Edwidge Danticat's Discourse On Colonialism

Colonialism in The Farming of Bones In his work, Discourse on Colonialism, Aimé Césaire expresses his reflections on colonization. He asserts that “colonization works to decivilize the colonizer, to brutalize him in the true sense of the word, to degrade him, to awaken him to buried instincts, to covetousness, violence, race hatred, and moral relativism” (Césaire, 35). In Edwidge Danticat’s book based on historical events, The Farming of Bones, she criticizes Césaire’s reflection; in her book, it is the native Dominicans who “decivilize” and “brutalize” the nonnative Haitians living in the Dominican Republic.
Danticat’s character, the Generalissimo, is the book version of the Dominican Republic’s president during the 1930s and 1940s,

He is a devoted follower of the Generalissimo; he names his son “Rafael, for the Generalissimo” (Danticat, 36). Señor Pico does not like the Haitians: “When her husband [Señor Pico] returned, before he could tell her anything about the burial, she told him what she had done for the cane workers. He did not scold her, but once he discovered that she had used their imported orchid-patterned tea set, he took the set out to the yard and, launching them against the cement walls of the house latrines, he shattered the cups and saucers, one by one” (Danticat, 116). Señor Pico destroys the expensive tea set because the Haitians drank from it, and because he harbors racist feelings towards the Haitians, feelings that were likely encouraged in Generalissimo’s army. While gathering Haitians into trucks to take them to the border near his home, Señor Pico yells at Amabelle, his wife’s maid, to get out of the road. Amabelle comments on the way he shouted at her, stating that it was “as if [her] being there was a sign of disrespect to him and his house,” rather than because he was concerned for her safety (Danticat, 157). He does not care for her safety; he is worried about his

One of the Haitians makes a statement about how they believe the Dominicans see them: “To them we are always foreigners, even if our granmèmès’ granmèmès’ were born in this country . . . This makes it easier for them to push us out when they want to” (Danticat, 69). The Haitians do not harbor any negative feelings towards the Dominicans; the Haitians are in the Dominican Republic simply because they were able to find work there and because they have nowhere else to go. When speaking of themselves, many of the Haitians say that they “were an orphaned people . . . some people don’t belong anywhere and that’s [the Haitians] . . . [they] are a group of vwajajè, wayfarers” (Danticat,