In the Children of the Sea, the author is talking about the stories between two narrators. Why did Danticat use Children of the Sea as a title?
Even though the girl is not on the sea, her heart still follows the boy, who is on the sea. She wants to see the boy, but her father does not allow her to meet him. In addition, her father locks her up at home so she cannot go anywhere. Then, the sea is like a symbol of freedom to her. It is also a symbol of freedom to the boy since the boy escaped from the country because of the rebellion.
However, I think the bigger meanings are hope and hopelessness. They hope for freedom, so the first paragraph mentioned it. The hopelessness is opposite to hope, but it can also be represented in the same story. The boy writes on his diary in the beginning, "I also know there are timeless waters, endless seas, and lots of people in this world whose names don't matter to anyone but themselves." The boy realizes how small a person is. He knows that people are too small to be remembered and are too vulnerable to have cared. Then, compared to endless seas and human, he felt hopeless because of the human's fragility and endlessness of sea.
The Children of the Sea also implies the baby that is born on the boat and also implies the people who die in the sea. First, the baby is born on the boat and died on the boat, so the short life of the baby belongs to the sea. Secondly, many people are buried in the sea due to a lot of accidents and tragedies. For those people whose bodies are under the sea and cannot be found, they are like the children of the sea, which will "live" in the sea forever.
What is the significance of not naming characters in a lot of Danticat's stories?
Personally, I think the characters' names are difficult to remember. Clearly, that is not the reason that Danticat did not name the characters in the book.
The other reason is that instead of remembering the names, the relationships between characters are more important. In other words, the book does not emphasize the independent characters. Danticat did not describe a person in details, such as the person's appearance, the personality, and the person's thoughts. However, Danticat paid more attention to the relationship. In Children of the Sea, she focused on the girl and boy's development of relationship through letters, and we can also know the father-and-daughter relationship in the girl's family. In Wall of Rising Fire, Danticat mainly described what happens in Lili and Guy's family. In Caroline's Wedding, Danticat shows the cultural contradictions in Caroline and Grace's family. Therefore, the purpose of the characters is not to reveal who a person should be, but how a person fits into society and how the people reveal a problem in society.
Furthermore, the characters that mentioned in the book can also be the representatives of a group of people. In this circumstance, their names are not important. Guy jumps out of the hot balloon because he wants freedom, and he represents a group of people who want freedom. The mother in the epilogue, Lili in The Wall of Rising Fire, the mother in Night Women, and the mother in New York Day Women demonstrate a women role. Therefore, the significance of not naming characters is that we can focus on the most of people instead of knowing only one person's life.
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