A Wall Of Fire Rising Summary

Throughout Haitian history there has been unimaginable struggles that these people had to go through. In “Figures of Flight and Entrapment in Edwidge Danticat’s Krik? Krak!,” Wilson C. Chen summarizes the many different ways in which the Africans prevailed by transcending or “flying” through different Haitian stories and folklore. He defines and explains the different ways the word “flying” is portrayed, and the effects it has on others. In the various themes of flight, one way can be referred to as actual physical flight, to fly in the air with wings. In “A Wall of Fire Rising” Guy took physical flight in the hot air balloon, soaring high above the rest of the village in hopes to fly away. Another way flight can be described as more figurative,

By many, those tales are to be believed as if these people were committing suicide as a form of transcendence. It was a part of reality, people could not bear to live the live they were living, so they decide to stop living it. Throughout time, African descendants were very steadfast in which they had power in deciding their fate, to be free, even if their physical bodies are not. One of the ways to be able to transcend from enslavement was by maintaining or keeping their culture prior to being captured and sold into slavery. Another was by their African religious vodou, which would give them spiritual power to be able to

Chen explains the realistic matter of flight with consequence. In “A Wall of Fire Rising,” Guy elevates in his balloon, but knowing there is not anywhere to go, he jumps to his death. In doing so, both his wife and son are left standing over Guy’s blood-soaked body in shock over the fact that he is gone and left without them. Guy was ultimately able to escape the horrors of his life, but in doing so he left behind his family to have to find ways to cope and adapt to a life without him. In an evaluation to the article, the author is able to determine the many “figures of flight” Danticat uses all through Krik? Krak!, by both citing the book itself and comparing it to other stories like folklore and legends of African culture. In doing so, Chen establishes credibility because of the inability to alter things like folktales and legends. It allows the reader to comprehend the point the author is trying to make. For example, the story of Daedalus and wanting to bring his son with him, but his son, Icarus, ends up flying too close to the sun; is contrasted to Guy’s dream of flying