In her essay "Flight," Doris Lessing illustrates the story of an old man who is learning to let go his granddaughter as she grows into an adult

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Essay on "Flight"
It is always hard to get separated from someone you love and with whom you have shared every moment of his life until he decides to walk on a different path than yours. You don't know how to react and confusion dominates your mind. Should you be angry at him for leaving you, or should you support and respect his decision ? In her essay "Flight," Doris Lessing illustrates the story of an old man who is learning to let go his granddaughter as she grows into an adult and is about to get married. Lessing wisely delivers this particular old man's situation   to her readers through her use of literary techniques and devices. Thus, she greatly succeeded at making her readers feel and live the grandfather's difficulty to get separated from his granddaughter.


Throughout the story, Lessing skillfully uses narration and description to catch the readers attention, making us feel the grandfather's state of emotions. Hence, in the beginning of the story, we first meet his granddaughter Lisa through his eyes that "travelled homewards along the road until his granddaughter swinging on the gate underneath a frangipani tree. Her hair fell down her back in a wave of sunlight ; and her long bare legs repeated the angles of the frangipani stems, bare, shinning brown stems among patterns of pale blossoms." We follow the movement of his eyes that see her as a shinning light that illuminates his life to which he is addicted. Moreover, Lessing's detailed description gives us a clear picture of every event such as the grandfather's obsession to get Lisa's attention : "Obstinately, he made his way to the house, with quick, pathetic, persistent glances of appeal back at her. But she never looked around." The author also questions her readers to make him feel present in the story, preserving her story unpredictable : "A present for her ?"


Nevertheless, the dialogue and the punctuation is also cleverly used to illustrate the old man's emotions. His first conversation with Lisa clearly exhibits his anger towards the fact that she's seeing the postmaster's son and he expresses it through a furious tone of voice and the repetition of   " hey " : " " Hey ! he shouted (...) Waiting for Steven, hey   (..) Think you're old enough to go courting, hey ? (...) Think you want to leave home, hey ? "   Consequently, he feels left a part, and desperately tries to get help from his daughter in a panicking voice : " "Lucy," he said urgently, "Lucy..." " However, when he notices that his daughter approves Lisa's involvement with the postmaster's son, confusion and frustration strike his mind : " "Why do you make your girls marry ? It's you who do it. What do you do it for ? Why ? " " We can feel how touch he is when he acknowledges that his daughter is going to get married, and that he cannot do anything about it.

Nonetheless, it would be reasonable to say that the simile and symbolism are predominant throughout the short story. The old man is crazy about his birds and loves them so much that he keeps them in a dovecote to make sure that they will never leave him. In the beginning of the story he takes out his favorite bird " held out his wrist for the bird to take flight, and caught it again at the moment it spread its wings." Hence, this favorite bird of his is actually a simile for his granddaughter. He wants to keep the birds to himself the same way he does not want Lisa to get involved with anyone. Lessing portrays Lisa in the garden singing which "mingled with the crooning of the birds." The granfather needs the presence of his bird just like he needs the presence of his granddaughter and without this presence he feels angry and

sad, which is probably why he desperately asks his daughter : "Can't we keep her a bit longer ? " Just like the sky is described empty without the bird, the garden is empty without Lisa. Moreover, at the end of the story when the old man, "clenched in the pain of loss,"   lets his favorite bird and all the other ones go free, they surprisingly return to the valley, and he lifts "his eyes proudly down the garden at his granddaughter." This cliché is actually very symbolic ; by letting his favorite bird go and finding out that it comes back symbolizes that the grandfather can let go Lisa knowing that she'll come back, and that he'll never lose the things that he truly loves.    

Thus, Lessing wisely managed to recount her short story by illustrating the importance of Lisa to her grandfather's eyes, who finally understands he cannot keep her to himself for ever. She also shows how his mentality evolves by demonstrating his recognition for Lisa's happiness at the end of the story, acknowledging that Lisa will never let him down. Lessing could have presented her ideas in a dull and predictable way but instead, she offered us an original and touching short of a Grandfather, his granddaughter, and his bird.

The short story Flight is written by Doris Lessing about a old man learning of
letting go of his grandaughter as she grows into an adult and is about to get
married.

The story is told in an omniscient third person point of view and this enables
us to see into the minds of all characters, which inturn help us to understand
their feelings and attitudes.   When story are told in an omniscient way, the
readers will have a better understanding of what is going on in the story. This
story not only described what the old man is feeling, but also other characters.
The old man feels that his youngest grandaughter is still much too young to be
married and is not willing to let go of her. He 's attitude seems grumpy but
deep down inside it hurt him very much to see his grandaughter growing up and
with her boyfriend Steve. From the description we had for this old man, we can
understand much better what he feels. Then, this story have focused a bit closer
to the grandaughter's mother and her point of view on her daughter's

marriage, which she is happy with. The omniscient positions readers to a god-like position
which will let us have a better understanding of what the character feels, and
also all the `conflict' the character is experiencing and feeling.

The characters's point of view are important in revealing the main theme of this
story which is learning to let go. By understanding the characters's point of
view, we are able to decide what main theme is about.

Firstly, the story have taken us a `tour' in the old man's position which
enabled us to understands what he is feeling. Even seeing that his grand-
daughter is no longer the cute little girl anymore, he still couldn't accept the
fact that she has grown up and is starting a family of her own. He feels alone,
and hopeless. He believe that after she gets married, nothing will ever be the
same again. She won't keep him as company anymore and he will only have his
pigeons. But the young girl's mother have a totally different point of view as
she believes that her daughter have found a good home and she

is old enough to
get married. As for the young girl herself, she feels nothing will ever change
even if she got married. She will always love her grand father. As all of the
character's point of view are revealed, we have a more clarified view of the
theme of this story.

In this story, the author has used the old man's pigeons as a symbolism of his
grand daughter.

In the story, the old man treats his favourite pigeon like his grand daughter.
He would pretend to let loose of the pigeon and when it is about to fly, he
would grabbed it back quickly and put it back into the cage and saying`now u
stay there'. This sort of symbolises the old man is not letting go of his grand
daughter and as his grand daughter is trying to `fly away' from her home. At the
end of the story, when the old man fanily agrees to let go of his grand daughter,
he took out his favourite pigeon from the cage and let it fly away. This
symbolised that he had learned to let go of his beloved grand daughter and is
letting the young to take its first flight into the real world.

Love is one of the most powerful emotions that will usually exist when everything else has gone. Therefore, it is really miserable when you have to let go of the one you love. In the short story “Flight” by Doris Lessing, we see how much the granddad loves his granddaughter, and how he does not want to give her up to someone else. This love comes to the granddad a lot of conflicts, he wants to keep his granddaughter but in the other hand, he has to learn and accept of letting go of his granddaughter as a circle of life. “Flight” was published in 1957, in a collection of short stories entitled The Habit of Loving.
Throughout the story, all of the characters have their proper names -   Alice, Lucy, Steven - except for one person, the main character: the old man. He is anonymous from the beginning to the end. Doris Lessing lets the main character go nameless in order to show that what happens to this character could happen to anyone. Moreover, the old man seems to be a symbol of the old generation who always wants to keep their children in their way.
At the beginning of the story, we see the old man loves pigeons. He calls them homing pigeons because of their excellent natural instinct, they are always

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able to find their way home back even far away from home hundreds of miles. One of them is his favorite pigeon which he depicts as “a young plump-bodied bird” and often plays with by calling “Pretty, pretty, pretty”. It is without doubt to say that his favorite pigeon is an embodiment of his granddaughter – Alice. From this image, the old man seems to say how beautiful his Alice is, how much he loves her, and how hopeful his daughter can be like the homing pigeons -   always knows the way home back to him, always be with ...

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