DIGGING DEEPER

Themes

• Identity:

This issue is discussed throughout the entirety of the novel as each immigrant is trying to figure out who they are and what they are doing in the U.S. after being in Haiti. It is a struggle for them to separate their Haitian past with who they truly are in this new country. They associate their identity with the torture and abuse they received without relating it to who they are as individuals.  Many characters also conceal their true identity in fear that others will recognize them for who they really are.

"For a month now, both Anne and her husband had been casting purposefully casual glances at the flyer on the lamppost in front of their stores each morning while opening up and again at night while lowering their shutters.  They'd never spoken about the flyer, even when, bleached by the sun and wrinkled by the cold, it slowly began to fade." - The Dew Breaker, page 79

• Violence:

This plays a big role in the book because it is centered around the torture in Haiti. This goes to show to what extent abuse can affect and change one's life whether it happens to them personally or a loved one. No matter where these victims go they will constantly be haunted by what happened to them even though their location has changed.

"I imagine my father's nightmares. Maybe he dreams of dipping his hands in the sand on a beach in his own country and finding that what he comes up with is a fistful of blood." - The Dew Breaker, page 30 

• Family/Community: 

The idea of many different stories being told in the book portrays this sense of community throughout the stories. It demonstrates that everyone has a specific story but is supported by the other individuals around them who could have possibly undergone a similar experience.

"Like all parents, they were a society of two, sharing series of private codes and associations, a past that even if I'd been born in the country of their birth, I still wouldn't have known, couldn't have known thoroughly. I was a part of them. Some might say I belonged to them. But I wasn't them." - The Dew Breaker, page 25

• Immigration:

Another obvious theme is the topic of immigration. This deeply demonstrates the pain that immigrants still feel even after moving to a new country. There is this assumption that immigrants are all better once they come into a new country, but their pain from their home country still haunts them no matter where they are in the world.

 "I had always thought my father's only ordeal was that he'd left his country and moved to a place where everything from the climate to the language was so unlike his own, a place where he never quite seemed to fit in, never appeared to belong." - The Dew Breaker, page 33