The Dew Breaker, day 4 by Nic Helms

Key and Crow

2024-10-03 19:17:54 UTC

Giving Ka's father a name humanizes him and makes it easier to relate to him. Without a name, we as readers have to refer to him by his relationship to other characters, ie Ka's father, Anne's husband, the man who killed Dany's parents, etc.

Veronika C

2024-10-03 19:18:58 UTC

We never get Ka’s dad’s name because it adds to the sense of distance and mystery around him. It feels like he’s always holding something back, even from the reader. Not giving him a name makes him feel harder to understand, like he's hiding who he really is. Since he's struggling with his past as a torturer, it kind of makes sense that he doesn’t fully want to face who he is now. It definitely makes him feel more complex, and honestly, it made me feel like I didn’t really know him, just like Ka doesn’t.

Jeremy

2024-10-03 19:21:00 UTC

I feel like Ka's dad is never given a name in order to just keep him as a general plot point. It keeps the readers questioning who he really is and kind of puts you more into Ka's shoes.

Ryleigh

2024-10-03 19:22:43 UTC

I feel like the father is not given a name because the story is not about him. It's about the people who were affected by him and his decisions. By not giving him a name, the attention is put on the other characters of the story. Also, to connect back to class he is a different person every time we read about him. By not giving him a name it makes the difference between the father's character easier to see.

Ella O-B, Mihalis S.

2024-10-03 19:23:13 UTC

I think we never get his name because leaving him as this mysterious "tool" kind of character benefits the story. He is depicted as kind of a tool throughout the story, like his actions move the story forward and impact the characters around him. Which is in direct contrast to when women are used as tools in stories, in which they don't even move the story forward they are simply there to help the men in the story. They don't play an active role in the story. For example in "The Great Gatsby", Daisy is literally a plot device for Gatsby to project all his ambitions onto throughout the story, she doesn't actually move her story forward, but all the characters around her do. Ka's father is like the male version of her in some ways, his actions do have consequences, however he isn't as active in the story as it may seem.

2024-10-03 19:23:23 UTC

Ka’s dad since the beginning of the book is someone who we and Ka know little about. Redacting his name from the book seems like a narrative choice, both to keep opinion on him negative and to add to the fact that he might not want to be known. I his goes all the way back to when he was explaining not liking his picture taken, and keeping his face covered too.

His name was also not important to the main plot, as he was built in the end through his own perspective to have little redeeming qualities.

Alex

nicholashelms1 — 2024-10-03 19:25:20 UTC

Makayla

2024-10-03 19:28:50 UTC

I think that Ka's father is not given a name because it is making him slightly less human. The rest of the characters deserve to be differentiated from him because they are experiencing the effects of his character and what he has done to each of them. He is a representative of the negativity in each person's life and their inability to put a name to that negativity makes it more universal and mysterious.

Jerry Swedberg

2024-10-10 15:57:57 UTC

I believe the reason we never get Ka's father's name can be for two reasons, or a combination. The first being that his name is not specified because he is defined more through his actions and other characters. The importance of his character doesn't come from himself, it comes from the effects of his life, the lasting trauma he has inflicted on people and generational trauma following and his actions to redeem himself following. The second reason I believe may be because the book means to show that this isn't meant to be one specific person. There was other "Dew Breakers" who have their own unique yet similar backgrounds and have greatly impacted many lives. The anonymity of his name is meant to connect to a Haitian history of generational trauma, and in giving him a name it would take away from that connection.