The shoes symbolize the daughter and she locks them in a room with her so the husband can’t get in and so she can spend time with her daughter.
Your Shoes is very effective because it gives you an insight into the bizarre mind of the mother. It is written in 1st person, present tense. This could give a biased point of view, but the writer writes it in such a way that it is un-biased. Also the way the mother writes it in 1st person just shows how self centred she really is. A good example of this is on line 163 “At first I kept the shoes in the box, I made them.”
Using the shoes and daughter as symbolism helps the reader to understand what emotions the mother is going through at the time. So whenever she talks about the shoes you could adjust it in terms of the daughter.
The second story we looked at Flight is involves an old man, his birds, his daughter, his granddaughter and his granddaughters boyfriend.
This short story starts off with him being protective to the extent where he can be over protective of these birds. Because the birds are dependant on him, this makes the old man feel wanted and needed by the birds.
Something makes his attitude change, whereas before he was content now he is considering letting the birds go free, but changes his mind just as the bird is about to fly off. He is afraid to let the bird go so locks and ‘protects’ it in the box. This is a good example of how over protective he can be.
What he has been subjecting the bird to has annoyed the granddaughter and has caused arguments between the two of them. The old man has destroyed his relationship with the granddaughter and she is not pleased to see him.
Their relationship can be compared to sand if you were to put some in your hand and leave it, it would go nowhere, whereas if you were to tightly grasp a handful of sand it would squeezed out between your fingers. Just like the old man is squeezing his granddaughters love out of his life.
The old man tries to be interested in his granddaughter but is also angry at the same time. And the granddaughter is on guard in case of another argument. This has produced great hostilities between them both.
The grandfather threatens to tell the mother but the granddaughter is neither bothered nor scared of him or his threat. She walks away singing which in turn annoys the grandfather who goes back to his birds as a retreat from his granddaughter and family.
He regrets his threat, she then goes off with Steven her boyfriend, the old man becomes jealous of his granddaughters relationship with her boyfriend and fearful because he knows its not going to stay like this and his granddaughter is going to change. When he sees the two of them together he shouts out “I see you” but they ignore him. He goes into the house to get back up from his daughter, but he doesn’t get it. She tries to humour him by telling him to put his birds to bed and generally treating him like a child, he stamps his feet and behaves like a child and says “I don’t want any tea.” The daughter points out that she was married at 17 and the granddaughter is now 18. The old man refuses to listen; he accuses his daughter of forcing his granddaughters to get married ‘early’. The old man says “She’s the last can’t we keep her a bit longer,” just like she was a pet. He’s worried she’ll change just like the others.
The daughter says she’ll marry next month there is no reason to wait.
The grandfather goes onto the veranda and sees the couple. Steven was carrying a pigeon, and just like a child he says “for me.” Steven hands him the pigeon and they reassure him nothing will change and they will always be there for him, the bird was proof of this. They said this with lying eyes because they knew things were going to change. The granddaughter tells him to keep it locked up until it knows where its home is.
He puts the new bird in the box and takes out his favourite which symbolizes his granddaughter, “now you can go” he said to the pigeon. He held the bird ready for flight and he looks at his granddaughter as if to say now you can go. He then releases the bird. They all watched the bird soar into the sky.
This short story ‘Flight’ is moving and has a great message behind it, its use of symbolism is good when the old man releases the birds. The way it is written 3rd person, past tense gives it a sense that there are two sides to an argument, and emphasises the grandfathers and the granddaughters conflicting ideas. It is also giving an un-biased view because you are hearing both sides of the story and not just one.
The way the writer goes into depth about what they say to each other shows how long the two of them have been having this argument for, but gives no reasoning behind the argument and what started it all off.
Also the way the writer portrays the old man as a stubborn yet sometimes babyish man, just shows the reader how long this argument has gone on for. If it had not been very long then he would have not portrayed the old man in this way.
Just like Your Shoes, Flight uses symbolism in a very similar way, with both poems using objects to represent people. Also both poems use human emotions and feelings a lot in the text, and both go into detail about the relationships between the people involved in each poem.
