Curtis Green
Mrs. Pack
English 1101
19 June 2015
Knowing What It Takes to be Gone
“A Wall of Fire Rising” Edwidge Danticat’s “A Wall of Fire Rising is a short story from her book “Krik? Krak!” that provides a life lesson by showing dedication, knowledge and love within a small family. The short story is about a Haitian family who doesn’t have much, but they make do with what they do have.
There were three main characters in this story. Guy and Lili dealt with the cards they were given and made use of all that they did have even though it wasn’t much. Guy worked hard to be a great dad to Little Guy, and a great, providing husband to Lili. Lili is a woman who pushes both her husband and son to be the best that they can be. Little Guy was his
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Not long before Guy jumped out of the hot air balloon; he had asked Lili what was her idea of how a man should be judged after he’s gone. She stated “A man is judged by his deeds, the boy never goes to bed hungry. For as long as he’s been with us, he’s always been fed.” Later in the story, Guy stated that he now knew the answer to the question that he had asked Lili, “How is a man remembered after he’s gone?” His answer was “I know because I remember my father who was a very poor struggling man all his life. I remember him as a man that I would never want to be.” This was more of an open statement for him to say that he was getting ready to take his chance on freedom.
Once I got to the part in the story where it began to talk about the expression on Little Guy’s face and nearly knocking Lili off balance, my heart dropped. I began to ponder with so many questions, like: “Why did he jump out of the balloon, instead of sailing off as far as he could?” “Why didn’t he take his family along with him?”. I began to recall in the story when he said to Lili that sometimes he just wanted to take the hot air balloon and ride it up into the air and to keep floating until he got to a place with a nice plot of land where he could be something