In my native language there are several characters which mean ‘struggle’. 

奋(fen): Its top is 大 which shape looks like a big man stretching out the legs and arms.  田 shapes  like a large piece of farmland that includes ‘four’ fields. The picture of 奋 shows that a man is doing heavy labour work in the field. You can't grow crops well if without paying great strength! 

拼(pin）:  Its first part is called '提手旁' (picking-up-hand-component) that really looks like the arm plus the hand with five fingers if you prolong the bottom of its vertical stroke; The right part 并 means ‘put together’.  Everyone has only two hands. What for when you 'bind‘（use） both hands to work？ Obviously you are doing your  best to achieve some goal for which you are ready to pay any price even including life if necessary!  In the movie I saw that  brave soldier holding up the knife high with the hands to fight against several enemies around.  You can imagine his mindset and how hard he was doing at that moment.

(To be continued) 

（To the editor:  I could not post the above onto the language-learning webpage. ）