Structure

Written in first-person, present tense, Danticat’s essays blend autobiography, amateur philosophy, and literary analysis. Each essay tackles a death from a different angle: for example, “Condemned to Die” examines the issue of capital punishment; “Wanting to Die,” the issue of suicide; “Close Calls,” near death experiences, etc. At times, Danticat begins her essay with a personal anecdote (e.g., “Close Calls,” “Dying Together,”), whereas at other times, she begins with a philosophical aphorism (e.g., “Wanting to Die,” “Condemned to Die”); similarly, Danticat’s essay’s endings differ, varying between personal anecdotes (e.g., “Ars Moriendi”) and literary analysis (e.g., “Wanting to Die”). However, despite these obvious differences in structures, all of Danticat’s essays weave together her own life with the lives of literary characters, leading Danticat to philosophize about the nature of death.

By seamlessly entwining literature with personal anecdotes, Danticat argues that...