Nineteen Thirty-Seven and the River Edwidge Danticat

Nineteen Thirty-Seven and the River

Edwidge Danticat and Flannery O'Connor both explore the influence of religion in creating a belief system in individuals who have been disconnected from societies' main stream in their shot stories Nineteen Thirty-Seven and The River. Characters in both stories have been abandoned by humanity and strive to regain their identity through God's grace. Danticat uses a poverty stricken Haitian woman, Manman, who has been accused of being a witch and incarcerated, while O'Connor incorporates a very young affluent boy, Bevel, who has been discounted as a human being and forsaken by his parents to frame their stories. Both Manman and Bevel use religion, specifically Christianity, to help them find an identity under hostile conditions.

Danticat's story is set in Haiti, in a society that is dominated by poverty and superstitious beliefs. Manman is hauled out of her home one morning, beaten by her neighbors, and put in a prison. She is incarcerated as a witch solely on the accusation of one of her neighbors whose child had died during the night. All of the inmates in the prison were woman who had been accused of causing the death of a child by "rising from the ground like birds on fire" (p.38). From these scenes the reader can glean that Haitian justice is random, and that individual freedom is arbitrary. The author shows us a society in chaos, where the citizens live in fear of the unknown and vigilantism supersedes law. It is a culture of poverty where people are so consumed by the effort to meet their basic needs that they have little time to question the statuesque and perpetuate their hopeless condition because it is what they know.

In contrast O'Connor's story is of Bevel, a child whose parent's viewed him more as a burden than a blessing. He is given to a babysitter, Mrs. Connin, who doesn't even know his name. Unlike Mamman, Bevel lives in a world of excess. "In his own room he had picture books and blocks but they were for the most part torn up; he found that the way to get new ones was to tear up the one's he had" (p.43). O'Connor paints a picture of the world though the innocent eyes of a child. There is chaos in his world also. His parent's lack of attention, concern and guidance creates an unstable home where the child feels abandoned and is left to find his identity on his own. He is vulnerable to anyone one or thing that will enhance his self-worth. While Manman's prison is literal, Bevel's is psychological.

Though these two societies initially seem very different they are, in many ways, quite similar. Early in Danticat's story Josephine, Manman's daughter, is on her way to visit her in prison with a statue of the Madonna that had been given to her great-great-great grandmother by a Frenchman. Along the way she meets "an old woman carrying a jar of leeches" (p. 34). Leeches have a primitive medical application, hinting of the absence of science in the culture. The old woman is enthralled with the statue and "her finger trembled as it moved across the Madonna's head. She closed her eyes at the moment of contact, her wrists shaking" (p. 34). The implication is one of conflict in the old woman, caught between two ideologies. She obviously needs more to believe, to give her hope, yet is reluctant, or afraid to do so. This may be because she's afraid of the consequences should she appear different from her neighbors.

O'Connor's story is driven by the dichotomy of two social classes. One, populated by Bevel's parents is affluent and self-absorbed. The other is that of Mrs. Connin. Mrs. Connin is a religious woman with three children who works all night and is now babysitting Bevel during the day, presumably to make ends meet. Her husband is in the government hospital and according to her doesn't have the faith. "…and they taken one-third of his stomach. I tell him he better thank Jesus for what he's got left but he says he ain't thanking nobody." She tells Bevel about Jesus, and later takes him to a healing by the river. Despite her unfortunate circumstances, O'Connor insinuates it is Mrs. Connin's faith that keeps her going and Bevel intuits this.

The prison in which Manman is held is barbaric. Woman's heads are shaved, meals are bread and water, the and they are made to douse each other with water each night so their bodies would not be able to muster enough heat to grow wings made of flames. Despite these conditions she says, "They have not treated me badly" (p. 37). Danticat insinuates that she endures these humiliations because of her faith.

Bevel is introduced to a different society through Mrs. Connin. Through her he learns that he "had been made by a carpenter named Jesus Christ. Before that he thought it was a doctor named Sladewall." (p. 34). When they go to the healing at the river Bevel is baptized. The preacher tells the child that once he is baptized he will be somebody. "You didn't even count before" (p. 38). The boy too is caught between two worlds; his parent's who he feels don't want him, and Mrs. Connin's, which promises him self-worth and an identity.

Rivers figure as prominent symbolic features in both stories. Manman escapes death while pregnant with Josephine by crossing the Massaure River to the Haitian side on the night that El Generalissimo Dios Trujillo had ordered the massacre of all Haitians living there. Manman credits the Madonna for sparing her and her daughter and passes her faith to Josephine. Manman teachers Josephine that she is "daughter of the river" (p. 44). When Josephine was five years old Manman took her on a "pilgrimage" to the river where her mother dipped her hand in the water and spoke to the sun saying, "Here is my child Josephine. We were saved from the tomb of this river while she was still in my womb. You spared both, her and me, from this river where I lost my mother" (p.40).