Nineteen Thirty-Seven, By Edwidge Danticat Analysis

The word freedom has one definition, ...right? Contrary to popular belief, the word freedom, has a multitude of different definitions and every person has a different idea of what freedom means to them. Krik! Krak? by Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat shows the multiple viewpoints of different fictional Native Haitians to reveal their ideas of freedom. With those viewpoints and the recurring symbols; flight, wings and butterflies, Danticat attempts to form a broad image of Haitian freedom.
In “Nineteen Thirty-Seven”, diving through the crimson river gave the women “wings of flames” to show that freedom has been achieved. The protagonist of this story, Josephine, who was still unborn when her mother crossed the river, says that “We came from the bottom of that river where the blood never stops flowing, where my

mother’s dive toward life一her swim among all those bodies slaughtered in flight一gave her those wings of flames” (35). Symbolising all the women who crossed the river to obtain their idea of freedom一in this case would be escaping to a free land一and in turn, growing “wings of flames”.
In “Wall of Fire Rising”, Guy takes off in a hot air balloon to convey the idea that he is hoping to find freedom, but he falls out and dies, which also could present the idea that his form of freedom was death.

This can be proven after Guy talks to Lili, his wife, about how he wants to use the balloon to fly away from Haiti and find free land when he says, “Sometimes, I just want to take that big balloon and ride it up in the air. I’d like to sail off somewhere and keep floating until I got to a really nice place with a nice plot of land where I could be something new” (61). All Guy wants to do is go somewhere where he can live in peace; however, Guy did not directly answer Lili’s question asking him if he would take her and his son with him if he left, which links to the question Guy later asks then answered, “how a man is remembered after he’s gone? I know the answer now. I know because I remember him as a man that I would never want to be” (63). That, being the last thing Guy said to Lili before next morning, taking off in the hot air balloon and jumping off. So it is proven that Guy killed himself to be free of being the man his father

was.
In “Children of the Sea”, two different hopes for freedom are revealed; escaping to a free land hoping to live the life he wishes to, and the other being the hope that someone will come and restructure the government to save the place she’s already in. The first protagonist, a young boy, hopes to make it to Miami on a boat with 36 other Haitians, “...looking into their empty faces to remind me of the hopelessness of the future in our country” (5). Here, the boy claims that he left because he believes that Haiti will never become the country where freedom is possible. The second protagonist, the young girl, stays in Haiti because she believes that it can somehow be saved, “there is a rumor that the old president is coming back. there is a whole bunch of people going to the airport to meet him” (16). And later saying, “people are just too hopeful, and sometimes hope is the biggest weapon of all to use against us” (16). This statement presents the idea that the girl does doubt that Haiti can be restored, but at the same time, she hopes that it will one day become the place that Haitians want it to be.
Can you picture what freedom is to you? How has it affected your life? Krik! Krak? entails how people will go to great lengths to achieve their form of freedom, no matter what it is, even if it risks death or the end result is death.