The Theme Of Hope In Edwidge Danticat's A Wall Of Fire Rising

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Why do people tend to falsify tales when in a tragic setting? Many authors of great books have credited their amazing stories to the human behavioral tendency of fabricating stories and having dreams to distract them from reality. Krik? Krak! Is a collection of such stories, in which every story is somehow linked in a not-so-obvious way. In Edwidge Danticat’s novel, it is shown that people in suffering are thus hopeful, yet their hope leads to despair as they realize that hope does not free them from the harsh reality of their own lives. Guy, a working husband and father struggling to feed his family, from “A Wall of Fire Rising”, reveals the depth of his despair when he decides to take his own life. Throughout the story, Guy talks of flying …show more content…

Marie had just traveled from her hometown of Ville Rose, where discarding your child made you wicked, to the city of Port-Au-Prince, where children are commonly left on the street. Marie finds a child that she thinks could not be more beautiful, “I thought she was a gift from Heaven when I saw her on the dusty curb, wrapped in a small pink blanket, a few inches away from a sewer as open as a hungry child’s yawn” (79). Marie has suffered many miscarriages, so she takes this child as if it were her own, “I swayed her in my arms like she was and had always been mine” (82). Marie’s hope for a child has paid off, or so it seems. Later, it is revealed that the child is, in fact, dead, and Marie fabricated a story to sanction her hopes and distract her from the harsh reality of her life, “I knew I had to act with her because she was attracting flies and I was keeping her spirit from moving on… She smelled so bad that I couldn’t even bring myself to kiss her without choking on my breath” (85). Her life is thrown back into despair as her cheating husband accuses her of killing children for evil purposes and sends her to …show more content…

Celianne, a fifteen-year-old pregnant girl, was raped when a dozen men raided her home and forced her brother and mother to sleep together. She found out she was pregnant and boarded the boat as soon as she’d heard about it. The child represents the hope of a new life, away from the persecution awaiting back in Haiti. Celianne finally gives birth to a baby girl and the acting midwife prays for the baby to be guided by God, “Celianne had a girl baby. The woman acting as a midwife is holding the baby to the moon and whispering prayers . . . God, this child You bring into the world, please guide her as You please through all her days on this earth” (17). However, the childbirth quickly turns into a despairful occasion as the child is revealed to have been dead when the narrator comments about the appearance of a dead baby, “I never knew that dead children looked purple” (22). Celianne, overcome with sadness and anguish, throws her baby into the ocean and soon jumps after her child, “And just as the baby’s head sank, so did hers” (23). The residents of this boat sought hope in the miracle of childbirth, yet reality struck when the child and mother both died and sank

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