Freedom

        Why there have to be some people die in the stories?  Born in troubled times, most people lead their lives of vagrancy.  Then, when we read their stories, we know the how insignificant an individual's strength is.  Therefore, how can we carry the heavy spirit of freedom on our shoulder?
        In the Children Of the Sea, two main characters put their freedom into letters with hope and love.  The girl has to stay at home, and her father does not allow her to go outside and does not allow her to meet with the boy.  Even though her father wants to keep her safe, she is yearning meeting the boy.  The boy is on the boat and leaving Haiti involuntarily.  He seems to look for freedom because he was going to the United States.  However, his heart always belongs to the girl, and his freedom is her.
        He wrote on his notebook, "I look up at the sky and I see you there."  Before the sentence, he mentioned the endless mountains and endless sea.  The mountains and sea can symbolize the overcome, and in his description, they are suppressing the boy's living space, and I felt the endless waiting of new life brings hopelessness to the boy.  Then, he wrote, "I look up at the sky and I see you there."  It is unrelated to the environment he mentions, and it does not fit the feeling that he wrote before.  It is a short statement without any word polishment.  The simple and straightforward sentence is written so easily that it is like the boy is discussing the weather, common and emotionless.  However, compared to the sentences before this statement, I can see a huge emotional crush between the sentences and the statement.  The statement is like a depressant of the negativeness; it is also like an only light shone through the boy's darkness and consoled his heart.  The sky can save you from the endless mountains and ocean, and the girl is there, so she is the savor for the boy to set him free.
        In Nineteen Thirty-Seven, the main character's mother is persecuted to death.  Actually, not only her mother is persecuted by the soldier in the prison, but also her mother's mother is killed by soldiers near the river on the same date that her mother gives birth to her.  At the end of the story, Josephine, the main character, remembered, "When Jacqueline and I stepped out into the yard to wait for the burning, I raised my head toward the sun thinking, One day I may just see my mother there."  The tone of the story is full of sadness because, from the beginning of the story, Josephine's mother is in the prison.  Her mother spends a long time in the prison and dies there.  Each time Josephine visits her mother, her mom's health is getting worse.  However, when Josephine really sees her mom's dead body is burning in the fire, she does not feel that mournful.  Instead, she looks up to the sky, to the sun and thinks she might meet her mom one day.  The sentence is not negative at all.  Instead, it contains a bit of wish and a bit of hope, because for her and for her mother, death might be a good choice.  After all, death is better than suffering through the life.  Compare to suffering, death is a form of freedom for Josephine's mother.
        In A Wall of Fire Rising, the setting is not as mournful as Nineteen Thirty-Seven.  The story tells a small family living in small lives.  Mother, Lili, is a strong and nice woman; father, Guy, a man who has a stable job and take care of his family all the time; their son, Little Guy, works hard and gets the main role, Boukman, and a lot of lines in drama.  The lives are simple until Guy flies the hot balloon.  When I read he is fling the hot balloon, I know everything cannot come back.  Their normal lives cannot come back, and the relationship between Lili and Guy is broken completely.  I think he leaves Lili and his son and flies away, but I don't expect Guy will jump out of the hot balloon.  I am completely shocked.  I do not understand his action until I read Lili's words, "No, leave them (Guy's eyes) open.  My husband likes to look at the sky."  Here comes another sky, and clearly, this sky represents the strong will of freedom.  Guy eagers to fly to the sky, so that he can escape from the unsatisfied job and an unsatisfied life.  Then, when he chooses to jump from the hot balloon, I think he denies every possible happiness in the future and there is nothing left for him to expect.  It reminds me of a Germany philosopher, Nietzsche.  He said if you cannot live proudly, then you should die proudly.  Therefore, Guy chooses to die in his most free, glorious moment.  I feel pity about him, but ar that moment, he is completely free.
        All three stories mention the sky, and their themes all contain freedom.  Different people in the different family environment look up to the same sky and seek for the different freedom figure in their minds.  Even though they use their stories and lives to define freedom, they are seeking for a same goal and a same spirit, freedom.