Blog post of the discussion questions
1. In the series, many generations were presented. What changes from generation to generation? What stays the same?
In the book, there are many related characters and they are presented as different generations. In the story "Caroline's Wedding "two characters are Caroline and her mother. They have different ways to think questions and they have different opinions on the cultural thinking. In the story, Caroline's mother and Caroline have a special relationship, they don't understand each other and they have different opinions on culture. In the story, " Ma believed her bone soup could cure all kinds of ills. She even hoped that it would perform the miracle of detaching Caroline from Eric.” From this quote, we can see that Ma is a superstitious person. Because she believes that bone soup can cure any illness. Usually, people take medicine when they are sick, bone soup can only help a little when people get the illness. It also shows that she really cares about her daughter. Caroline is born in America, and Ma is an immigrant from Haiti. Two of them have different cultures. Caroline has her own opinion of love, she loves Eric, she wants freedom instead of her mom's limitation. Her mom wants to use bone soup to detach Caroline from Eric. She thinks they can't stay together, in Ma's mind she trust Haitian man. Although Ma and Caroline have different opinions on love, they love each other. They won't hate each other. During the wedding, Ma calms her daughter when Caroline is nervous. The love from a love to the daughter won't change. They are still family, they support each other.
2. Why the author chose to tell the stories independently and then connect them all together?
In the book all the stories are independent. Some of the stories have some connections. Just like the Night women and the New York Day Women. After you read these two stories you may not find out the connections between the characters. But think about the relationship between two mothers and their kids. Both mothers in the stories love their kids. I think that the author wants the readers to think the connections between two unrelated stories. The readers can't find any connections if they only read the one story. After they finish reading the book they can find out the connections. If the readers read deeply they can find some connections. The connections may not show on the surface of the story. In the epilogue of the book, the author Danticat says that " Since you had written them down and memorized them, the names would come rolling off your tongue. And this was your treatment to the way that these women lived and died and live again." I think Danticat wants to express her idea that in either Haiti or America Haitian women were experiencing the same thing, their experience is almost the same. I think the author also wants to express that she wants to record the histories of Haitian women. So that every single story shows one of the experiences of Haitian women. In order to let the readers know as much as they can, Danticat writes more than one story. The connections of the whole picture are to let the readers understand more about the Haitian women.
2. Why the author chose to tell the stories independently and then connect them all together?
In the book all the stories are independent. Some of the stories have some connections. Just like the Night women and the New York Day Women. After you read these two stories you may not find out the connections between the characters. But think about the relationship between two mothers and their kids. Both mothers in the stories love their kids. I think that the author wants the readers to think the connections between two unrelated stories. The readers can't find any connections if they only read the one story. After they finish reading the book they can find out the connections. If the readers read deeply they can find some connections. The connections may not show on the surface of the story. In the epilogue of the book, the author Danticat says that " Since you had written them down and memorized them, the names would come rolling off your tongue. And this was your treatment to the way that these women lived and died and live again." I think Danticat wants to express her idea that in either Haiti or America Haitian women were experiencing the same thing, their experience is almost the same. I think the author also wants to express that she wants to record the histories of Haitian women. So that every single story shows one of the experiences of Haitian women. In order to let the readers know as much as they can, Danticat writes more than one story. The connections of the whole picture are to let the readers understand more about the Haitian women.
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