Children are the hope of most parents. Whether the love for children is driven by natural ability or nurture personal love, love for children and put hope on them is what everyone does in the first four stories in Kirk? Krak! In Children of the Sea, the girl is protected by her father, and Celianne gives birth on the boat. In Nineteen Thirty-Seven, the mother passed her Madonna, also her religion and her hope, to her daughter, Josephine, before she died. In A Wall of Fire Rising, Lili fully supports her son, and in Night Women, the mother also deeply loves her son and lives for this love and hope. People live with hope and die with hopelessness. Children of the Sea and Night Women show the two clear examples by comparing and contrasting Celianne in Children of the Sea and the mother in Night Women.
Even though Children of the Sea is not Celianne's story directly, we can tell that she is pregnant after she is raped by the soldiers through the boy's letters. Then, she gave the childbirth on the boat on the endless sea. It is a brave action, and it is so painful for Celianne, but what happened after can be even painful and frustrated. How to raise the child becomes a big problem. In the first few days, the boy writes, "Celianne is holding her baby tight against her chest. She just cannot seem to let herself throw it in the ocean." The words are written when the baby is still alive but not crying. Maybe the baby never lives because it is not crying, but at that moment, none of them is sure the baby is dead. Celianne still holds her baby when water leak into the boat. Many people slap behind Celianne, but she is not crying and not angry about it. She sits in silence and lives for the baby until the baby turns to purple: the baby is dead. Then, the words show, "she threw it overboard. And quickly after that she jumped in too." When the baby turns purple, Celianne is still waiting for the baby to turn back. People want to throw it overboard while Celianne is sleeping, but Celianne does not sleep, which shows that she still keeps her baby and fight for it. However, after she ensures the baby is dead, she throws it into the sea and jumps with it. We can tell that she is hopeless and tired of everyone in the world. When the baby is alive, she will endure every judgment behind her, but when the baby is dead, she cannot stand the life anymore. It demonstrates how much hope and wish of living she put on her baby.
People die because of children, but people also live because of them. The mother in Night Women is a prostitute, which has the same condition with Celianne. They experience what they do not want to. However, the mother is more fortunate. She has a healthy son, and the son is studying in school happily. Therefore, the mother will live for it. At the end of the story, "When I walk back into the house, I hear the rise and fall of my son's breath. Quickly, I lean my face against his lips to feel the calming heat from his mouth." It is casual description without so much emotion in it. However, if we relate the words to the women last description that describing the sex last night, we can see that how numb she is when she works. "Calming heat" is the heat from her son's mouth, and it can also show how calming that the mother feels. It means that the heat will calm her down from the work last night. It is like an atonement that heals the mother's negative self-cognition and warms her cold heart. The mother put all hope on her son because her son is her hope, and the mother will live strongly with her son, with her hope.
No comments:
Post a Comment