or erase the reality of yourself, you can actually end up drawing more attention to yourself. Acts of self-erasure are therefore inherently unsustainable.
Themes
Recently Anne has been regretting her and Papa’s decision not to make any friends. She established her beauty shop on Nostrand Avenue, the heart of Brooklyn’s Haitian community, because she thought it would attract clients. They avoided making friends to avoid having Papa’s story discredited, but it has become clear that everyone believes Papa’s story about his past anyway; no one realizes that he was actually a “dew breaker,” a torturer.
Notably, Anne does not regret her and Papa’s self-imposed isolation because it is unsustainable, but actually because it was so successful. She realizes that there was no real need to be as careful as they were, and that their lives have suffered immensely as a result.
Themes
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When the clock strikes midnight and the priest walks in, Anne feels as if the whole world is suspended in the same enchanted moment. Anne prays that the Virgin Mary welcomed her little brother into heaven. Meanwhile, Ka whispers to Papa, pointing at someone sitting nearby. Papa explains that Ka thinks she has seen Emmanuel Constant. Pictures of Constant have been circling around the community accompanied by the words: “WANTED FOR CRIMES AGAINST THE HAITIAN PEOPLE.” These flyers claim that Constant tortured, raped, and murdered 5,000 people as part of a militia called the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti.
This passage seems to contradict Anne’s impression of how easy it is to conceal one’s identity. Whereas Papa was able to hide in plain sight and not raise suspicions about his background, the Haitian community is aggressively attempting to bring Emmanuel Constant to justice. Of course, Constant was a more politically prominent figure than Papa—but there is no great difference between their crimes.
Themes
Anne and Papa have both noticed the flyers, though they haven’t discussed it. By now the flyers are faded, and people have scribbled horns and curses on the them, such that they now have “as many additions as erasures.” Before seeing them, Anne was already familiar with Constant, who formed his militia after a military coup exiled the Haitian president. The militia violently suppressed support for the president and engaged in “facial scalping,” which involved removing the skin from corpses’ faces to stop them from being identified. When the president returned, Constant escaped a life sentence in Haiti by fleeing to New York.
Just as Constant erased the identities of his victims via face scalping, so too was he able to erase himself by disappearing to New York before he could be brought to justice in Haiti. Of course, this attempt was not entirely successful, considering that there are posters of his face all over the Haitian community. Even if these posters do not lead to Constant being captured, they achieve their purpose by refusing to allow him to escape into anonymity.
Themes
Despite feeling no sympathy for Constant, Anne dreams of pulling down the flyers because they make her scared people will find out about Papa’s past, too. Now, in church, she asks Papa if the man near them could really be Constant. Ka seems furious, which makes Anne proud, but also terrified of the possibility of Ka learning the truth about her own father. When Anne gets up to take Holy Communion, she scrutinizes the man to see if it is really Constant. Yet she also isn’t sure what to do if it is him. She feels connected to him and unable to judge him, due to her faith and the fact that she is married to a former torturer herself.
This passage shows how Anne isn’t able to enact her own principles due to the compromised moral position she inhabits as Papa’s wife. She is proud that Ka has a fierce sense of justice and feels furious about Constant. At the same time, this pride is automatically undercut by fear. Not only would it be hypocritical for Anne to judge Constant too harshly, but if Ka knew the truth about her father she might not feel able to take such a strong stand, either.
Themes
As Anne gets closer, she realizes that the man is certainly not Constant. She tells Ka and Papa this. As the choir sing her favorite hymn, “Silent Night,” Anne panics that she may not be able to come to Christmas Eve Mass ever again, as the risk of someone recognizing Papa is too great. She sees Papa mouthing the words in order to make her happy. As they leave church, Ka tries to reach out to the man they thought was Constant, but Papa stops her. Ka insists she was just going to ask his name.
Anne’s brief consideration of the possibility that she and Papa could stop being so closed off and secretive abruptly comes to an end thanks to the near-sighting of Emmanuel Constant. For a second she wondered if she could open up, but now she is considering giving up her favorite ritual in order to avoid the risk of Papa being exposed.
Themes
Outside, Anne says hello to the priest and other members of the congregation while Ka and Papa wait, eager to go. Anne nervously asks Ka if she enjoyed the mass, but Ka replies with an apology for “overreact[ing]” to the man they thought was Constant. Anne feels a swell of relief; it is a “small miracle” that almost feels like a “resurrection.”
Again, Anne reads the ordinary events of her life in religious terms, and this provides her comfort. The extreme conditions of her life mean that she considers even ordinary moments of peace and relief to be miraculous.
Themes
