A Wall of Fire Rising by Edwidge Danticat Short Story Analysis (Essay Example)

The short story “A Wall of Fire Rising” by Edwidge Danticat is more than a story about a classroom play, and a man's obsession with a hot air balloon. The level is much deeper and shows a glimpse into the struggles of Haitian life. Danticat is able to illustrate the realities of continued unemployment, poverty, and starvation with the small family in this story. Edwidge Danticat uses a continual theme of entrapment in the story to portray the effects of social and economic instability on the Haitian people.

Danticat expresses the theme of entrapment through his characters and their lives. The character Guy is an excellent example of someone who is trapped by poverty. Guy has aspirations of providing a good life for his family, but this is proved improbably in the sense that even securing a job in their village is hard. Wilson Chen states, “While the family's lived experience of oppression is evident, the specific forces and structures of entrapment are less discernible in the story, as Guy, Lili, and their son struggle to survive within brutal economic structures in which power appears effectively disperse” (Chen 4). The primary source of work in their village is the sugar mill. While Guy struggles to make ends meet for his family, the sugar mill owner often flies around in a hot air balloon showing off his wealth and social status to the poor citizens of the village. Danticat shows that Guy and Lily want a better life for themselves and their son, but with social and economic instability, their lives are instead filled with poverty. “A Wall of Fire Rising” takes place in post-revolutionary Haiti. The setting of the story is essential to the theme showing that most of Haiti at the time was living in poverty. Guy and his family reveal what it was like living in Haiti at this point in time; it was a place where poverty and hunger flourished, and the people could only dream of escaping this everyday life.

The symbolism used by Danticat is interpreted in many different ways. One of the symbols in the story is the hot air balloon “The hot-air balloon is a French invention and, as such, represents power as well as the power to move, to rise and beyond the harsh life of Haiti” (Marxen 145). The hot air balloon owned by the elite owners of the factory can be seen as a symbol of wealth and power and can be seen as a way to escape. In the story, Guy is fascinated by the balloon and sees it as a way to be free from his life. For Guy, the balloon is freedom, but the release he seeks is only available in death. Little Guy recites a line in the story that states, “We may either live freely or we should die” (Danticat 154). The line from the play can be seen later playing out with Guy. Guy would instead jump from the balloon and remove his shackles of oppression. For Guy, a life without freedom is not a life worth living. The story's title can be used as a symbol for the theme. “A Wall of Fire Rising” a wall of fire will stop anything from getting past. This firewall symbolizes the social structure that afflicts the Haitians who were freed from slavery.

Danticat uses her writing to express her cultural history.  In an article by Lisa Ortiz, she gives credit to Danticat by saying, “Danticat draws on the ability to speak through her own characters as a weaver of tales who actively imagines her ancestors' memories” (68).  Danticat can paint a picture of how bad Haiti used to be because of her past and cultural history. She is very talented in her style of writing; she uses complex characters to demonstrate her observations on the socioeconomic and cultural realities of Haitian life. “A Wall of Fire Rising” is a story about dreamers. In the story, Guy and Little Guy are both dreamers, with Lili being the voice of reason. The sky symbolizes freedom for Guy and is shown as almost an obsession of his. Guy dreams of freedom and escaping the life he and his family have.  Little Guy dreams of succeeding in school and shows this by working so hard to memorize his lines for the play. Lili is not much of a dreamer like Guy and Little Guy. She is a strong woman who cares about the well-being of her family and is the voice of reason that calms things down.

Danticat’s writing shows the theme of entrapment and how far someone will go to be free. A journal article on Haitian studies uses Guy as an example. It states that “Even as we absorb the tragedy that Guy, deprived of real freedom, has chosen death, we are drawn into the history of revolutionary heroes that keep open the possibility of a continued struggle for freedom” (Scott 90). The characters yearn for freedom as they are prisoners of their society. Danticat’s story shows people that will do anything to break free from oppression and poverty. But what does it mean to be free? Freedom can be defined as either having the ability to act or change without constraint or possessing the power and resources to fulfill one’s purpose. The characters in the story are certainly not free and show a deeper meaning to the search for freedom. Danticat illustrates that these characters' only freedom is living through the day and hoping that they survive the night. The story depicts the dreams of independence by repeatedly detailing Guy’s ambitions of flight. Flying for Guy is a way of escaping poverty and oppression. Although “A Wall of Fire Rising” is a fictional story, Danticat uses the story to detail the standard form of life for those who lived in Haiti before her. The characters Guy, Lili, and Little Guy convey what life in Haiti is like for a small family. The family is trapped and is deprived of absolute freedom, money, and food.

Danticat’s “A Wall of Fire Rising” shows how tough Haitians are. Danticat uses her story to represent ordinary Haitians and the struggles that they go through. The story shows the length between people’s dreams and the brutal reality they live with. Danticat is a storytelling expert, and an argument can be made that “A Wall of Fire Rising” is a literary response to the ethical issues of social structure and oppression towards Haitians. The characters in the story help describe that a wall of poverty traps the people. With no room to grow, the people are left with nothing but hopes and dreams. Foreshadowing can be seen in the story with Little Guy reciting the words of Boukman “We may either live freely or we should die” (Danticat 154). When Guy jumps out of the hot air balloon, he would rather die than live trapped in a society where he cannot live freely. The lines Little Guy recites are powerful and call to the need for liberation in the Haitian community. Danticat uses the story to show that Haitian independence has not been fulfilled and that dreams alone cannot mask the harsh reality of the people that live there.

Edwidge Danticat uses a continual theme of entrapment in the story to portray the effects of social and economic instability on the Haitian people. Danticat is able to show on a deeper level the theme of entrapment because of her cultural history and vast knowledge of Haitian life. She does so by using the characters, symbols, and literary devices to show the importance of freedom and the need for liberation in the Haitian community. One man with merely a dream cannot capture the freedom Boukman speaks of, but a community of inspired people can fight for it.