Daniel Rivera
Mackenzie Frazier
Writing About Literature
28 October 2012
Upon reading two of Danticat's short stories, this article by Rocio Davis, Oral Narrative as Short Story Cycle, serves as a fitting continuation to further depth of Danticat's work. Davis focuses in insightful analysis on the craft and challenges of the short story cycle, and its use as a vehicle for development of an ethnic identity and unifying a community. The short story cycle is strongly linked with the oral narrative, and in its vividness of unifying spoken word, the genre establishes a solidarity with its elements of craft as a writing vehicle.
Davis' analysis of the short story cycle further emphasizes Danticat's mastery of her craft as a writer, in structure and storytelling, in unifying an idea through independent stories. Even from a single story, as in Children of the Sea, her affinity of the craft is evident, but with Davis' scholarly review, more elements are brought to light. For instance, in reference to the literatures of the world, and then narrowing to the American literature realm, Davis claims that Danticat has appropriated and transformed the narrative genre, defined as "mainstream", to intervene in the Euro-American tradition (Davis, 66). However, Danticat has preserved the element of oral narrative, inviting the reader to "participate in a traditional Haitian storytelling ritual" (67). Davis emphasizes the presence of an audience as an essential element to the validity of fulfilling an oral narrative. More importantly, it is an "implied audience" Danticat writes for that ties back to the development of an ethnic identity and sense of community.
As the importance of an audience is acknowledged to create a twofold connection, Davis elaborates on the literary challenges that Danticat has weaved through in her short story cycle. To write in the "vocabulary of human tragedy and human survival", Davis deems Krik? Krak! a literary response to the Haitian situation, and thus raises awareness (Ethan Casey qtd. by Davis, 67). One thing pointed out is the connection between theme and technique in Danticat; through storytelling of her characters, she emphasizes this technique and places importance on tradition. Danticat gives voice to women who have been oppressed in exile, breaking silence and thus fulfilling two things; it heals the pains of the past for her people, and it forges bonds in female identity (68). These stories are then something more than a simple cycle, they provide "parables of self-affirmation and individual empowerment".
Davis uses the elements found throughout stories to emphasize the importance of tradition in Danticat, who crafted them in interdependence with a consistent theme that brings wholeness and unity to the work. The textual emphasis in Krik? Krak! gives a close parallel to the oral narrative, which is told mainly in first person. To a similar effect, the structure of the narrative "mirrors the episodic and unchronological method of oral narration"(69). Both of these elements help link the stories and their present characters to the lives of the people in the past. Furthermore, recurring symbolism also create what Davis calls a "mystical unity between the characters, their lives, and their destinies" (70). The image of the butterfly, the image of taking flight, and the image of death, all compliment one another in their detailed symbolism, which overall converge in the important theme of the loss of innocence, and the need to escape for freedom. Ultimately, they contribute wholly to the awareness of this dire and harsh reality of the immigrant situation. (72)
The immigrant identity in Danticat's work becomes a focus for Davis, bringing to light what she calls her "ethnic creativity". She explains that ethnic fiction often leads, as it has done similarly with other writers, to "disrupt" the genre in their creativity, achieveing an "emancipation from the confines of traditionalist theories and practices" (Davis, 73). However, the struggle to maintain a bond with the Haitian community is what links Danticat to the rest of the immigrant identity, shifting from the individual to the community. Roles of women, mother-daughter relationships, and the link to past generations, these are all elements that serve to bind this identity in wholeness through the short story cycle. Through the challenges and discords of the genre, Danticat weaves a deeply rooted bond past the individual fictional character, to the living community she seeks to unify.
The oral narrative and short story cycle are two elements skillfully weaved by Danticat, as brought to light by Davis's article. Danticat holds to a consistent theme throughout individual, independent stories that ultimately comprise a unified, interdependent work. More importantly, it is the ethnic and political identity that also finds cohesion, achieveing a growth of spirit for the people; a healing, a transformation. Through the embracing of a historical past and acknowledgement of it, the Haitian community and dilemma becomes "everyone's as well", transcending any boundary of history or ethinicity. It is only then that we can do justice to the painful past of the Caribbean, and resolve in knowing "the vivid dream and aspiration that remains".
