Like Father Like Son, Like Mother Like Daughter

It is not simply coincidence that both Acehebe and Danticat iclude passages that reference their characters' ancestry. Kolvenbach discusses the integral issue of social justice and how it should be approached; I believe that how one actually adresses the issues of justice and faith is, if even subconsciencly, a product of how one's family has approached it.

When Obi confronts his father about his desire to marry Clara, an osu, though it was still considered taboo to associate with anyone who was a descent of osu affiliation, his father Isaac shares his own story of his past. "Mr. Braddeley thought I spoke about the white man's messenger whom my father killed. He did not know I spoke about Ikemefuna, with whom I grew up in my mother's hut until the day came when my father killed him with his own hands"(Achebe, 157). Isaac Okonkwo rejected his father and his beliefs because he refused to let the traditional ways of his Igbo people justify the murder of his innocent adopted brother. Obi had always felt a disdain towards his own father, but when he was chastised for even contemplating a union with an osu woman, he defied his own people for submitting to a social norm that was so obviously prejudiced and wrong, just as his father had before him.

The narrator of the passage Between the Pool and the Gardenias, in Danticat's Krik? Krak! references her martyred heritage and the pride and sense of duty that each of theri stories left her, "I always knew they would come back and claim me to do good for somebody. Maybe I was to do some good for this child"(Danticat, 95). The narrator could have easily been disenchanted when considering the position she held as a servant for a bourgeois couple, and the ill fate that her ancestors met as a result of their Haitian ethnicity. But in this passage she represents the resounding inner hope and faith that each of her descendents displayed when challenged.

Transitions

In class, we spent a lot of time discussing cities but not as much time talking about what happens during the travel from one city to another. In both No Longer at Ease and Krik? Krak!, the boundaries between cities blur during travel scenes set in the middle of the ocean. Reading Achebe, I was really interested by chapter three, the scene during which Obi travels between London and Lagos on a boat. This scene plays a vital role in the novel because it addresses transition and change as much as it directly foreshadows Obi's future. It is on the boat that Obi first learns that Clara is returning with him to Lagos and when he first kisses her. When Obi leaves London, the ocean is still peaceful, but as he nears Lagos, he begins to feel seasick: "At first the Bay of Biscay was very calm and collected...Then as evening approached, the peace and smoothness vanished quite suddenly." (28).

In Krik? Krak!, the opening scene resembles chapter three in Achebe's novel. Though we don't encounter the character on the boat again in the first half of the novel, his documentation of the travel is poignant and relevant. The narrator is a refugee from Haiti, traveling to Miami and reflecting on his love for a young woman back home. He demonstrates both fear and anticipation at the thought of arriving (or not arriving) in Miami while maintaining close emotional and intellectual ties to his home city by writing to the young woman in his knowing, aware that she may never see his words. "I am trying to think, to see if I read anything more about Miami...I can't tell exactly how far we are from there. We might be barely out of our own shores." (6). There is a sense of confusion and uncertainty between cities.

Though we've been referring to cities as places of departure and arrival, it is during the travel that a person forms expectations while maintaining the clearest memories. I don't think that it is only by chance that both Danticat and Achebe included a scene in which a character has to travel over water, which represents seemingly endless uncertainty.

What's in a Name?

Kolvenbach states: “originally founded to serve the educational and religious needs of poor immigrants populations”(22).
One of the primary Jesuit missions of a Jesuit university is to be placed in a city to encourage and promote the wellbeing of that city and its society. Loyola’s new mission statement or theme of this year is “Year of the City” which takes its roots from the Jesuit mission. However, the novelty of this statement brings the theme into question. What was Loyola’s prior intention throughout the past years? Why has this mission and moneys directed toward this mission become a new eye- opening experience when it should have been promoted and integrated into Loyola from the start.
Had Loyola separated itself intentionally from the city? Take into account the name of Loyola, “Loyola college of Maryland”. This is an odd title considering most Loyolas around the Nation assume the name of their city: Loyola of New Orleans and Loyola of Chicago. Why does Loyola of Maryland become Loyola of Baltimore and yet to truly make a statement and further promote their theme of “Year of the City”?
By taking the name Baltimore into Loyola’s title, Loyola would not only be physically assimilating itself with the city but also symbolically. Therefore, Loyola’s theme “Year of the City” would not remain a one year event, but would retain itself to a permanent fixture of the Loyola community. Loyola college of Baltimore would finally take hold and live up to its Jesuit mission.
How would this name change affect the community? Would it affect it at all? Can Loyola not only make a symbolic impact on the city, but also show a force from its students? Will the students even care for a name change? I would. Let’s live up to our mission and our duties as a Jesuit institution.

The Necessity of Justice in the City

I was particularly alarmed by the descriptive passages that Danticat uses to describe Haiti and the harsh conditions Haitians encounter in Krik? Krak! From the very beginning, the prevalence of injustice is blatent, when the Haitian narrator describes his passage over the sea. It almost seems as if a person on a slave trade ship is telling the story. I was shocked at the way the passengers of the boat had to defecate on the boat and how there was barely anything to eat or drink for days upon days. Celiene's jump into the water after the death of her baby shows the desperation that was ubiquitous on the boat. The fact that these narrators are unnamed allows for this story to apply to any Haitian, because a number of Haitians (or any other race, for that matter) went through similiar situations involving ill treatment.

In Port-au- Prince, rape and murder is an everyday occurance. Horrific instances, such as the soldiers forcing mothers and sons or daughters and fathers to sleep with eachother paint a picture of the injustice that occurs frequently throughout the novel. In "Children of the Sea", the tragic incident of the mother bringing home her son's head immediately calls attention to the overwhelming amount of violence in Port-au-Prince following the coup. In "Nineteen Thirty Seven", the prison in which Josephine's mother is held (for no legitimate reason) is described as a hellish place of torture. Josephine says "By the end of the 1915 occupation, the city really knew how to hold human beings trapped in cages" (Danticat 35). At the prison, Josephine's mother has her head shaved, is fed bread and water, and is doused with freezing water before bed so that she will not have the energy to escape, among many other forms of inhumane treatement. Ville Rose is also described as a place full of dejection and poverty, although violence seems to be far less prevalent there. In this city, some women are forced to be prostitutes, such as the woman in "Night Women", who has to sell her body in order to provide for her and her young son. In " Between the Pool and the Gardenia's", Marie finds a dead baby on the streets of Port- au-Prince tries to convince herself that is alive, due to her intense desire of child companionship. She says, " When I had just come to the city, I saw on Madame's television that a lot of poor city women throw out their babies because they can't afford to feed them" (Danticat 92). This particular description of the city is only one of the many examples that illustrates the prevalence of poverty and violence that is rampant throughout Port- au-Prince in the novel Krik? Krak!

Danticat allows us to enter into the chaos that is a part of cities such as Port-au- Prince and Ville Rose, so that we may understand the injustice that Haiti has had to overcome. Her descriptive passages and characters draw us into the story of Haiti's violent past. We are left wondering why anyone should have to undergo the severely violent treatment that these people have to experience. She gives us a close- up view of what it would be like to suffer through generations of injustice within various cities, and this ultimately made me appreciate my surroundings a bit more. In Kolvenbach's "The Service of Faith and the Promotion of Justice in American Jesuit Higher Education, he states that, " Only a substantive justice can bring about the kinds of structural and attitudinal changes that are needed to uproot those sinful oppresive injustices that are a scandal against humanity and God" (Kolvenbach 27). This quote applies perfectly to the call of those reading Krik? Krak! Danticat is calling the reader to be aware of the injustice that is a horrific reality on this earth. In my opinion, she is working towards creating an attitudinal change in her readers. Danticat uses the cities of Haiti as a lesson and a cry for change. Her powerful language can persuade almost any reader to awake from their apathy. Kolvenbach's speech on the power of justice in education helps to support the basis for Danticat's novel. They are both stressing the need for equality and dignity found through justice-virtues of which many cities are void.