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Dany
The preacher is the minister of a large church in Bel Air, a poor neighborhood in Port-au-Prince. He is Anne’s stepbrother, though he left the family home at 14 years old. He broadcasts sermons over the radio in which he tells stories from the Bible about people who stood up against tyrants—a thinly-veiled message to Haitians about the importance of resisting the Duvalier regime. The preacher’s activities lead to his wife being killed by poisoning, which fills the preacher with guilt, although he remains unsure if he regrets his principled opposition to the regime. The preacher himself becomes a target, and Papa is assigned to kill him. However, once Papa arrests the preacher and brings him to Casernes (a military barrack serving as a prison), the government becomes worried about turning the preacher into a martyr, and thus they order him to set the preacher free. Papa intends to do so, but the preacher ends up maiming Papa with a broken chair leg, leaving him with a scar that reminds him of his violent past for the rest of his life. In retaliation, Papa shoots the preacher. Despite the torture he endures and the position of utter powerlessness he is placed in before he dies, the preacher feels a sense of hope at the end of his life, based in the continued existence of kindness shown by people like Léon and the other prisoners at Casernes.
The Preacher Quotes in The Dew Breaker
The The Dew Breaker quotes below are all either spoken by The Preacher or refer to The Preacher. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Dew Breaker (Circa 1967)
Quotes
But he could never shake from his thoughts the notion that his wife’s death had been his fault, that she’d been killed to punish him for the things he said on his radio program or from the pulpit of his church.
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He had been counting on a quick death, not one where he would disappear in stages of prolonged suffering interrupted by a few seconds of relief. He had never thought he’d have reason to hope that maybe his life might be spared. He hadn’t expected the kindness of his cellmates, men of different skin tones and social classes all thrown together in this living hell and helping one another survive it.
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Maybe be shouldn’t have preached those “sermons to the beast,” as he liked to think of them. But someone needed to stir the flock out of their stupor, the comfort that religion allowed them, that it was okay to have wretched lives here on earth so long as Heaven was glowing ahead. Maybe his death would do just that, move his people to revolt, to demand justice for themselves while requesting it for him. Or maybe his death would have no relevance at all. He would simply join a long list of martyrs and his name would vanish from his countrymen's lips as soon as his body was placed in the ground.
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And yet he had not been completely defeated. The wound on the fat man’s face wasn’t what he had hoped, he hadn’t blinded him or removed some of his teeth, but at least he’d left a mark on him, a brand that he would carry the rest of his life. Every time he looked in the mirror, he would have to confront this mark and remember him. Whenever people asked what happened to his face, he would have to tell a lie, a lie that would further remind him of the truth.
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The Preacher Quotes in The Dew Breaker
The The Dew Breaker quotes below are all either spoken by The Preacher or refer to The Preacher. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Dew Breaker (Circa 1967)
Quotes
But he could never shake from his thoughts the notion that his wife’s death had been his fault, that she’d been killed to punish him for the things he said on his radio program or from the pulpit of his church.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
He had been counting on a quick death, not one where he would disappear in stages of prolonged suffering interrupted by a few seconds of relief. He had never thought he’d have reason to hope that maybe his life might be spared. He hadn’t expected the kindness of his cellmates, men of different skin tones and social classes all thrown together in this living hell and helping one another survive it.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Maybe be shouldn’t have preached those “sermons to the beast,” as he liked to think of them. But someone needed to stir the flock out of their stupor, the comfort that religion allowed them, that it was okay to have wretched lives here on earth so long as Heaven was glowing ahead. Maybe his death would do just that, move his people to revolt, to demand justice for themselves while requesting it for him. Or maybe his death would have no relevance at all. He would simply join a long list of martyrs and his name would vanish from his countrymen's lips as soon as his body was placed in the ground.
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Explanation and Analysis:
And yet he had not been completely defeated. The wound on the fat man’s face wasn’t what he had hoped, he hadn’t blinded him or removed some of his teeth, but at least he’d left a mark on him, a brand that he would carry the rest of his life. Every time he looked in the mirror, he would have to confront this mark and remember him. Whenever people asked what happened to his face, he would have to tell a lie, a lie that would further remind him of the truth.
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