“Someone half mad, with grief that is, might pick up a shoe from the rug and hold it like a baby. Someone like me might do that.” She does just what little children often do, pretending to be mothers and fathers. Using substitute objects as babies, treating them as if they were real, believing they are real.
The main characters in story are also similar in different ways.
In “Flight” the grandfather is very, very possessive of his granddaughter. He doesn’t want to let her go because he will be left alone and no one will want him. This makes him quite bitter towards her, even though he loves her very much.
“ ‘She’s the last,’ he mourned. ‘Can’t we keep her a bit longer?’ ” This shows how he is finding it very hard to let her go. The youngest of four granddaughters is now leaving him and he doesn’t want her to go.
He is not only bitter about his granddaughter but about life in general. He is quite cruel, and has a short temper. We can see this by the way he treats his granddaughter and specifically, his birds.
“His mood shifted. He deliberately held out his wrist for the bird to take flight, and caught it again at the moment it spread its wings. He felt the plump shape strive and strain under his fingers …” The way he fooled the bird into thinking it could be free then quite bitterly grasped it back before it could move suggests his resentment- he resents that the birds are so happy (like his granddaughter) and he doesn’t want them to be. He feels better by stopping them doing what makes them happy. Similarly to what he would like to do to his granddaughter.
The grandfather is also very overprotective of his granddaughter, he doesn’t trust her boyfriend at all.
“ … Red-handed, red-throated, violent-bodied youth…” The way he describes the post masters son as ‘red-handed’ which is often a term associated with thieves and in particular criminals shows he doesn’t trust him at all. ‘Violent bodied’ again, which shows he thinks the boyfriend is an aggressive young person who may not take care of his granddaughter.
In “Your Shoes” the mother is what you might call a ‘typical’ mother. Her daughter has run away, she is worried. But you can see how she thinks about a lot of little things to do with her daughter, she is very inquisitive, she asks questions which she knows no-one will answer which shows she is a good mother but she is unconfident and doesn’t believe she is a good mother.
“What did toy have for lunch today? … How do you feed yourself out there on the streets? …Do you have to go with men? …”
This quote shows she is very concerned about her daughter. She wanders what her daughter is doing and how she is managing to survive.
“I suppose it’s my fault you’ve left home to sleep rough God knows where. Go on, blame your mother, everyone else does. I’m a failure as a mother.” She thinks its all her fault that her daughter has gone. Which shows she’s not a confident person when it comes to her daughter.
She is insecure, you can tell she feels quite lonely.
“I’m lying curled up in the middle of the bed…” She lays curled up, just as a little baby would sleep, in the foetal position. Suggesting she feels insecure, almost quite unsafe, and a lot smaller then she is. She feels helpless and because she is scared for her daughter she reassures herself by speaking to herself and stating some quite obvious things.
“… You have to live in a house with a front door and a letterbox if the postman is to deliver mail, and I don’t suppose you do.” Even though she knows her daughter isn’t living in a house and hasn’t got an address for contact she still tells herself this, which is often what people do wen they are nervous or scared and anxious. She seems to be quite a critical person. We can see this by the way she talks about her mother.
“Fat, let’s be honest. Terribly vulgar always saying the wrong thing ad laughing.” This suggests she doesn’t respect her mother very much by the language she uses to describe her mother (fat, vulgar) she speaks of her mother as quite inferior to herself and even suggests that her childhood may have been better if her father had married someone else.
“Flight” was written in the third person narrative whereas “Your Shoes” was written in the first.
I think in “Flight”, it was effective to write in the third person so that the reader can see what the character of the grandfather is like from an outsider’s view rather then hearing his thoughts directly. His actions pretty much showed what he was thinking, you could tell what he thought of things by the way he acted and things he did.
“He confronted her, his eyes narrowed, shoulders hunched, tight in a hard knot of pain which included the preening birds, the sunlight, the flowers…” At that point in the story, the way his actions and moves were described, its easier to imagine what he is doing and what he must be thinking about his granddaughter.
“Your Shoes” was effectively written in the first person because it was about quite a traumatic event and usually people often confide in diaries to explain situations. This story was almost like a diary. The mother talks in short sentences and asks lots of questions as one would as if they were thinking.
“I don’t know where you are.” “You used to love tinned tomato soup.” “You’re fifteen years old.” She talks as if she was thinking out loud which helps the reader understand how she feels more. You can almost imagine being there with her. The story straight away becomes a lot more personal and emotional. This differs from “Flight” where it is mostly written about the grandfather but we don’t just see his point of view.
Both of the stories contain symbolic elements. In “Flight” we can see how the birds that the grandfather takes care of and keeps are representing the granddaughter and how he wants to keep her to himself.
He treats the birds much like he treats his granddaughter. He locks away the birds, he never lets them fly and be happy, just how he does with Alice.
“ ‘Pretty, pretty, pretty’ he said as he grasped the bird and drew it down… ” Suggesting that he admires the birds but keeps them for himself like his granddaughter. He loves her very much and we can see this when he compares her to something beautiful.
“…And her long bare legs repeated the angles of the frangipani stems, bare, shining brown stems among patterns of pale blossoms.” He compares his granddaughter to nature. Natural beauty is something, which is considered to be a great thing, and he easily thinks his granddaughter is. Often you could associate ‘pretty’ things almost like collectors items, like antiques or belongings. He doesn’t like it when the birds are happy and can do what they like, just as he doesn’t like it when his granddaughter is happy and ca do what she likes.
“ ‘She’s in the garden with Steven’ ” He says this, because he is unhappy that she is in the garden with her boyfriend, he doesn’t want her to be there with him because he knows she is happy. Similarly he doesn’t let his birds fly, he keeps them in a small-enclosed box so they cant fly like they should. There are similar comparisons in “Your Shoes”. The mother treats her daughter’s shoes the same way the old man treats his pigeons. She wants to lock them away and protect them just as she does her daughter.
“… I stowed them in the wardrobe…” She keeps then enclosed, safe, in a place where she is sure they are, showing she would like to have that with her daughter, she wants to know where her daughter is and wants to keep her safe. The shoes represent the daughter in the story. The daughter wanted to get away, and in the story it seems as the shoes did too.
“One shoe pointed in fact towards the bedroom window, the view of the front garden, and the other pointed towards the door.” This shows cleverly how the daughter also wanted to get away, her shoes directed towards the window which is often associated with ‘escaping’ and another to the door which is used as and entry or exit. In this case an exit. The shoes were in an un-orderly position so the mother straightened them out.
“I made them neat again…. Just in case. I locked the wardrobe door on those rebellious shoes… But they’ve got to learn, haven’t they. Kids these days. Well.” This quote represents what the mother would like to do with her daughter, lock her up in a cupboard where she can’t get away. She calls the shoes ‘rebellious’ which is also a word, which could describe her daughter. She explains how she made them neat again, like she sorted them out, as she would like to ‘sort’ her daughter out.
Both the stories include similar ideas. Both with problems caused to older loved ones by younger family members. The main characters act in a similar way aswel.
The End
