Nineteen Thirty-Seven, By Edwidge Danticat Analysis

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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 …show more content…

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

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