Krik? Krak!: Epilogue: Women Like Us

by Edwidge Danticat
In this short story collection, award-winning writer Edwidge Danticat explores everyday life in Haiti.

Here are links to our lists for the stories in the collection: Children of the Sea, Nineteen Thirty-Seven, A Wall of Fire Rising, Night Women, Between the Pool and the Gardenias, The Missing Peace, Seeing Things Simply, New York Day Women, Caroline's Wedding, Epilogue: Women Like Us, In the Old Days
16 words 20 learners

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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. parlance
    a manner of speaking natural to a language's native speakers
    Always use your ten fingers, which in her parlance meant that you should be the best little cook and housekeeper who ever lived.
  2. indolence
    inactivity resulting from a dislike of work
    Writing was as forbidden as dark rouge on the cheeks or a first date before eighteen. It was an act of indolence, something to be done in a corner when you could have been learning to cook.
  3. confidante
    a woman or girl to whom secrets can be entrusted
    They were the best confidantes for a lonely little girl.
  4. coarse
    rough to the touch
    When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity.
  5. unruly
    unable to be governed or controlled
    When you write, it’s like braiding your hair. Taking a handful of coarse unruly strands and attempting to bring them unity.
  6. soliloquy
    a dramatic speech giving the illusion of unspoken reflection
    Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes, and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers.
  7. diction
    the manner in which something is expressed in words
    Those whose fables and metaphors, whose similes, and soliloquies, whose diction and je ne sais quoi daily slip into your survival soup, by way of their fingers.
  8. contour
    any spatial attributes, especially as defined by outline
    They curse you each time you force them around the contours of a pen.
  9. scald
    burn with a hot liquid or steam
    In our world, if you write, you are a politician, and we know what happens to politicians. They end up in a prison dungeon where their bodies are covered in scalding tar...
  10. forge
    move ahead steadily
    We need to forge ahead with our heads raised, not buried in scraps of throwaway paper.
  11. burnish
    polish and make shiny
    A thousand women urging you to speak through the blunt tip of your pencil. Kitchen poets, you call them. Ghosts like burnished branches on a flame tree.
  12. patois
    a characteristic language of a particular group
    These women, they asked for your voice so that they could tell your mother in your place that yes, women like you do speak, even if they speak in a tongue that is hard to understand. Even if it’s patois, dialect, Creole.
  13. dialect
    the usage or vocabulary characteristic of a group of people
    These women, they asked for your voice so that they could tell your mother in your place that yes, women like you do speak, even if they speak in a tongue that is hard to understand. Even if it’s patois, dialect, Creole.
  14. asunder
    into parts or pieces
    What goddesses have joined, let no one cast asunder.
  15. unconditional
    not subject to any restrictions or limitations
    You learned in school that you have pencils and paper only because the trees gave themselves in unconditional sacrifice.
  16. testament
    strong evidence for something
    And this was your testament to the way that these women lived and died and lived again.
Created on Tue Sep 11 14:15:07 EDT 2018 (updated Tue Sep 11 14:50:40 EDT 2018)

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