POSTCOLONIAL TRAUMA THEORY AND THE SHORT STORY CYCLE: EDWIDGE DANTICAT’S THE DEW BREAKER

Abstract

Starting from the symbolic presence of a scar in Edwidge Danticat’s The Dew Breaker, which illustrates the tensions between wounds and healing, fragmentation and connection prevalent in the text, this article argues for a careful and contextualized look at narrative form in order to obtain a new, more complete view of the meanings in the text, including its political vindications. I offer a detailed definition of the short story cycle as a peculiar case of the simultaneity of closure and openness, both formally and in terms of meaning, which is aimed at making a contribution to the critical debates on this hybrid genre. When looking at both the sequential and independent readings of the text, the short story cycle proves most suitable to represent the complexity of the Haitian diaspora, and it also offers an interesting and necessary revision of trauma theory from the perspective of postcolonial studies.