Two Cases of Babies

Danticat throughout the book has had a collection of themes. Themes stream from the idea of hope vs. hopelessness, to massacre. Though all the stories are slightly varied from one another then is still a likeness and connection in which they are all intertwined. In, Between the Pool and the Gardenias it is now the second time in which Danticat has had a dead baby be one of the characters in a story. I don’t believe that it is being insensitive; I just personally struggle with why she decided to do this.

In, Children of the Sea Danticat have Celianne a young mother aboard a boat gives birth to a stillborn child. In the story, the following few days after the birth Celianne simply just holds onto the baby even after it had turned purple. Then after that time she had to throw the baby off the boat then Celianne proceeded to then commit suicide. Then in the story, Between the Pool and the Gardenias a character that we never learned her name stumbled across a dead child on the side of the road. This small child had Rose on her shirt so the main character decided to take her home because she was cute, in her eyes. The main character spoke of the fact that she was unable to have children and wanted to treat this child as her own. She spoke of how she continued to bathe her up to three times a day until the smell became too unbearable. In which only then did she give Rose a burial.

I feel like the death of the child in Children of the Sea was an important element of the story. But the idea of having the entire story of Between the Pool and the Gardenias is about holding onto a dead child that wasn’t even hers was really unnecessary. I am not sure if Danticat did this because she had some underlying message that she wanted to send to the readers. Or that infant death is a raging issue in Haiti, I am not quite sure. I just feel as though it is really morbid and almost leaves too bitter of a feeling; to be able to grasp much else that is happening in the book.