Everything Inside

Death appears across Everything Inside as a powerful motif related to the themes of trauma and resilience. Throughout the stories, characters confront the inevitability of death and grapple with the aftermath of losing loved ones. The presence of death underscores the fragility and impermanence of life, accentuating the resilience required to cope with loss and the enduring effects of trauma.

Six of the eight stories in the collection contain descriptions of death or an explicit threat of death; the collection’s power comes from its insistence on the inevitability of death. “Without Inspection,” the last story in the collection, contains two explicit depictions of death: first, the drowning death of immigrants trying to reach Miami, and then the protagonist’s death on a construction site. In both cases, Danticat emphasizes the structural forces—such as the Coast Guard, immigration officers, and negligent businesses—that caused the deaths. The recurring motif of death highlights the theme of the Trauma of Immigration, and reminds readers of the violence inherent to the immigration process.

Other stories, such as “Dosas,” “In the Old Days,” “The Gift,” and “Seven Stories,” depict the impact of death, specifically the emotional distress, on the individuals and communities left behind. In “Seven Stories,” for example, Callie faces lasting trauma from her father’s assassination, even decades after the event, when she’s the wife of a powerful politician.