Flying: The Transformation of Heart, Mind, and Soul Essay

A child’s journey to adulthood usually involves relatively small events, such as getting a driver's license or going to college. In the short story “Flight” by John Steinbeck, however, the main character Pepe’s transition is far more intense. Although he initially displays enough maturity to be sent off into town by himself, his independence is short lived. Once in town, a disappointing lack of self control swiftly leads to his downfall. He decides that he must kill a man to defend his name, and is forced to run for his life in order to escape the law. As Pepe goes on this journey, the theme of growth and maturation is conveyed through Steinbeck’s uses symbolic objects in Pepe’s life. The conflict with society that

Furthermore, O’Brien describes this jumbo jet as if it is a real bird. He explains its appearance as “a big sleek silver bird with feathers and talons high and screeching”, to explain the beauty of this plane. He uses imagery to emphasize the significance the freedom birds has on them. O’Brien gives a clear picture to allow readers to understand that even with their emotional baggage, they still have hope that they will one day be happy

As a child, Jacob Portman loved to listen to his grandfather Abraham’s stories about his life in wars, his performances in circuses, and his life in a supposedly peculiar children's home run by a wise old hawk who smoked a pipe. As he grew older, though, he began to doubt his grandfather’s stories, until one day he went to visit his grandfather, and instead found him dying in the woods near his home. His dying grandfather tells him to go to the old children’s home and to “‘Find the bird. In the loop. On the other side of the old man’s grave…’” (page 37). Jacob feels something watching him, and raises his flashlight to reveal a beast that seemed to have been translated directly from his childhood nightmares. After his grandfather’s death, no one seems to believe Jacob’s story and his parents decide to send him to a psychiatrist, named Dr. Golan. Dr. Golan believes it would be best for Jacob to do as his late grandfather said and to visit the old children's’ home. Jacob and his father decide to go to the island, but later Jacob finds the house long deserted, covered in vines and trees.

The father “[sustains] the illusion that [the son] was I (the father), and therefore, by simple transposition, that I was my father (the father’s dad).” Since the father is clogged up with his reminiscence, he seems to forget who he is. The confusion the father gets is due to the fact that he cannot accept that he is getting old. It is something that is so surreal that he believes he is “living in a dual existence [between his son and himself].” During their fishing trip with the father and son, the father realizes that it was “the arrival of this fly that convinced [him] beyond any doubt that everything was as it always had been, that the years were a mirage and there had been no years.” However, the father begins to feel “dizzy and didn’t know which rod [he] was at the end of.” It shows that the father is trying to distinguish himself from the past and the present. He is trying to convince himself that he is the past; but in reality, this is the present in which he is no longer a child. The father tries to drift off to the past so he can forget about the realities of who he is. His present time, as an adult, is trying to realize that time is in fact a continuing process where one has to move on from the

his rig is parked. He says it looks “like a gigantic bird that has flown home to roost”

In Tony Morrison’s “Song of Solomon” it explores the discovery of ethnic identities. It depicts the life of Macon Milkman Dead, a withdrawn loner who doesn’t feel accepted by others and is disconnected with his family and heritage. With help from others in his community Milkman takes a trip to discover himself and his roots bringing him closer to the true meaning of his purpose. Milkman in turn realizes that flight represents liberation from a life of restrictions, set in an era of racism and separation. Flight may seem as a positive solution to such a life of problems and discrimination, however, holds very negative aspects in family settings. Abandoning your own and severing those mutual bonds plays a significant role in the life of the loved ones left behind. Most are left recovering from their loss, or completely lose hope such as Hagar. Solomon leaving his wife Ryna and children behind was necessary sacrifice he had to make in order to be free. Solomon is never punished or looked down for his decision; in his song it acknowledges his accomplishment as a great achievement. In “Song of Solomon”, the ability of flight symbolizes the escape from oppression while searching for freedom.

-Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder: In one of Alberto’s letters to Sophie he talked about flying. A small experiment shows Sophie the difference between the ideas of a child and a grown adult, and how something like flying can get such a different reaction from the two. “One morning, Mom, Dad and little Thomas, aged two or three, are having breakfast in the kitchen. After a while Mom gets up and goes over to the kitchen sink, and Dad - yes, Dad - flies up and floats around under the ceiling while Thomas sits watching. "What do you think?" Thomas says. Perhaps he points up at his father and says: "Daddy's flying!" Thomas will certainly be astonished, but then he very often is. Dad does so many strange things that this business of a little flight over the breakfast table makes no difference to him. Now it's Mom's turn. She hears what Thomas says and turns around abruptly. How do you think she reacts to the sight of Dad floating nonchalantly over the kitchen

Materialistic possession plays a pivotal role within Milkman’s family and life offering a means of escape from dispossession, despite its eventual development into greed. Early in the book, when Milkman believes that his father was the absolute power within his household, Macon Dead Sr. is telling his family about buying some vacation homes on the lake and selling them to colored folks during the summer. He questions, “Who’s going to live in them?” This questioning tone reveals his distrust of his father and his agreement of the belief that “There’s no colored people who can afford two houses.” (Morrison 33) Milkman sees his father trying to fill and fix his dispossession but doesn't agree with his methods. Here he must confront his father's

He has a friend named Guitar, who messes around with drugs, and alcohol, and I would like to think that Milkman is just a kindhearted boy who was just led in the wrong direction, due to Guitar’s nature. Milkman’s father, Macon dead Jr. is the literal example of someone being “wrapped up in their work,” since the beginning of the story, where he stopped caring about his wife Ruth, and started abusive towards her, and his relationship with his children is close to nothing, and this alone makes me dislike him. However, his wife Ruth Foster, is a very kindhearted person, and tries to lose herself in little activities. I think that Macon may be able to reveal a theme towards us, and I think it may be along the lines of a time for work, and a time for

Years later, Milkman and his friend, Guitar, are amazed by the mysterious, even mystical appearance of a peacock over the building of the used car lot where they stand. As the bird descends, Milkman mistakes it for a female, but Guitar corrects him: "He. That's a he. The male is the only one got that tail full of jewelry. Son of a bitch." Milkman, in all his innocent conviction of male superiority, asks why the peacock can fly no better than a chicken, and Guitar, who wants to catch and eat the bird, answers, "Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can't nobody fly with all that shit. Wanna fly, you got to give up the shit that weighs you down" (179-80).

Since Milkman decided to fly and retrieve his family’s gold alone, Guitar thought Milkman would keep all the gold for himself, even though he said he would split his findings with Guitar. This is significant because they had been great friends for years, but their trust for one another had slowly decreased as the story progressed. Leading up to this chapter, Milkman had been increasingly afraid of Guitar and his secret activist group, so once in the air, Milkman got this feeling of freedom and invincibility from danger, which was the complete opposite of what he had been feeling for the last five chapters and the opposite of how he felt when he was still on the ground, talking with Guitar before takeoff. The author sets a tone of relaxation

In the introduction of the film, the narrator was talking about how a bird struggles for survival when losing a parent. The bird loses an extra care taker, making life’s survival rate decrease. The bird's loss of a parent is the archetypal symbol in this story because Nicholas Nickleby losses his father after the bird story is read in the introductory. Nicholas and his family's life situation becomes more difficult economically because of the lack of income. The death of a parent is brought up several times throughout the story like Smike's tragic story. Smike had the most difficult life out of all the death of a parent situation because he grew up never knowing either of his parents. A child struggles to grow up with only one parent, but having no parents to be raised by is twice as hard. Smike was never raised by anyone except Mr. Squeers, who raised him as a slave. Also, Anne Hathaway's character lives with only her father because she lost her mother very young. She struggles to earn money for her and her father’s living up until she loses him as well. At the end of the story, Kate and Nicholas Nickleby marry their significant other. The man marrying them says that growing up without a parent is always difficult, but sharing and creating new blood for someone else rebuts a family, making a stronger bond. This wraps up the archetypal symbols seen throughout the entire film from the scene of the bird losing a parent in the beginning of the film to the

When the couple was at the bus-stop, they saw a dying bird, which symbolized their son, who was slowly dying because of his condition. The couple eventually learns that their son recently attepted to commit suicide. This symbolism was supported later in the story, as the mother shared how her son drew birds with human characteristics, as seen in the following passage: “that was when he drew wonderful birds with human hands and feet, and suffered from insomnia like a grown-up man” (Nabokov np). In fact, one of the son’s attempts in committing suicide was learning to fly, which shows how he considered himself as a bird. Due to this, the son viewed the sanitarium as his cage, so he wants to escape it.

(179). The literal meaning of the statement discusses how peacocks are unable to fly very well due to their frilly tail, yet Morrison uses this instance as an opportunity to create a metaphor. This instance explains how Milkman will never be able to achieve his dream of freedom unless he rids himself of that which hinders him— his unknown identity as a Dead. The statement additionally conveys the idea that in order to fly, or die, one must have nothing left for them on earth, making them completely free. The confusion continues for readers as Milkman does not yet know the meaning of belonging to the Dead family, and neither do readers.

He continued scouting out the window, the face haunting his thoughts. The surprising realism didn’t perplex him; it was the stare. He couldn't shake the feeling there’d been intelligence behind the eyes. Too bad he didn't get a photo. She was lost forever. He did have the next best thing, though—his notebook. He'd been writing and drawing stuff in it for the last couple of years. He could draw Cloud Girl and show it to his mom when she woke up.