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Character Conflict
This title, the wall of fire rising, was derived from the play the young guy is taking part in their school. Its brief tale majorly revolves around the three-person family: the guy, Lili, and their seven-year-old son. It talks about a man who has high hopes that one time they will ride out of their current situation of extreme need and low living standards in Haiti. The guy manages to secure a job in a sugar mill, the little guy is in school, and Lili, the wife, does not work and stays home.
There are three main themes from this short story: poverty, the guy wants his son to a memory of him not just as a popper, they reside in a small, poor town known as the shantytown. Then parenthood is seen where the guy allows the little guy to have his way. He seeks a sugar mill job to provide for his family (Zhang, Xiaolei, et al., 234). Lastly, the pain of being locked out. The guy is excluded from Lili’s attention by the little guy, and then poverty has kept him a bay from his dreams.
The hot air balloon and Guy’s obsession- the hot air balloon symbolize hope, class, economic prosperity, and social gratification. It is a major source of conflict due to Guy’s obsession. The hot air balloon is an American got asset that no one but the Assads can afford in the shantytown, and this is a concept well known to all the inhabitants. The hot air balloon is a clear reminder of classism and a tool for separation from society’s eyes, but it is an escaping technique in Guy’s eyes. He fantasizes about using the hot air balloon to fly away of escape from his responsibilities and all the frustrations of life. In one of Guy’s fantasies, he takes the hot air balloon to a place where he can and free to build his own house, and it shows how much he perceives it as his ticket to freedom.
The hot air balloon, in the end, becomes a tool for him to commit suicide. In his fantasies, he sees himself flying the balloon high like a bird high in the sky bit then Lily makes him wonder why God created the air and birds with wings but human beings with eyes to see the birds fly and a desire to fly but with no means. Guy’s perspective of the hot air balloon symbolizes his freedom justifies his using it to commit suicide and escape all his frustrations and the harsh realities of life. Committing suicide, maybe, in his mind, was his only means of achieving the long longing for freedom that he kept fantasizing about.
The guy’s struggle with the little guy for Lili’s attention is first noted where the guy comes back excited with good news and wants to tell Lili but hardly had he start when the little guy gives his news boastfully that he is now in the school play and as such Lili had to pamper him with some sweet words of encouragement. When the guy sits on the grass and wants to talk to Lili again, the little guy comes in and wants to play a game with his dad, the hide and seek game .as such, again, the guy can’t talk to Lili. The guy is forced to postpone his news until bedtime hours so he can share with Lili. The following evening when the guy is from work and probably wants to rest little guy comes in with the lines he had memorized from the play and wants the guy to listen to it.
The conflict between poverty and the guy’s family is apparent where the guy admits that his father was unable to provide for his family. He says that he never wished to emulate his dad, a destitute, struggling man all his life [75]. The family eats a skimpy evening meal before they all proceed to have some enjoyment in the sugar mill where the government had installed a television for the shantytown dwellers. Due to this struggle with poverty, they hardly could afford their own television. The guy plans to commit suicide using the hot air balloon as he tells Lili that she’ll take good care of the little guy. the Guy wishes that he could take off with the balloon, but this is not possible due to poverty. He even says that he could float with it to the place that he can construct his dream residence. Due to poverty winning over, he is only left for the wishes.
There is a struggle between Lili and the guy. We see Guy trying to put little Guy’s title to the program for lasting employment when he grows up (Yao, Yongzheng, et al., 32). Lili strongly refutes that idea and clarifies that she doesn’t want to limit the little guy. Lili is anxious about the guy’s captivation with the hot air balloon, but she tries to hide; it does not want to ask him. When the guy squeezes the little guy’s ear as a form of punishment for complaining when Lili said that they should now head home, Lili tries to intervene for the poor little guy. Still, the guy does not take this lightly, and he even imagines that she looks down upon him, and she was then trying to sabotage him in front of the little guy.
Fight to win between two modes of entertainment in the story for the shantytown residents. The television at the local mill and the hot air balloon seems to amuse the guy greatly. It’s a norm that after having supper, they all head to their local sugar mill to watch the television, but this seems to be changing as Lili says that they had found their own new source of entertainment, which is watching hot air balloon. The guy himself is very much consumed with the new scenes of this balloon. They seem to have completely foregone the state-sponsored news.
In the end, the guy cannot change his current situation of poverty; he tries to secure employment but does not get a permanent job. He cannot provide for his family, so he resorts to committing suicide .he jumps from the hot air balloon in the sky onto the ground. When he is checked for a pulse, he is dead. He leaves his family behind, still in a state of extreme need. The little guy does not understand things happening; even at the guy’s passing, he recites his lines from the play he is taking part in.
Work Cited
Yao, Yongzheng, et al. “Maximum smoke temperature beneath the ceiling in an enclosed channel with different fire locations.” Applied Thermal Engineering 111 (2017): 30-38.
Zhang, Xiaolei, et al. “Experimental study and analysis on flame lengths induced by wall-attached fire impinging upon an inclined ceiling.” Proceedings of the Combustion Institute 37.3 (2019): 3879-3887.