“Flight” is a story about leaving home and becoming independent. The story tells of an old man who keeps birds and seems to be very protective of his last granddaughter. He has seen his other granddaughters leave home, marry, and grow up. He seems to be slightly jealous of Steven who is Alice’s boyfriend. In the story, the birds seem to symbolise the granddaughter. This also could be interpreted as the birds symbolising how the grandfather would like the granddaughter to be like. In the end, the grandfather lets the granddaughter go and this is symbolised in the release of his favourite pigeon.
It seems to me that the relationship in “Flight” between Alice and her grandfather is quite close. I think this because both seem to have a mutual understanding of each other. One example of this would be Steven giving a pigeon to the grandfather. I think this is the case, as I don’t think Steven would have given a bird to the granddad on his own accord. Therefore, this would mean Alice thoughtfully made Steven give the bird to show the granddad that he could look after the bird instead of her.
“Your shoes” is quite different. The author of “Your shoes” has developed the mothers character in such a way the reader can get a real good insight in what the mother is thinking. This gives us much more detail then anything we got from the Grandfather in “Flight”. The mother seems to the reader frustrated that people don’t act in the “proper” way. In the end the mother is left holding her daughters shoes as if they were her substitute. This is quite an extreme from the reaction the grandfather took as he was able to let her daughter take “flight”.
During both stories, the relationships between the adults and the children all seem to mature for better or worse. In “flight” the relationship between Alice and her Granddad all changes when Steven presents a pigeon to the granddad. The Granddad seems get a revelation and changes his view on the relationship between Steven and Alice. He accepts the fact that his little granddaughter has grown up. This is symbolised in him releasing his favourite pigeon.
In “Your Shoes” we can not see the relationship at first hand but from the detailed insights from the mother we can assume a lot of things. I think that the relationship between mother and daughter was never very strong. Firstly, the daughter who was very fond of her grandmother had died. The mother detested her own mother and we assume that it must have hurt that her daughter preferred her Grandmother to herself. Then finally the daughter running away seems to symbolise there whole relationship. This is quite somewhat different from “Flight” as mother in “Your Shoes” seems to go mad, in the end sucking on her daughters shoelaces.
In conclusion, both stories seem to have similar relationships at the starting of the story as the children want to grow up. Then both relationships shoot off in different directions, as the mother in “Your shoes” was unable to let go while the Grandfather in “Flight” let his granddaughter free.
