FREE ESSAY ON KRIK KRAK

KRIK KRAK

For this assignment I decided that I would just write a brief overview of one of the
stories in Edwidge Danticat's book Krik? Krak!. The story that I have chosen to talk
about is "Between the Pool and the Gardenias." I choose this one to discuss because I
thought the circumstance between the lady and the child was very weird and intrigued me
to look into it more in depth. So I am going to talk about the series of events in this
story and my thoughts on the young women in the story. I am mainly going to focus on
questions 2 and 3 in the study questions for Chapter 5 of Edwindge Danticat's book, Krik?
Krak!.
In this story I believe that the main reason that she takes the child is because she is
lonely and wants to become close to someone. She also has had a couple miscarriages
before and this has affected her greatly and caused her much suffering and mourning over
the years. When she took in the child this made her dream about all of the thoughts and
emotions that would have taken place if she had been able to conceive her children. She
had been missing out of all the parts of parenthood that came with having a child and
this baby that she picks up makes her feel more whole inside. The baby makes her life on
this planet feel like she has a purpose for a short while and that is why she takes the
baby into her house as one of her own.
Now maybe this wouldn't be considered crazy everywhere, but what if the baby was already
dead and you tried to do this then you would probably get taken into an insane asylum.
This is the main reason why I believe that she is crazy because you usually don't see
women picking up dead babies off the road and taking them home to care for them. Sure she
has had tough luck bearing a child, but when she pretended that the baby was alive and
breathing when she knew what was really wrong with the child was just ridiculous. It got
really bad when she took the baby to town with her to try and fit in; this really taught
me that the lady needs some severe medical help. Sure she is trying to fit in to the
society, but to take a dead child to town to try and show everyone that you are a mother
is just ridiculous. The next part that really confused me is when she said that the baby
was just perfect because it never cried or caused any trouble. I tell you that Danticat
did an excellent job writing this because I had to go and read this chapter over to
figure out that the baby was actually dead when she found it. I had to go read it because
at the end when it started to stink I was really confused because I finally realized that
it didn't do much moving before this, so this made me go back and read this chapter a
little more in depth. That is why I liked this chapter so much; because it tricked me
into believing that the child was always alive.
So, as of now, I would have to say that this is my favorite chapter in the book so far;
even though I really liked Chapter 3 "A Wall of Fire Rising" a lot too. This is my short
and very brief overview of Chapter 5 "Between the Pool and the Gardenias."