Sebastien Onius Character Analysis

“She didn’t show a lot of affection to me. I think she believed this was not a good way to raise a girl, who might not have affection the rest of her life. She also didn’t smile often.” […] “Her name was Irelle Pradelle,” I say, “and after she died, when I dreamt of her, she was always smiling. Except of course when she and my papa were drowning.”

“[A] boy carrying his dead father from the road, wobbling, swaying, stumbling under the weight. The boy with the wind in his ears and pieces of the tin roofs that opened the father’s throat blowing around him. The boy trying not to drop the father, not crying or screaming like you’d think, but praying that more of the father’s blood will stay in the father’s throat and not go into the muddy flood, going no one knows where.”

“Give yourself a pleasant dream. Remember not only the end, but the middle, and the beginning, the things they did when they were breathing. Let us say that the river was still that day.”

“And my parents?”

“They died natural deaths many years later.”

“And why did I come here?”

“Even though you were a girl when you left and I was already a man when I arrived and our families did not know each other, you came here to meet me.”

“Sometimes the people in the fields, when they’re tired and angry, they say we’re an orphaned people,” he said. “They say we are the burnt crud at the bottom of the pot. They say some people don’t belong anywhere and that’s us. I say we are a group of vwayajè, wayfarers. This is why you had to travel this far to meet me, because that is what we are.”

“You never believed those people could injure you… Even after they killed Joël, you thought they could never harm you.”

[…] Perhaps I had trusted too much. I had been living inside dreams that would not go away, the memories of an orphaned child. When the present itself was truly frightful, I had perhaps purposely chosen not to see it.

“You call me Man Rapadou,” she said. “I know your story.”

Which story of mine did she know? Which story was she told?

“Everything you knew before this slaughter is lost,” she said. Perhaps she was encouraging me to […] forsake Sebastien, even my memories of him, those images of him that would float through my head repeatedly, like brief glimpses of the same dream.

“When you know you’re going to die, you try to be near the bones of your own people. You don’t even think you have bones when you’re young […] But when you’re old, they start reminding you they’re there. They start turning to dust on you, even as you’re walking here and there, going from place to place. And this is when you crave to be near the bones of your own people. My children never felt this. They had to look death in the face, even before they knew what it was. Just like you did, no? […] Leave me now,” she said. ”I’m going to dream up my children.”

“She didn’t show a lot of affection to me. I think she believed this was not a good way to raise a girl, who might not have affection the rest of her life. She also didn’t smile often.” […] “Her name was Irelle Pradelle,” I say, “and after she died, when I dreamt of her, she was always smiling. Except of course when she and my papa were drowning.”

“[A] boy carrying his dead father from the road, wobbling, swaying, stumbling under the weight. The boy with the wind in his ears and pieces of the tin roofs that opened the father’s throat blowing around him. The boy trying not to drop the father, not crying or screaming like you’d think, but praying that more of the father’s blood will stay in the father’s throat and not go into the muddy flood, going no one knows where.”

“Give yourself a pleasant dream. Remember not only the end, but the middle, and the beginning, the things they did when they were breathing. Let us say that the river was still that day.”

“And my parents?”

“They died natural deaths many years later.”

“And why did I come here?”

“Even though you were a girl when you left and I was already a man when I arrived and our families did not know each other, you came here to meet me.”

“Sometimes the people in the fields, when they’re tired and angry, they say we’re an orphaned people,” he said. “They say we are the burnt crud at the bottom of the pot. They say some people don’t belong anywhere and that’s us. I say we are a group of vwayajè, wayfarers. This is why you had to travel this far to meet me, because that is what we are.”

“You never believed those people could injure you… Even after they killed Joël, you thought they could never harm you.”

[…] Perhaps I had trusted too much. I had been living inside dreams that would not go away, the memories of an orphaned child. When the present itself was truly frightful, I had perhaps purposely chosen not to see it.

“You call me Man Rapadou,” she said. “I know your story.”

Which story of mine did she know? Which story was she told?

“Everything you knew before this slaughter is lost,” she said. Perhaps she was encouraging me to […] forsake Sebastien, even my memories of him, those images of him that would float through my head repeatedly, like brief glimpses of the same dream.

“When you know you’re going to die, you try to be near the bones of your own people. You don’t even think you have bones when you’re young […] But when you’re old, they start reminding you they’re there. They start turning to dust on you, even as you’re walking here and there, going from place to place. And this is when you crave to be near the bones of your own people. My children never felt this. They had to look death in the face, even before they knew what it was. Just like you did, no? […] Leave me now,” she said. ”I’m going to dream up my children.”