The Natural Fear of the Extraordinary Andrew Gonzalez 10th Grade

The natural human response to evil is to react with evil. In many cases, the original evil is inspired by fear. This is often the case in the stories in Krik?Krak!. Two of the stories, “Nineteen thirty-seven” and “Between the Pool and the Gardenias”, demonstrate this fear of the incomprehensible which is often the use of magic. “Nineteen thirty-seven” is a story from the perspective of a girl whose mother has been imprisoned, by a broken Haitian Government, for being accused of having wings of flame. It follows her through her walk to the prison and then her discussions with her mother and some other inmates. Ultimately, the story concludes with her mother’s death and a recollection of the girl’s memories with her. “Between the Pool and the Gardenias,” takes place from the first person point of view of a housemaid named Marie who recently left her home in a small village. She left her old life behind to start anew because of a cheating husband and several miscarriages that ruined her life. One day while walking home, she finds a baby abandoned in the streets and decides to claim it as her own. She is later accused of killing the baby for magic, despite it having been dead since before she found her, furthering her maternal...