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
While Beatrice Saint Fort is napping, a journalism intern arrives at her house in Far Rockaway, Queens. The intern is a young Haitian American girl with dreadlocks and a nose ring, who introduces herself as Aline Cajuste. Beatrice, a bridal seamstress, is a small woman, but has a loud voice. She invites Aline in and then leaves her for half an hour to get ready, donning a purple dress, makeup, and a wig. Although Aline is eager to begin, Beatrice makes coffee first, which takes another 20 minutes.
Beatrice and Aline represent a generational divide between Haitian American immigrants. Beatrice has a traditionally feminine occupation, takes time with things, and ensures that she is perfectly made up to greet visitors. Aline, meanwhile, seems to be in a more bourgeois class position and has a more contemporary, alternative appearance.
Themes
Aline has a girlfriend who’s 30 years older than her, a psychology professor at Florida International University. The girlfriend gave her an espresso maker for a graduation gift, but Aline has not been able to make coffee that tastes as good as Beatrice’s. Beatrice says that the secret to her coffee is time, explaining, “I always take time, whether it’s getting dressed, making coffee, or sewing wedding gowns.” Aline asks if she can start recording, reminding Beatrice that the interview is for Haitian American Weekly. Beatrice once made a wedding dress for the paper’s editor, Marjorie Voltaire.
This passage further illustrates the differences between Beatrice and Aline. Aline is queer, with a glamorous older partner—again, a contrast to Beatrice’s seemingly traditional occupation of making wedding dresses. At the same time, both appear to remain entrenched in the Haitian diasporic community, Aline through her journalism, and Beatrice through her wedding dress business.
Themes
When Marjorie heard that Beatrice was retiring, she sent Aline to profile her. Beatrice comments that if only Aline had written the paper before she retired, she could have attracted more clients and been able to retire earlier. Aline asks how old Beatrice is, but Beatrice doesn’t really answer. Aline asks about Beatrice’s desire to retire earlier, but Beatrice says things always happen in their own time. She explains that she has been making wedding dresses since she lived in Haiti. She says that she asks her customers to call her Mother as a sign of respect, and says that she has to explain to them that the dresses they have seen advertised on tall, skinny models will not suit them.
Here Beatrice’s relationship to her clients resembles the moment when the unnamed wife from the story “Seven” cooked dinner for her husband, Michel, and Dany, making them feel like a family. Although Beatrice says she wants her customers to call her Mother out of respect, it also obviously establishes a sense of kinship between them, such that their relationship is less transactional and more familial.
Themes
Beatrice expresses pride at the fact that the dress is always the center of attention at every wedding. Aline asks if Beatrice has ever been married, and Beatrice replies that it is rude to ask that question to a woman her age. Aline writes in her notepad, “Never married.” Beatrice then suggests they take a walk around her neighborhood. Though Aline is not enthusiastic, Beatrice insists. She takes Aline outside and points to each of her neighbors’ houses, telling Aline their professions (baker, policewoman, dentist, social worker, teacher) and national identity (Italian, Guyanaian, Dominican, Jamaican.
As a young intern, Aline is still learning the practice of journalism and struggles to ask the right questions in order to gain insight into Beatrice’s life. Her lack of interest in Beatrice’s neighbors indicates that Aline does not see the kind of multicultural middle-class neighborhood Beatrice lives in to be intriguing or notable.
Themes
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When Beatrice points to the house of a Haitian prison guard, Aline asks where he works, thinking about the fact that there are no prisons nearby. Beatrice says she knew the guard back in Haiti, but when Aline asks if they were friends, Beatrice sucks her teeth in disgust. Back at her house, Beatrice serves the rest of the coffee and asks about Aline’s studies. Aline explains she majored in French. She took the internship after her girlfriend dumped her, hoping to impress her and also to impress Aline’s parents, who live in Somerville, Massachusetts. She knows that she shouldn’t be letting Beatrice ask her questions, but she enjoys Beatrice’s interest.
Beatrice is a commanding woman with an ability to maintain control of a situation—hence why she flips the interview around and interrogates Aline. Perhaps her decision to do so is rooted in Aline’s reaction to her story about the Haitian prison guard. Aline did not seem able to understand what Beatrice was implying about the guard, and this made Beatrice give up the story.
Themes
Aline asks Beatrice what she will do after retirement, and Beatrice says she plans to move again. When Aline asks why, Beatrice explains that her neighbor, the guard, is a choukèt lawoze, a dew breaker. Back in Haiti, the guard asked her to go dancing with him and, because she had a boyfriend, she turned him down. He arrested and tortured her by whipping the soles of her feet, then left her to walk home on a tar road in the sun. When Aline hesitantly asks if Beatrice is sure it’s the same man, Beatrice angrily replies that she “would know him anywhere.”
Although Beatrice does provide the full story here, Aline’s reaction shows that she is not equipped to fully understand and process the story. The nature of trauma is such that it almost doesn’t matter whether the guard living near Beatrice is actually the same man. In feeling haunted and pursued by him, Beatrice is really feeling trapped by the trauma of her past.
Themes
After the interview, Aline calls Marjorie and tells her Beatrice seems “a bit nutty.” Sitting in her car, Aline notices that guard’s mailbox is overflowing. She looks through its contents, most of which consists of flyers or letters addressed to the “occupant.” Aline walks around the house, peeking through the window, and hiding when a group of teenagers pass. The rooms of the house look empty, the walls freshly-painted. A car pulls up and a man—presumably the Jamaican teacher Beatrice mentioned—asks if Aline is a “friend of Dolly’s.” Aline said she thought a man was living there, but the teacher replies that the last person to live there was a Colombian woman named Dolly, who has been trying to sell the house for years.
While this passage indicates that it’s true that Beatrice may be suffering from paranoid anxiety and delusions, Aline’s phrase “a bit nutty” is dismissive. Again, this indicates that Aline struggles to truly understand what people like Beatrice went through while living under the Duvalier dictatorship. At the same time, her investigation into the house suggests that she is at least becoming a better reporter.
Themes
When Aline returns to Beatrice’s house, she finds Beatrice unbraiding her cornrows. Aline says that the house was empty, and Beatrice replies that the guard lives inside empty houses. She explains that he has to be in hiding, otherwise he would be sent to prison himself. She adds that she believes he finds her wherever she moves because she always sends notes to her customers, explaining where to find her. She concludes that this time, she will lose him forever. Aline’s “sheltered” youth makes her unaware of people like Beatrice, whose lives are dominated by “tremendous agonies.” She wants to write about more people like Beatrice, and also imagines perhaps going home to tell her parents the truth about herself.
The story ends on a note of redemption—if not for Beatrice, than at least for Aline. Beatrice is convinced that by retiring she will finally be able to escape the phantom presence of the guard, but considering that his proximity seems to be a product of her paranoia, it does not appear likely that this will actually happen. Aline, on the other hand, has gained new insight and maturity from interviewing Beatrice. Her hopes for the future suggest that she might help others living with trauma.
Themes
