Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker – 2004.

The Dew Breaker, Edwidge Danticat’s third novel, revolves around the life of M. Bienaimé, a former torturer, executioner, and member of the Tonton Macoute – a Haitian paramilitary force created by dictator François Duvalier, also known as “Papa Doc”, in the 1960s. The title of the novel is Danticat’s translation of the Creole term for this kind of perpetrators, known by the fact that they often committed their acts of violence before the break of dawn.

The novel departs from Bienamé’s reformed existence as a respectable barber and family man in New York to retrospectively narrate his life story. The narrative trigger is his decision to confess to his daughter, Ka, an artist in her twenties, that, contrary to what she had been led to believe her whole life, he had not escaped Haiti as a victim, but as a perpetrator: “your father was the hunter, he was not the prey” (16). However, only three of the total 9 chapters which constitute the novel focus directly on the figure of the “Dew Breaker.” Six of the remaining seven chapters are dedicated to some of his victims, or their children, who survived them, all of whom are still haunted by the brutal violence of the past. The last chapter, for its part, explores the ambiguous figure of his wife, Anne, who despite having been initially one of his victims, later becomes complicit in protecting and concealing Bienamé through the years.

This fragmented structure, where the only common thread uniting the stories is the perpetrator, is extremely productive in exploring his different – and often contradicting – facets: father, husband, torturer, murderer. The shifting perspectives on Bienaimé and the different voices used to recount his past deeds increase the ambiguity and complexity of the perpetrator figure. This indeterminacy, however, does not imply a relativization of his responsibility or a mitigation of his guilt. It points rather to the fact that any understanding of Bienamé as a perpetrator will be necessarily partial and inconclusive.

The novel provides a suggestive way of thinking perpetrators in their interpersonal entanglements – many of which are logically based on acts of asymmetrical violence. Other positions, like that of the victims or accomplices, are also explored. Moreover, through the figure of Ka, The Dew Breaker metafictionally explores the ethical problem of representing perpetrators artistically.

For further reading see:

Clitandre, Nadège T.. “The Dew Breaker as Écho-Monde.” Edwidge Danticat: The Haitian Diasporic Imaginary. U of Virginia P, 2018. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/senc /detail.action?docID=5559296.

Gallagher, Mary. “Concealment, Displacement, & Disconnection. Danticat’s “The Dew Breaker.” Edwidge Danticat: A Reader’s Guide. Edited by Martin Munro, U of Virginia P, 2010, pp. 147-160.

Waisvisz, Sarah G.. “Remembering Perpetrators. The Kunstlerroman and Second-Generation Witnessing in Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker.” The Routledge Companion to Literature and Human Rights. Edited by Sophia A. McClennen and Alexandra Schultheis Moore. London: Routledge, 2015.

Author of this entry: Sofia Forchieri

Danticat, Edwidge. The Dew Breaker. London: Abacus, 2004.