The Dew Breaker

Ka is the dew breaker’s daughter. She could be said to stand in for Danticat herself in this novel. Like Danticat, Ka is attempting to come to terms with Haiti’s past through her capacity as a creative artist. Ka learns that this process is even harder than imagined, as the reality that she is trying to represent through art has the potential to change as additional revelations are made.

Anne is the wife of the dew breaker and the mother of Ka. While Ka is rebellious and youthfully cynical, Anne holds the family together with her belief in miracles. Anne represents how faith and imagination, despite hardship, can help us live fulfilling lives. Danticat seems to recognize that while her own work as a fiction author is important, religion also serves a purpose that cannot easily be rationalized or explained.

Dany represents a generation of Haitian Americans who are losing their connections to Haiti, not because of negligence but because so many of his family members were killed during the difficult times. However, his return to his home country in this novel represents the possibility of maintaining connections through effort. His “night talking” tendency also upholds this theme.

Michel is a similar character to Dany, but he represents those who experienced the hardships of Haiti as innocent young people and now are learning to cope with this past. Michel’s convoluted relationship with his father (the local opportunist, Christophe) symbolizes the complicated relationship Haitians have with their collective past.

Aline is a sort of double of Ka. She also wants to reconcile the challenging aspects of reality, specifically the reality of Haitians and Haitian Americans. But while Ka is interested in art, Aline wants to pursue the truth through investigative journalism. She wants to find the reality behind the difficult stories of those living under the shadow of Haiti’s traumatic past.