Trauma and absence in Danticat's "The Dew Breaker"

In The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat the ideas of trauma and absence are very prevalent. The characters in this novel all experience some kind of trauma or loss resulting in an absence. Danticat uses these two themes to create a common connection between the characters and their lives both separately and combined. For Ka trauma is defined through what she thought her father was and also through her coming to know her real father and his past. Ka used her father as inspiration not only for her art but in her life choices. When she finds out that her father was a hated man in Haiti she loses inspiration, trust, and beliefs. In my African American Literature class we discussed how each of us would react to finding out about deceptions by our fathers and there were a couple different thoughts on this. Many said that they would be upset or angry with their father because of the fact that he lied while others said that they would feel sorry for him because of the fact that he had to hide this for so many years. I think that it would be interesting to hear other people's opinions and reactions to some of the other traumatic events in the novel and relate them to how people in the novel react to trauma such as this. I believe that this would give insight in many ways to the characters and their actions and to the author as well.
Some examples of trauma in the novel are Nadine and the waterchild, Ms. Hinds losing her voice, Estine and Dany's parents dieing, and Claude killing his father and returning to Haiti not knowing Creole. In my opinion, Dany has the most apparent trauma that he is dealing with in his life. He has experienced loss numerous times and is dealing with revenge and confusion in many ways. Dany, after experiencing all of his own trauma is left to deal with that of Claude. I believe that because I haven't finished the novel and am only on page 141 i don't quite understand how to conclude the ideas of trauma and absence. If anyone ever reads this and wants to know more, I will be expanding upon it at a later time after I finish the novel.
There are a few more topics that i would like to cover in this blog and they include that of epiphenomenal subjectivity and how the characters relate to this, similarities and differences in the chapters, and absence in reference to identity. So on the note of subjectivity and such, it is apparent in the novel that the characters revolve around phenomenon that is occurring in their world at the time and they seem to be defined by this. Their lives are what show the epiphenomonal aspect in that they have residual things happening in their lives that are all related, in some way, to the bigger situations at hand. The chapters show this aspect or idea very well through the form and references therein. In the chapter "The Book of The Dead" Ka experiences the death of her ideas of her father while there are references to death in many other instances. In the chapter "The Book of Miracles" Anne, Ka's mother, sees the father's indiscretions and his transformation from that part of his life as a miracle while there are many other stories about miracles in the lives of others. There are other references to this as well but i would like to move onto the idea of absence as identity or lack thereof. Absence as stated earlier is very apparent and I think that the idea of it relating to identity is very important. There are many instances wherein absence creates identity including Estine's loss of sight leading to heightening of other senses to create another version of sight, and Dany's absence of parents and family creating his acceptance of others and perhaps leading to his uncertainty. All of these ideas are just starting to form in the area of the novel that I am at and therefore I will have to expand upon this at the conclusion of the novel. I hope this provokes thought in the readers of it and if there are any questions or comments feel free.