Freedom and equality are two perpetual topics in our times. A defining characteristics of people is the degree to which they are always willing to pursue better life standards, which include New York women and Haitian women. So in order to talk about the similarities and differences between Haitian women and New York women, the first thing I did was to collect all the Haitian women’s name in Krik? Krak in order to know their life condition. They are the female character in Children of The Sea, Josephine’s mom who believed Voodoo, the Night women, New York Day women and also the Caroline who got married to Eric, and Caroline’s mom. And then I separated those women in two groups. One group is the women who lived in Haiti and sacrificed themselves for their family. And the other group was the women who lived in U.S and had fewer life pressure on them. But. whatever these women had different background information, but their common element was that most of them showed their love to their children and they could sacrifice themselves for their children with no reason.
For the female character in Children of the Sea, I should say that she was fortunate but also tragic. The reason why she was fortunate because she had a father who loves her and willing to protect her. However, because of this love, female character’s dad had already decided everything for her, included her boyfriend and her future. Because she stayed in a man dominated world, so she had no choice to against her dad. In the end, even though she understood her father’s mind of protecting her, but sadly she stayed in a world that women struggled about freedom and equality. Also, for Josephine’ s mom, Defile, who experienced the Massacre in Haiti and she practiced Voodoo in her daily life, sudden because of her mistreatment, a girl died and government arrested her as killer, her life was painful. At that time period, because it was the man dominated world, so the government was afraid of those Voodoo women to stay together in order to against government, so everyday night the guard would throw tin cups of cold water at one another so that their bodies would not be able to store enough heat to grow flame wings. Josephine mom’s life was destroyed by Haitian culture and politician, but hopefully she had a daughter, Josephine and she already understood her mom will of processing her dream. This story talked about the difficulties that Haitian women faced in order to free themselves from the tradition. This phenomenon also showed in the Night women, the woman had no choice because she had a son, in order to help him grow healthily, she chose to sacrifice herself to become a prostitute to earn money. But however, one thing the Danticat wrote so ironically was that the men came for this prostitute were all in higher position, like a doctor and an accordion player. Oppositely, the women was only a prostitute who made money from those men, the women in this men-dominated world can only depend on men for survive. In general, due to the unstable condition in Haiti, Haitian women sacrificed a lot from themselves in order to exchange a better life in the future. Which I think this is called love, even they were in prison or became a prostitute, but their original purpose was to sacrifice themselves and give their offspring a better life condition.
Compared with Haiti Women, the women in U.S did not have so much pressure on their daily life. However, they also contribute their love for their children. From The New York Day Women, author’s mom did not need to do a caring baby job but maybe I think because of love, or some regret from her daughter’s childhood. Also in another aspect, readers can directly see that author had a stable job and can spend time on tracing her mom during her meal time. Also her mom can go shopping on the street, their lifestyle was very relaxed. Mom’s job was only to take care of other people’s baby. For the women who lived in U.S, they did not need to spend much time on sacrificing themselves for their family. They can do more things for their selves. For example, the Caroline’s life in Caroline’ s wedding, this story totally reflected an independent American. Caroline was born in America and grew in America, so many things she was influenced by American culture more than Haitian culture. In the story Caroline’s Wedding, the author talked mainly on the culture conflict between traditional Haitian culture and American culture rather than the marriage of Caroline. Due to the fact that she argued with her mom about the bone soup, she chose which man she can marry with without asking mom. She could even go to school to accept education and have date with Eric by herself, this was totally opposite with the female character in the Children of The Sea. Which I could describe this fact as an evidence to show the difference between American women and Haitian women. However, Caroline’s mom, a totally traditional Haitian women, was refused to accept new culture, she keep all the old things in her bedroom without change in ten years. Also she believed in the bone soup can cure all illness, which is a symbol of the Haitian culture. Moreover, mom hold a mind that a Haitian woman needed to marry with a Haitian man, this was the biggest problem she talked with Caroline. But Caroline stayed in American, she was influenced on the culture of freedom and independence. In America, there’s no war and conflict, people’s life and job is stable, as a modern woman, she showed more acceptance on new things.
All of the Haitian women’ s life are different, some of them still stayed in Haiti and suffered from the wars, others chose to escape from Haiti and live in America to start a new life. However, if there’s no war and government face each religion equally, would the women who lived in U.S willing to move from Haiti to America. Obviously, they won’t, but due to the war and in order to give their offspring a better life, they chose to immigrate. But as some women lived in U.S, like Caroline, they would feel that America was better because of the equality and freedom, but due to their acceptance of education, they would have a strong willing of going back to Haiti to change the thinking there.
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