Responding to Dorothy Winsor

Winsor’s article describes knowledge in a retroactive and present tense. She describes knowledge as “certain: if someone is unsure of an idea, we don’t usually call the idea knowledge.” By using the example of the faulty O-rings that led to the explosion of the Challenger, Winsor indicates that evidence does not surmise knowledge. The events leading up to the incident weren’t just caused by a culmination of ignorance, circumstantial factors show that MTI formed a taskforce exclusively to test the O-rings prior to the launch. The employees’ awareness then leads to a validation of social influence of knowledge; does social acceptance strengthen knowledge? Or does social acceptance increase because we are aware that knowledge “exists”?

To better articulate her arguments and criticisms for social constructivism and logical positivism, Winsor introduces the idea of “Truth Will Out Device” which states that the truth will eventually be recognized by a consensus of what is correct. Of course, the downside of this theory is that knowledge can only be categorized as such based on a retroactive perspective and based on the time upon which an idea is looked back on, even wrong facts can be conceptualized as knowledge.

As Winsor analyses how knowledge exists, she describes the passing of knowledge as the “conduit model of communication.” A misleading representation in the sense that information transposed from one individual to another is evidence, not knowledge. Despite logos and ethos being present in the exchange one individual’s pathos may differ, altering the perception he takes on factual evidence. The lack of a “capacity to impress their reality on the reader” leaves evidence without presence. It is important for the second individual to accept the gravity of the situation in order for the evidence to become undisputed knowledge.

Winsor, Dorothy. (1990). “The Construction of Knowledge in Organizations: Asking the Right Questions About the Challenger.” Journal of Business and Technical Communication 4.2 (1990): 7-20. Web

Analyzing Hawthorne

What Evelyn Hawthorne wishes to achieve in her article is to deconstruct the work of Danticat through it literary and historical affiliations in order to better understand the general strategies employed by postmodernist black Caribbean writers in general. According to Hawthorne, the three primary differences between contemporary Caribbean writing and the more historical work of Paule Marshall are “linguistic, cultural, and political circumstances.” Though both parties hail from similar experiences, the fractured history of the Caribbean creates so many tangents that postmodernists like Danticat can approach slavery, colonialism, and American assimilation with a fresh perspective. She further explores these differences by explaining the “political unconscious” topics that Danticat explores; Rather than focusing on economic oppression like Marshall, Danticat and her contemporaries ostracize their characters through political exile.  

                        Krik? Krak! provides exemplary examples of this shift in writing thanks to Danticat’s understanding of the paradoxical nature of Haiti. Her accounts are largely driven by her “need to testify and witness.” Most importantly, the characters in Krik? Krak! aren’t racially defined stereotypes but actual people whom the readers care about.  Danticat takes great care to characterize her characters through small, subtle details, like Suzette’s initial disdain for her mother’s customs modulating into some form of acceptance either for her own heritage or for her mother’s traditions.

Hawthorne, Evelyn. "Sites/Sights of Difference: Danticat's 'New York Day Women', Haitian Immigrant Subjectivity and Postmodernist Strategies." MaComère: Journal of the Association of Caribbean Women Writers and Scholars 6 (2004): 40-8. Web. 

"New York Day Women" Analysis

New York Day Women is singular among the stories found in “Krik? Krak!” insofar as it is distinguished by its setting. Moving her story to New York while retaining the themes of motherhood and Haitian heritage allows her to dwell on the impact of cultural assimilation. Suzette follows her mother around New York and her description of her begins indignant of her traditions and ends with a tinge of admiration. We understand Suzette may not care much for her heritage but her bond with her mother binds her emotionally to Haitian culture nonetheless.

                Seeing Suzette’s mother interact with the city is revelatory in the way it shows us how one is capable of maintaining a clear identity despite the influence of a more modern culture. She obviously doesn’t bother hiding her heritage as she and her friends look like a “Third World Parent-Teacher Meeting Association.” This helps provide a contrast between New York City and her mother’s native Haiti. As a microcosm it really provides a contrast between the U.S. as a whole and Third-World Countries. Suzette’s mother exclaims, “Why should we give to Goodwill when there are so many people back home who need clothes? We save our clothes for the relatives in Haiti.” This brings into context how she may interpret the word “relatives.” Because we later learn she has lost six sisters, making relatives a wider encompassing term than simply blood relation.

                Danticat’s serves its purpose by stating the prevalence of culture and how, even when disregarded can shape us as individuals. It also provides a critique of the problems that are prevalent here in the U.S, compared to the struggles of Third-World Countries. In short she brings the existence of Haiti, its problems and blessings to the forefront.  

Danticat, Edwidge. Krik? Krak! NY: Vintage Books. Print.

"Between the Pool and the Gardenias"

As the narrator unfolds her family history in “Between the Pool and the Gardenias,” we become aware that she is of Josephine’s lineage. Having read “Nineteen Thirty Seven,” the intertextuality is revealing of her arduous and pained history.  Taken within the context of her past, the dead child she recovers then becomes significant not only as a motif of her burdens but the burdens of her past relatives.

Marie, like her mother and her mother before her, suffers for her womanhood. “It’s so easy to love somebody, I tell you, when there’s nothing else around.” (Danticat 96) Based on that statement, we understand that because of her womanhood or her ancestry, Marie has already been rejected by society. All her love is easy to relate to the dead child, whom like her, has been abandoned by a society that either cannot or will not support her. Rose helps Marie vent her problems and either unaware or resiliently ignorant of the child’s condition, Marie comes to believe she is responsible for taking “on her soul as my own personal responsibility.” (Danticat 98) Eventually she is doomed to be wrongly accused of the child’s fate, just like her grandmother before her.

Danticat’s stories are intertwined to best represent Haitian oppression of women regardless of time and place. By relating characters as well as motifs she establishes a genuine sense of history. It also enables us to see a different side to view things through a different point of view. In Nineteen Thirty-Seven the dead baby was a bane to Josephine’s mother; For Marie it provides a mean to release her worries through imagination.    

Danticat, Edwidge. Krik? Krak! NY: Vintage Books. Print.