Edwige Danticat’s Tones in We Are Ugly, But We Are Here :: Danticat We Are Ugly

Edwige Danticats Tones in We ar Ugly, But We Are Here When I first read We Are Ugly, But We Are Here, I was stunned to learn how women in Haiti were treated. Edwige Danticat, who was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, in 1969 and immigrated to Brooklyn when she was twelve years old, writes most her experiences in Haiti and about the lives of her ancestors that she think to her own. Her specific purpose is to discuss what all these families went through, especially the women, in order to offer the next generation a voice and a future. Danticat writes vividly about events that occurred in Haiti, leading up to an assertion about the strength of Haitian women. Her essay is powerful in large part because of how she manages tone. Danticat begins her essay with a sad and bitter tone. She tells of the first people who were murdered when the Spaniards came to Haiti including Queen Anacaona, an Arawak Indian who ruled over the western part of the island. With bitterness she states, Anacaona w as one of their first victims. She was raped and killed and her hamlet pillaged (137). After establishing this sad and bitter tone, Danticat moves to a more rejoiceful tone when she reminisces about the times when her nan would tell her stories My grandmother was an old country fair sex who always felt displaced in the City of Port-au-Princewhere we livedand had nothing but her patched-up quilts and her stories to console her. She was the one who told me about Anacaona (137). Danticat then shifts to a more neutral tone when she recalls her grandmothers peaceful death with her eyes open. She took her grandmothers death calmly because death was so frequent in Haiti. She further explains, I contrive such a strong feeling that death is not the end, that the people we bury are going off to live somewhere else (138). Danticats actual tone becomes angrier when she remembers that the news broadcasts neer mention women in places like Haiti. It was often hard to tell whether any women were living or breathing The womens stories never manage to make the front page. However, they do exist (139). The anger increases to outrage when she details atrocities committed including the shooting of a woman in her pregnant substantiate because she was wearing a t-shirt that had an anti-military image on it (139).