51 pages • 1 hour read
Brother, I'm Dying
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Key Figures
Edwidge Danticat
Edwidge Danticat—“an error on my father’s birth certificate had made him a Danticat, giving us a singular variation of the family name” (188)— is the narrator and author of the memoir. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1969, she moved to the United States 12 years later to join her parents in New York City. Danticat graduated from Barnard College and earned her master’s degree from Brown University shortly before publishing her debut novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, in 1994. In addition to her own writing, she has taught creative writing, has worked with the filmmakers Patricia Benoit and Jonathan Demme on projects about Haiti, and is an advocate for issues concerned Haitians both in Haiti and abroad.
She is 35 years old in the book’s present time and pregnant with her first child. A daughter of Haitian immigrants to the US, she spent the first 11 years of her life in Haiti, living with her Uncle Joseph and Tante Denise, who raised her and her younger brother Bob as their own children. In that sense, Edwidge feels she has two primary families: the formative one in Haiti, and the biological one in the US, as both her parents left Haiti when she was a small child. Even as an adult, Edwidge has remained closely connected to her aunt and uncle, and they remain forever part of her immediate circle of family. Uncle Joseph has instilled in her the values and ideas that only flowered in the US, as she became involved with various organizations that aid Haiti and its citizens.
As an adult, Edwidge leaves New York, where her family lives, for Florida, where she marries Fedo. This is the third separate part of her life, after Haiti and New York, and her family reacts with concern over her decision to live so far away from them. For Edwidge, however, this is a natural move in her process of maturing as a person, and she feels better positioned there to be able to work in the field she has chosen, as both a writer and an advocate for Haitian rights. She writes about her memories primarily to illuminate the lives of her uncle and her father but describes through the prism of her own life experiences and recollections. In that sense, she is both a character in the memoir and its authorial persona. What troubles her most in her life is a pervasive feeling of helplessness, as she is unable to help the two men she loves in their final battles. However, this feeling is also part of her childhood memories, as she is a passive observer of events much bigger than her and over which she has no control. Writing the memoir is her way of gaining power over the past and giving voice to people whom the world rarely hears.
Uncle Joseph
Joseph Dantica is Edwidge’s oldest uncle, 11 years older than her father, “ovalfaced, with a widow’s-peaked hairline, mustached and pudgy” (23). He grew up in a village in the mountains with his parents and five siblings but now lives in Bel Air, one of many suburbs of Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and the epicenter of numerous riots and gang wars. Being a pastor, he has dedicated his life to his church and the school he has built in Bel Air, attempts to help his fellow Haitians gain the moral rectitude and educational advantage they need to fight against various outside forces that have been enslaving Haiti for centuries. Even though he loses his voice due to throat cancer, he continues with his activities, especially helping the poor. Once he regains his voice thanks to a machine that helps him produce sound directly through the hole from his tracheotomy, he resumes his preaching and advocating.
Since 1946, he has been married to Denise, and they have a functional and happy marriage. They have one biological son, Maxo, and an adopted daughter, Marie Micheline, the child of one of his friends, and they foster Edwidge and Bob while their parents are making their life in the US. Uncle Joseph often takes in children from other members of the family as well, whenever there is need (like Liline, Denise’s niece). The Dantica house is open to everyone who needs shelter, and in return, many people respect Joseph as their elder. In turn, he keeps meticulous records of all the people killed or injured during the riots and gang wars.
Although active well into his late seventies, after Denise’s death from stroke, Joseph begins to falter. The chaotic political and social situation in Haiti exacerbates his condition, especially as he has to leave his country under cover of night, persecuted by local gangs in mistaken belief that he has lent his church as a strategic lookout to the UN troops, who kill several Haitians. His profound sense of humiliation at seeing his life’s work ruined deepens further when he attempts to seek temporary asylum in the US, only to be incarcerated in the Krome detention center. He is a proud and thoughtful man; he cannot comprehend or accept the treatment he and his fellow compatriots receive, and he soon dies in the prison hospital, alone and away from his family.
Mira, Edwidge’s Father
André Miracin Danticat, known by his nickname, Mira, has led a very different life from his oldest brother, Joseph. At a young age, he decided that he did not wish to continue living in Haiti and suffer the daily injustices and troubles of the riot-torn country, and even though he knew life in the US would be difficult, he opted to leave and build a new life there. At home, he leaves a young wife and two children: two-year-old Edwidge and an infant son, Bob.
Life for a Haitian immigrant in the US is not easy: Mira works menial jobs until he manages to become a gypsy cab driver, but although his existence is often precarious, he is still living in a well-ordered, peaceful country, where he is able to maintain a level of dignity he believes he would not have in his home country. When Edwidge is four, Mira brings his wife to the US, and they soon have two more children, Kelly and Karl. Mira’s dream is to bring Edwidge and Bob to live in the US as well, and he succeeds when Edwidge is 11 years old. As a father, he is caring and thoughtful, and he understands Edwidge’s deep attachment to her uncle as her primary guardian during early childhood, so he often refers to Joseph as her “other father,” respecting Edwidge’s divided emotions.
In the memoir’s present, Mira is in his late sixties and suffering from end-stage pulmonary fibrosis, a fatal illness that ravages his health and his body and leaves him an invalid. The author depicts his decline with empathy and a sense of acute pain, as Mira is her father and a man she has come to love and respect as a hardworking, dedicated parent. His family shows him affection and care, but Mira suffers from knowing the fate of his oldest brother, Joseph, and although he reacts to the news of his death with quiet resignation, the demise of the brother he has admired and looked up to his whole life devastates him. Mira remains alive for a while longer, awaiting the birth of his granddaughter with happiness. He feels a special connection to the newborn because Edwidge names her Mira after him. In contrast to his brother, he dies peacefully in his home, surrounded by his loving family.
Edwidge’s Female Family Members
Although not as roundly characterized in the memoir as the main characters, several members of Edwidge’s family play significant roles in her recollections. This is particularly true of the females in her environment: Tante Denise, Marie Micheline, and Granmè Melina. Each of these women contributed to Edwidge’s upbringing in certain ways, and she has a special place for them in her memories.
Tante Denise is Uncle Joseph’s partner of over 50 years. Although they initially lived out of wedlock, their union has been a happy match, as she is a woman of strong character and a great supporter of her husband. She accepts his family as her own and raises Edwidge and Bob as a mother would, with affection and strictness. She is a proud and respected woman, and she takes care to always appear in public suitably attired and wearing well-arranged wigs, as a wife of a pastor. Her mother, Granmè Melina, comes to live with the family in 1979, when she is, according to Edwidge, almost a hundred years old. A rural Haitian from the mountains of Léogâne, she only agrees to live in the city as she becomes ill with old age. She is a great storyteller, and Edwidge remembers how the neighborhood children would gather to listen to her wise stories and legends, which she learned from her own ancestors. Just as Tante Denise replaces Edwidge’s mother in all practical senses, Granmè Melina takes on the role of the mother who tells bedtime stories and nurtures Edwidge’s imagination.
Marie Micheline is Uncle Joseph’s adopted daughter, the child of his Cuban friend Guillermo, and she is 17 years older than Edwidge. A beautiful and tall woman, she is young Edwidge’s role model. Additionally, Marie Micheline reminds Edwidge just how much her parents love her, keeping her memory of her parents alive and positively charged, which is essential for Edwidge’s confidence and belief in her family. Later, as a mother of four children and a dedicated nurse, Marie Micheline’s senseless death of a heart attack caused by fear from the wild riots in Bel Air remains a wound for Uncle Joseph and Tante Denise, as well as Edwidge, that has never healed.
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