Essay Questions

Part of the constructed illusion of reality of the dew breaker is the scar across his cheek that Ka attributes to a prison beating. What’s the real truth?

The narrative have barely begun before Ka describes a scar running across her father’s cheek like a rope. She references it as “the only visible reminder of the year he spent in prison in Haiti” in a very subtle demonstration of foreshadowing. Why would someone who was supposedly subjected to torture in prison manifest just one single physical scar as evidence of that experience? The answer, of course, is that he did not acquire the scar in that way at all. That story is just part of the myth he’s constructed to cover up the ugly reality he has been trying to escape. The scar thus becomes a symbol of the illusion of the dew breaker’s life as well as his life as a dew breaker since he actually suffered the wound which left the scar during his fatal encounter with the preacher.

The author chooses to leave the question of whether the man Beatrice, the bridal seamstress, claims has been stalking her is real or imagined ambiguously unresolved Why?

The subtext by the end of the chapter about Beatrice very strongly suggests that the man exists entirely in her mind; at least the part about following her. But the surface description of the reporter, Aline, in her investigation of Beatrice’s story cannot adequately be dismissed as definitive. The tension between what is explicitly described and the possibilities left open in what isn’t described matches the state of mind of Beatrice. She cannot deliver the evidence necessary to convince Aline of her story, but her paranoia is so tangibly grounded in the possibility of reality that it is really beside the point.

Whether real or not objective, the fact of being followed is real to her. That is the nature of paranoia and delusion. If the account of torture when she was younger that she relates to Aline is true—and the only thing to go on is still, after all, the word of Beatrice—then her paranoia is understandable. If it didn’t actually happen and the entire story of the mystery man is a delusion, including the torture—her paranoia is no less understandable.

Why is Eric introduced in “Seven” but not identified by name until the next story?

“Seven” takes unconventional step of introducing into the narrative specifically constructed in the opening story not just a brand new character, but one whose connection to the story so far remains stubbornly unclear. Making the situation even less clear is the decision to identify this new character only through pronouns and the singular identifying element of being a husband. The succeeding story introduces the former lover of its main character—Nadine—as a man named Eric. That the two men are one and the same is made clear only through a reference to a job as janitor at Medgar Evers College. It is theoretically possible to read the book without actually realizing that the unnamed husband in “Seven” and Eric as the same person and that very potential is the point.

Any story about refugees in exile from a dangerous situation in their home country comes with the potential for domestic separation: husband from wives, parents from children, friends from friends. The separation carries the always potent possibility for a dualistic life lived simultaneously. Eric is still married even though his wife has had to remain in Haiti for seven years, but what is a marriage under such circumstances? The split reality of those living as exiled refugees creates the paradox of two separate identities and no single identity at all.