Chambers 1

Sheila Chambers

Professor Allison Johnson

LIT2000

27 May 2021

Elusive Freedom

“Freedom is the oxygen of the soul,” Moshe Dayan once proclaimed. Just as oxygen is

necessary for survival, so is freedom equally necessary. This idea is proven in “A Wall of Fire

Rising” when Guy risks everything for a slim chance to achieve what he wants most: freedom.

He and his family live in poverty and deprivation, surviving day by day. Freedom for this

threesome seems unattainable because of their poor circumstances. It resides in sight but remains

out of reach. The central conflict in Edwidge Danticat’s story is that Guy is unable to find

satisfaction in merely surviving, instead feeling an unquenchable need to escape the cage of

poverty no matter the consequences.

Even in the beginning, Guy struggles with his penury and lack of work. He lives in a one

room Haitian home with his family, struggling to earn even enough money to buy food. The

narrator affirmed, “The jobs at the sugar mill were few and far between” (Danticat 96). Though,

after months, Guy finally gets work, he is not happy (Danticat 103). He is obliged to scrub

latrines for money, a degrading and filthy task. Forced to live in inescapable poverty, Guy

dreams of escape. His confinement and deprivation shape his innermost desires and expectations

of life away from his current existence, which consists of merely surviving in less-than-ideal

circumstances. He wants better than he has, but such a life seems out of reach. His deepest desire

– freedom – remains unfulfilled.

 Chambers 2

At first, Guy’s longing for freedom and desire to escape responsibility is a distant hope.

Mesmerized by the wealthy mill owner’s hot air balloon, he frequently stares at it from the other

side of the fence. He believes he could fly it, given the chance, and knows that he could do more

than cleaning latrines but lacks the motivation. Little Guy recites a line from his play,

proclaiming “…we may either live freely or we should die” (Danticat 154). This call deeply

affects Guy, and he returns to the mill, staring at his symbol of hope and liberty. Later, Guy tells

Lili that she is wonderful with their son and that, one day, she “will make a performer of him”

(Danticat 162). He does not include himself in his family’s future, mentioning only that Lili will

help their son avoid the life Guy is trapped in. He does not attempt to hide his desire to fly away,

declaring, “I’d like to sail off somewhere and keep floating” (Danticat 166). Guy wants liberty

more than anything, but, to get it, he would have to leave everything he knows and loves behind.

The resolution, and Guy’s desire to escape his life, is foreshadowed when he asks his

wife how a person is judged when they were gone. He tells Lili that he fears becoming his father

“who was a very poor struggling man all his life” (Danticat 190). This line hints what is to come,

implying that the balloon Guy is obsessed with represents liberty not just from poverty and

responsibility, but from his mortal existence. The conflict heightens when Little Guy says,

referring to his father and the hot air balloon, “he is in it” (Danticat 198). Guy wanted to escape

the impoverished circumstances that kept him from truly being free, so, when he jumps, Guy is

trying to obtain the ever-elusive freedom. The conclusion resolves this desire, as Guy gets the

freedom he craves. It is satisfying because Guy no longer has to suffer and, even though the only

way he thinks he can be free is to commit suicide, he does achieve liberty from poverty,

degradation, and responsibility. When asked if she wanted to close Guy’s eyes, Lili says, "my

husband, he likes to look at the sky,” referencing Guy’s wish to be free, a wish he was able to
 Chambers 3

achieve only through his death (Danticat 226). In pursuit of his dream, Guy lost sight of what

mattered most – his loss illustrating the cost of seeking fame, fortune, and freedom.

Throughout the story, Guy’s yearning for freedom from penury, deprivation,

responsibility, and life escalates. He plans his suicide for most of “A Wall of Fire Rising,”

touched by Little Guy’s lines about freedom and intent on escaping his poor circumstance no

matter the repercussions. Surviving but never thriving, he fights against his poverty and his

inability to free himself from the confines of mortality, which keep him restrained and unhappy.

In a thought-invoking twist, Edwidge Danticat concludes her story as she foreshadowed, with

Guy finally achieving the liberty he craved only after he died and escaping the bonds of poverty

only to suffer the consequences of achieving his dream, losing his family and his life.

Works Cited

“Moshe Dayan Quotations at QuoteTab.” QuoteTab, www.quotetab.com/quotes/by-moshe-

dayan. Accessed 26 May 2021.

Danticat, Edwidge. “A Wall of Fire Rising.” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Ed. Kelly J.

Mays. New York: W. W. Norton& Company, Inc., 2013. 306-308. Print.