The Dew Breaker

This is the character around which all of these stories revolve. In some of the stories he is a specific character. This concrete character is complex: He is simultaneously a patient and caring father and husband, and a man who once committed atrocities for a corrupt government. But he serves as also a figurative character, an abstraction that represents many other agents of the regime. Several characters in the novel have been touched or affected by the dew breaker, but it is not always the same dew breaker whose story we learn in this novel.

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.