Essay Questions

Why are Danticat’s parents so determined to go to New York while living their young children under the care of their relatives?

The author starts by portraying Haiti as a poor country in which most of the parents are struggling to raise their children due to the high levels of poverty. The author’s parents are headed to New York to search for greener pastures so that they can get enough money to sustain the needs of the family. Edwidge Danticat is only four years when her parents leave and she is too young to understand what is happening at this time. Edwidge Danticat and her younger brother are left under the care of their uncle. In this memoir, the reader comprehends that life in Haiti is difficult to the extent parents are leaving their young children behind to go to another country to search for better opportunities.

What motivates Edwidge Danticat to write the memoir ‘Brother, I'm Dying’?

Edwidge Danticat is writing this memoir to remember her father. At first, when Danticat meets her father in the United States, she is twelve years of age and they have not seen each other for the previous eight years. The two are just like strangers but as time goes by, she understands her father better. By the time she is getting married, Danticat is deeply connected with her father. After her marriage, she learns the sad news that her father is critically ill. Therefore, she decides to write this memoir as a way of remembering her father and all the events that have come across her life.

How does the motif of misuse manifest itself in the memoir Brother, I'm Dying by Edwidge Danticat?

Danticat recalls her stay in Haiti for the first twelve years of her life and concludes that most European islands were exploited by the colonizers. The current state of Haiti is characterized by competition for the little resources and poverty. Danticat remembers how they could go without meals because her uncle and aunt could not predict the source of the next meal. Similarly, she narrates the reason why her parents had to leave her and her brother behind to go to the United States to seek better opportunities. The reader also concludes that Danticat and her brother are exploited by their parents when they leave them behind at a younger age with a promise of making their lives better at a later date.