Compare Flight and Your shoes

There is symbolism used in ‘Flight’ and ‘Your Shoes’. In flight the grandfather’s favourite pigeon was a representation of his granddaughter, what he does to his pigeons is what he want to do to his granddaughter.

“Shut the bird into a small box and fastened the bolt”. This shows that the grandfather wants to keep his granddaughter and doesn’t want to let her go. At the end of the story when the grandfather releases his favourite pigeon, he releases his granddaughter as he has accepted that she has grownup and it is her life. The grandfather’s favourite pigeon is used as symbol for his granddaughter. They are both liked by the grandfather and both the pigeon and his granddaughter are in similar situations. The pigeon wants to fly away and Alice wants to go with her boyfriend.

Similarly, In ‘Your shoes’ the pair of shoes symbolises the mother’s daughter and the relationship. “Laces like strings of white liquorice they taste so sweet”. By this mother is referring to her daughter shoes that she just bought for her but the daughter did not take them. The colour white also symbolises purity and innocence. “I locked the wardrobe door on those rebellious shoes” from this the mother is talking about her daughter because the shoes are said to be ‘rebellious’ which could be a way to describe her daughter.   As the shoes are ‘Locked’ away there cannot be a good relationship between the mother and the daughter.

There is a lot of imagery in both ‘Flight’ and ‘Your shoes’. In ‘Flight’ there is images that show freedom of the bird, which really symbolizes the freedom of Alice. “Sliver bird flew up and up” the intension of this is to create a feeling of freedom. These create the images of a vast and infinite space of land where you are free to go wherever you want. And the line “They wheeled in a wide circle” creates the image of a large area where one can move freely.

In ‘Your shoes’ Michele Robert uses imagery to show that the mother in the story cares for her daughter very much,’ I wrap my arms around myself and hold tight it keeps the pain in’. It mentions pain so this tell us she is hurt by the fact het daughter has run away, therefore it tell us she cares for her daughter a lot. Also in the story the mother says, I’ve tied your shoes laces together so they won’t get separated or lost’. This shows loss between the mother and daughter. The shoes laces tried together symbolize a mother and daughter so they won’t get separated or lost’. These create a sense of loss, as the mother and daughter are not tied together as they should be.

Structure in ‘Your shoes’ is written in the style of a monologue.” I thought I knew you…” The effect of this is to bring the reader closer to the character .It is almost as if we can read her thoughts. On the other hand ‘Flight’ is written in the third person “His eyes travelled homewards” the effect of this is to keep the reader distanced for the character. It also stops the story from being personal.

After comparing the three stories I believe that ‘Flight’ by Doris Lessing shows the theme of growing up. She uses a range of structure and language to convey this ideas Her interest in physiology has led to her writing in a very understanding way in the area of self analysis; she is able write about other people feeling more realistically , this is why her stories are very understanding. She uses imagery, symbolism and other techniques to show theme of growing up, relationship, which I thought was used best by Lessing. Michele Roberts did use language and structure to show the theme of growing up and relationship bur most importantly I thought the way Lessing used it was the most effective.