Dewbreaker Response

In many ways, the situations dealt with in the Book of the Dead story of The Dewbreaker are almost universal.  From the beginning, Ka struggles with anxiety and unsureness when her father disappears.  Even her father's struggle to find a way to repent for his sins and to keep his family safe from his past is, although presumably far-removed from the situations of most readers, relatable enough that we can sympathize with the guilt and remorse he feels.  Ka's sense of identity is deep-rooted in her family.  From the beginning, she states that although she grew up in New York, she has always longed to share a birthplace with her parents, stating that she is from Haiti despite having never been there.  I am a white person who was born in the US, and the most I know about my family's history is that somewhere along the line we were disowned from French royalty for refusing to return to France from Canada.  I have the privilege of being an unquestioned American (not European American or French American, and certainly not Canadian American) in a country where white is considered the default.  The sense of belonging to a country I have never visited, of needing a sense of connection with my ancestors' origins, is something I will never know or thirst for in the depths of my identity because of America's gross racial bias in most aspects of our media and history.  Although I can read about Ka's desire to share an identity with her parents and with their home country, it is a sense of loss that I could never feel or truly understand.  I think it is also important that  Gabrielle Fonteneau is also Haitian and that she specifically wants Ka's artwork because she collects works from Haitian artists.  We can see a contrast between Gabrielle's pride and connection with her family's home country, and the sense of doubt that accompanies Ka after she discovers the truth about her father.
Ka's connection with her family is also prevalent in her art.  As was mentioned, her sense of wanting to be connected with her family is a major aspect of her personality, and this aspect was wholly represented in her art.  She wanted to feel connected with her father, to unravel a sense of what he was into a sculpture that was entirely her image of him.  When I want to create art, my instinct is to jump to the subjects that interest me at a given moment, which change rapidly.  I watch movies that I can feel igniting particular areas of my brain and I read books that make my heart pound and I look at pictures that draw my eyes into their dynamic worlds, and I become obsessed.  That Ka is a character that can create art around a single subject, a subject that has been present throughout her entire life, and not grow dreary of the repeated task of carving him free of the wood, is something to which I cannot relate.  I often jump between subjects before finishing my initial work.  An a ability to maintain interest and to continue carving passion into the same subject over and over is a trait that I only wish I could possess.  Of course, when the carving of her father is drowned, so is her idea of him, her sense of a real connection with him, and a pure idea of who he is.