First Three Stories in Kirk? Krak!

Ages

Our history is an important part that made us who we are. Parents and children’s relationship is well discussed as a theme of Kirk? Krak! After reading the first three stories, I found that there is something more interests me under the theme of the relationships. Parents and children’s relationship is sophisticated, but most of the behaviors of either the parents or the children can be explained by analysing their conflicts and expectations of each other. The conflicts and expectations can also be traced back to their histories, their heritages, their ages, and what makes them themselves.

All three stories contain people from different ages. Difference creates conflicts and confusions. In the third story, Guy came from an age of terror and oppression, while little Guy is living in a easier environment where people can express their will of freedom. From the scene that little Guy is able to participate in a show promoting “freedom,” we can see that little Guy is living in an era when people have some amount of freedom. However, Guy came from a time when freedom was restricted. When little Guy recites his new lines: “I call on everyone and anyone so that we shall all let out one piercing cry that we may either live freely or we should die,” Guy’s “heart hurts.” His heart hurts because he did not have freedom. He did not have freedom to choose his life, did not have freedom to live as himself, and did not have an opportunity to live as a man. He does not have a freedom to die, either. He was trapped in his ages, when murmuring was restricted as a sign of rebel and death as a consequence. He then sccort his son for murmuring in front of him. The call of freedom, however, connects Guy’s ages and Boukman's ages. When Guy sees his son is living in an era Boukman wished to build, he felt weak. Wishing not to be remembered as a man lives without freedom, Guy put himself on the balloon and flyed free.

Same feeling of weakness is presented in the first story. The father of the girl had never accounted political terror and did not know what to do. The age of resign he lived in is quite different from the age of rebel his daughter lives in. The argument was consequently happened.

Something changes, some are not. It might be a tradition, or it could be a belief that transpasses from ages to ages. In the second story, the Madonna was passed from generations to generations. The crying of Madonna was seemed as a superstition, same as the wings of flames. The narrator first let me think the tradition is just a flaw, because she had seen how the “tears” were prepared beforehand. They are just oil. However, at the end, I realized the tradition and the statue are just forms. The true value behind the heritage that lives through ages and ages of people is the spirit behinds the form. The Madonna, is a sign of trust between people. It is the purest bondage without any betray. It is this spirit, counting on somebody entirely, keeps the family for generations. The wings of fire, made the mother a guardian angel of the daughter. The last line in the second story: “Let her flight be joyful, and mine and yours, too” echoed the narrator’s mother’s line in the earlier part. It shows that she accepted and inherited the heritage from her mother’s age: not only the Madonna and the ability to “fly,” but also the willingness of sacrificing herself for the next generation.

Same action was taken by the girl’s father in the first story, giving all his money and life for his daughter. In the third story, Guy and Lili also worked hard to ensure little guy is fed. With the sacrifices, the expectations to the next generation are embedded in a more complex matter.