Krik Krak Essay, Research Paper

For this assignment I decided that I would just write a brief overview of one of the stories in Edwidge Danticat?s book Krik? Krak!. The story that I have chosen to talk about is ?Between the Pool and the Gardenias.? I choose this one to discuss because I thought the circumstance between the lady and the child was very weird and intrigued me to look into it more in depth. So I am going to talk about the series of events in this story and my thoughts on the young women in the story. I am mainly going to focus on questions 2 and 3 in the study questions for Chapter 5 of Edwindge Danticat?s book, Krik? Krak!.

In this story I believe that the main reason that she takes the child is because she is lonely and wants to become close to someone. She also has had a couple miscarriages before and this has affected her greatly and caused her much suffering and mourning over the years. When she took in the child this made her dream about all of the thoughts and emotions that would have taken place if she had been able to conceive her children. She had been missing out of all the parts of parenthood that came with having a child and this baby that she picks up makes her feel more whole inside. The baby makes her life on this planet feel like she has a purpose for a short while and that is why she takes the baby into her house as one of her own.

Now maybe this wouldn?t be considered crazy everywhere, but what if the baby was already dead and you tried to do this then you would probably get taken into an insane asylum. This is the main reason why I believe that she is crazy because you usually don?t see women picking up dead babies off the road and taking them home to care for them. Sure she has had tough luck bearing a child, but when she pretended that the baby was alive and breathing when she knew what was really wrong with the child was just ridiculous. It got really bad when she took the baby to town with her to try and fit in; this really taught me that the lady needs some severe medical help. Sure she is trying to fit in to the society, but to take a dead child to town to try and show everyone that you are a mother is just ridiculous. The next part that really confused me is when she said that the baby was just perfect because it never cried or caused any trouble. I tell you that Danticat did an excellent job writing this because I had to go and read this chapter over to figure out that the baby was actually dead when she found it. I had to go read it because at the end when it started to stink I was really confused because I finally realized that it didn?t do much moving before this, so this made me go back and read this chapter a little more in depth. That is why I liked this chapter so much; because it tricked me into believing that the child was always alive.

So, as of now, I would have to say that this is my favorite chapter in the book so far; even though I really liked Chapter 3 ?A Wall of Fire Rising? a lot too. This is my short and very brief overview of Chapter 5 ?Between the Pool and the Gardenias.?