VIETNAM NATRIONAL UNIVERSITY – HO CHI MINH CITY

UNIVERSITY OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LINGUISTICS AND LITERATURE

----- -----

Course: Introduction to Literature

Lecturer: Ms. Đặng Nguyễn Anh Chi

FLIGHT
TEAM No. 02
Full Name ......................................................................... Student No.
1. Võ Huy Bình................................................................. 1867010020
2. Lương Tuấn Anh .......................................................... 1867010009
3. Nguyễn Hồng Đăng ..................................................... 1867010029
4. Nguyễn Đình Hồng Ân ................................................. 1867010004
5. Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải ...................................................... 1667010082
6. Bùi Nhân Hậu .............................................................. 1667010105
7. Ngô Thị Hoàng Loan .................................................... 1667010184
8. Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Chúc ................................................ 1867010025
9. Nguyễn Duy Thành ...................................................... 1767010270

CLASS : 18/1
AUGUST 2020
 Table of Contents
I. BIOGRAPHY (Nguyễn Đình Hồng Ân) .............................................................................................. 2
1. Life event .............................................................................................................................................. 2
2. Works ................................................................................................................................................... 3
3. Achievements: ...................................................................................................................................... 4
4. Question ................................................................................................................................................ 5
II. II. PLOT SUMMARY: (Nguyễn Duy Thành) ...................................................................................... 5
1. Plot summary ........................................................................................................................................ 5
2. Main parts of the story .......................................................................................................................... 6
3. Plot techniques...................................................................................................................................... 7
III. SETTING (Ngô Thị Hoàng Loan) .................................................................................................... 7
1. Setting of Flight: “Time” ...................................................................................................................... 8
2. Setting of Flight: “Place” ...................................................................................................................... 8
3. Socioeconomic conditions: ................................................................................................................... 8
IV. CHACRACTER ................................................................................................................................ 9
1. The old man – Major character (Võ Huy Bình) ................................................................................... 9
2. Alice – Minor character (Võ Huy Bình) ............................................................................................. 10
3. Two minor characters (Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Chúc) ............................................................................... 10
a. Lucy: ............................................................................................................................................... 11
b. Steven ............................................................................................................................................. 11
c. Question.......................................................................................................................................... 12
V. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:............................................................................................................ 12
1. Body language: (Nguyễn Hồng Đăng) ............................................................................................... 12
2. Dialogue: (Nguyễn Hồng Đăng) ......................................................................................................... 13
3. Repetition: (Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải) ....................................................................................................... 14
4. Simile: (Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải) ............................................................................................................. 15
5. Metaphor: (Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải) ........................................................................................................ 16
6. Personification: (Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải) ............................................................................................... 17
7. Symbolism: (Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải) ..................................................................................................... 17
VI. THEME: ............................................................................................................................................. 19
1. Growing up and leaving home: (Bùi Nhân Hậu) ................................................................................ 19
2. Nature: (Lương Tuấn Anh) ................................................................................................................. 19
3. Conflict: (Lương Tuấn Anh)............................................................................................................... 20
4. Comparison: (Lương Tuấn Anh) ........................................................................................................ 21
5. Conclusion: (Lương Tuấn Anh) ......................................................................................................... 21

1
I. BIOGRAPHY (Nguyễn Đình Hồng Ân)

1. Life event
Doris Lessing, in full Doris May Lessing, original name Doris May Tayler, (born
October 22, 1919, Kermānshāh, Persia [now Iran]—died November 17, 2013,
London, England)
Both of her parents were British: her father, who had been crippled in World War I,
was a clerk in the Imperial Bank of Persia; her mother had been a nurse. In 1925,
lured by the promise of getting rich through maize farming, the family moved to the
British colony in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe).

Lessing has described her childhood as an uneven mix of some pleasure and much
pain. The natural world, which she explored with her brother, Harry, was one retreat
from an otherwise miserable existence. Her mother, obsessed with raising a proper
daughter, enforced a rigid system of rules and hygiene at home, then installed Doris
in a convent school, where nuns terrified their charges with stories of hell and
damnation. Lessing was later sent to an all-girls high school in the capital of
Salisbury, from which she soon dropped out. She was thirteen; and it was the end of
her formal education.

But like other women writers from southern African who did not graduate from high
school , Lessing made herself into a self-educated intellectual. She recently
commented that unhappy childhoods seem to produce fiction writers. "Yes, I think
that is true. Though it wasn't apparent to me then. Of course, I wasn't thinking in
terms of being a writer then - I was just thinking about how to escape, all the time."
The parcels of books ordered from London fed her imagination, laying out other
worlds to escape into. Lessing's early reading included Dickens, Scott, Stevenson,
Kipling; later she discovered D.H. Lawrence, Stendhal, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky.
Bedtime stories also nurtured her youth: her mother told them to the children and
Doris herself kept her younger brother awake, spinning out tales. Doris's early years
were also spent absorbing her fathers bitter memories of World War I, taking them
in as a kind of "poison." "We are all of us made by war," Lessing has written,
"twisted and warped by war, but we seem to forget it."

In flight from her mother, Lessing left home when she was fifteen and took a job as
a nursemaid. Her employer gave her books on politics and sociology to read, while
his brother-in-law crept into her bed at night and gave her inept kisses. During that
time she was, Lessing indulged in elaborate romantic fantasies. She was also writing
stories, and sold two to magazines in South Africa.

2
Lessing's life has been a challenge to her belief that people cannot resist the currents
of their time, as she fought against the biological and cultural imperatives that fated
her to sink without a murmur into marriage and motherhood. "There is a whole
generation of women," she has said, speaking of her mother's era, "and it was as if
their lives came to a stop when they had children. Most of them got pretty neurotic
- because, I think, of the contrast between what they were taught at school they were
capable of being and what actually happened to them." Lessing believes that she was
freer than most people because she became a writer. For her, writing is a process of
"setting at a distance," taking the "raw, the individual, the uncriticized, the
unexamined, into the realm of the general."

In 1937 she moved to Salisbury, where she worked as a telephone operator for a
year. At nineteen, she married Frank Wisdom, and had two children. A few years
later, feeling trapped in a persona that she feared would destroy her, she left her
family, remaining in Salisbury. Soon she was drawn to the like-minded members of
the Left Book Club, a group of Communists "who read everything, and who did not
think it remarkable to read." Gottfried Lessing was a central member of the group;
shortly after she joined, they married and had a son.

2. Works
During the postwar years, Lessing became increasingly disillusioned with the
Communist movement, which she left altogether in 1954. By 1949, Lessing had
moved to London with her young son. That year, she also published her first
novel, The Grass Is Singing, and began her career as a professional writer.
The Golden Notebook (1962), a daring narrative experiment, in which the multiple
selves of a contemporary woman are rendered in astonishing depth and detail. Anna
Wulf, like Lessing herself, strives for ruthless honesty as she aims to free herself
from the chaos, emotional numbness, and hypocrisy afflicting her generation.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Lessing began to explore more fully the quasi-mystical
insight Anna Wulf seems to reach by the end of The Golden Notebook. Her "inner-
space fiction" deals with cosmic fantasies (Briefing for a Descent into Hell, 1971),
dreamscapes and other dimensions (Memoirs of a Survivor, 1974), and science
fiction probings of higher planes of existence (Canopus in Argos: Archives, 1979-
1983). These reflect Lessing's interest, since the 1960s, in Idries Shah, whose
writings on Sufi mysticism stress the evolution of consciousness and the belief that
individual liberation can come about only if people understand the link between their
own fates and the fate of society.

3
Lessing's other novels include The Good Terrorist (1985) and The Fifth
Child (1988); she also published two novels under the pseudonym Jane Somers (The
Diary of a Good Neighbour, 1983 and If the Old Could..., 1984). In addition, she has
written several nonfiction works, including books about cats, a love since
childhood. Under My Skin: Volume One of My Autobiography, to 1949 appeared
in 1995 and received the James Tait Black Prize for best biography.

3. Achievements:
In June 1995 she received an Honorary Degree from Harvard University. Also in
1995, she visited South Africa to see her daughter and grandchildren, and to promote
her autobiography. It was her first visit since being forcibly removed in 1956 for her
political views. Ironically, she is welcomed now as a writer acclaimed for the very
topics for which she was banished 40 years ago.

She collaborated with illustrator Charlie Adlard to create the unique and unusual
graphic novel, Playing the Game. After being out of print in the U.S. for more than
30 years, Going Home and In Pursuit of the English were republished by
HarperCollins in 1996. These two fascinating and important books give rare insight
into Mrs. Lessing's personality, life and views.

In 1996, her first novel in 7 years, Love Again, was published by HarperCollins.
And the honors keep on coming: she was on the list of nominees for the Nobel Prize
for Literature and Britain's Writer's Guild Award for Fiction in 1996.
Her new novel, titled "Mara and Dann", was published in the U.S in January 1999
and in the U.K. in April 1999. In May 1999 she was presented with the XI Annual
International Catalunya Award, an award by the government of Catalunya.

In January, 2000 the National Portrait Gallery in London unveiled Leonard

McComb's portrait of Doris Lessing.Ben, in the World, the sequel to The Fifth
Child was published in Spring 2000 (U.K.) and Summer 2000 (U.S.).

In 2001 she was awarded the Prince of Asturias Prize in Literature, one of Spain's
most important distinctions, for her brilliant literary works in defense of freedom
and Third World causes. She also received the David Cohen British Literature Prize.

She was on the shortlist for the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005.

In 2007 she was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Her final novel was Alfred and Emily.

4
4. Question

1.What affected Doris Lessing literature?

unhappy childhoods

2. When did Doris Lessing win the Nobel Prize?

In 2007

3. what is the first novel?

The Grass Is Singing

4. When did Doris Lessing begin her career as a professional writer?

In 1949

I. II. PLOT SUMMARY: (Nguyễn Duy Thành)

1. Plot summary
Flight” is a short story telling about an old man - not named specifically as well as
physical appearance - living with his daughter - Lucy and his last granddaughter -
Alice.
Raising homing pigeons and enjoying the grown up of Alice seems like his last
happiness after the three other granddaughters got married.
But when his 18-year-old granddaughter gets engaged with Steven - the postmaster’s
son, he gets mad. He is afraid of being left, uncherished and alone when she marries
him.
Like a child who lost something precious, he stubbornly shows his objection to Alice
and her mother but replies by his granddaughter's defiance and his daughter's
coldness.
Being helpless with the thought of not being able to keep his granddaughter by side
any longer makes the old man' eyes stung, just only mourned and the empty mood
lasted.

5
His mood is released by receiving a gift - a pigeon- from Steve. From the affectionate
and concerned gestures of the young couple, he accepts the fact that Alice needs the
freedom, needs to grow into maturity and obviously needs a marriage like other girls.

2. Main parts of the story

Exposition
• The story begins with the grandfather playing with his favorite pigeon
enjoyably at the countryside garden in a late afternoon.
• Along a stream of rich green grass road marked full of trees, on the gate
underneath a frangipani tree, Alice is waiting for Steven to arrive.
• Two central characters are introduced: The old man and Alice.
Rising actions
• The rising action is when the grandfather finds out Alice is getting married to
Steven. The grandfather is bitter about her engagement because he feels left
behind while all other children and grandchildren go on with their lives and
forget about him.
Climax
• Steven buys a pigeon for the grandfather. A small part of grandfathers heart
acknowledges Alice’s and Steven together
Falling actions
• The grandfather lets his favorite pigeon fly away.
Resolution
• His mood changes gradually from happy at the beginning to fearful when he
hears his grandchild got married, then becomes impotent, powerless as talking
to his daughter. Finally, he accepts his granddaughter’s marriage to Steve.
• At the beginning of the story, we know the old man has a devotee with many
pigeons. He could control the favorite, a homing pigeon, a young plum-bodied
bird.
• He is fearful of losing his last grandchild.

6
 • He finds a way to keep Alice and hopes his daughter will have the same sight
like him but she shows no objection to the marriage. This makes the old man
feel lost and imptent. that fact that he cannot keep Alice.
• At the end of the story, Steven comes and gives him a young pigeon. He cries
in tears of tolerance and acceptance, as he realizes the fact that Alice needs to
grow and marry like other girls.

3. Plot techniques
The first one is suspense technique in which the old man faces a dilemma
about whether to let his last grandchild get married or not.
The second one is foreshadowing. We can recognize it with the present Steve
brings, which is the key to falling action and resolution, is hinted before climax.
Throughout the story, characters are exposed to two main conflicts.
The first one is external conflict, more specifically, person versus person.
This conflict is recognized between the old man and other family members including
his daughter and his granddaughter. He objects to his grandchild’s marriage while
his daughter and his grandchild view it as normal. This originates from his fear of
an empty house and being left alone. After a lot of arguments, the man eventually
accepts that he is wrong and learns to let things go, learning to let his grandchild act
at her will. He learns that when people grow up, they change.
The second one is person versus self which belongs to internal conflict. This
conflict can be recognized through two actions of the old man. First, he originally
objects to Alice’s marriage but finally accepts it. At first, he thinks that getting
married at an early age is not good for Alice but after a lot of arguments, he realizes
that he might have been wrong and shows no objection to this marriage. Second, the
old man loves his doves but, ‘clenched in the pain of loss’, he frees his birds at last.
This action is counted as his realization that he needs to let things go, let his
grandchild do what she wishes for and let changes be made in a natural way, which
is totally contrary to what he has thought before.

II. SETTING (Ngô Thị Hoàng Loan)

Flight was published in 1957, in a collection of short stories entitled The Habit of
Loving.

7
1. Setting of Flight: “Time”
- The story occurred in a late afternoon of a warm end-of-summer month.

+ The late afternoon showed the end of the day, it was also the time when people
finished their work and came back home. ‘’Late afternoon’’ was associated with the
old man’s age and it was the rule of nature: People could not avoid.
+ The last month of summer denoted the autumn was coming. It seemed a sense of
sadness, the end of happiness, and followed by loneliness, emptiness with the
coming of autumn.

2. Setting of Flight: “Place”

- The Flight story took place mostly in the garden of a little whitewashed house past
the rail way cottage.
- The story seems almost English, and in a warm country.

+ A frangipani tree usually grows near the equator.

+ A veranda is a room which usually used in hot countries

+ Other clues: the valley, the trees, the dovecote, Lucy's sewing, plates and cups of
tea, Steven's father's job - a postmaster.
 However, the setting can be everywhere and it creates a sense of universality.

- “…gazing out beyond the dovecote into the landscape of a late afternoon. In folds
and hollows of sunlight and shade, the dark red soil, which was broken into great
dusty clods, stretched wide to a tall horizon. Trees marked the course of the valley;
a stream of rich green grass the road.”

+ It is an impressive picture of nature’s beauty. The contrary between the marvelous

nature and the locked dovecote: the birds cannot enjoy the nature -> the loss of
freedom

=> It is suitable with the characters’ personality: a conservative old man who seems
not to go out very often, so what he can see is the narrow setting.

3. Socioeconomic conditions:
- There’s no social background but the conflict is marriage. This is a very common
matter in the world.
8
III. CHACRACTER

1. The old man – Major character: (Võ Huy Bình)

The central character in the story has no name who is father of Lucy and grandfather
of Alice. The old man always self-contained, around dovecote. The old man seems
to be a symbol of the old generation who always want to keep their children in their
way. One afternoon, he cares these dove and he see his granddaughter go with her
boyfriend. In that time, granddaughter want married and he feels that she is still
much too young to be married and not agree this. He feels lost. Although he has a
daughter live with, he still keeps both daughter and granddaughter. He feels alone
and hopeless. He believes after she gets married, she does not miss him and she will
leave him. The old man seems to isolate himself from everyone in his own way of
thinking due to different thinking form his daughter.

Timeline of character

- Around the dovecote

o Beginning of the story, an old man goes around and take care of his
dove, he feel happy.
- See his granddaughter sitting down the big tree
o His mood changes
o Talks with her and feels uncomfortable
o He gets angry and goes back dovecote
o Feels alone
- See his granddaughter going with her boyfriend
o Getting angry and annoyed with himself
- Talk with daughter
o Arguing with daughter
o Thinking about his granddaughter’s marriage
- Receiving granddaughter and her friend’s gift and talking back to
granddaughter and her friend
o Changing his mind.
- Realizes the truth, releases his favorite dove.
o He said aloud: “now you can go”.

9
2. Alice – Minor character: (Võ Huy Bình)
- Alice is a granddaughter of an old man. She is 18 years old. She has a
boyfriend who is postman son. She wants to get married with her
boyfriend.

Timeline of character

- Always happy.
o She swinging on the gate underneath a frangipani tree
- Talk with grandfather
o She looked around, after that, she is shouted by grandfather.
o She tossed her head at the old-fashioned phrase and sulked, ‘Oh,
Granddad’
o She challenged her granddad and leave.
- Go with her boyfriend
- Give her grandfather a gift.
o Happy goes with her friend and comes back home
o Gives a dove to granddad.
o Give careful advice to granddad.
o Not talking with boyfriend and watched the birds.

3. Two minor characters (Nguyễn Thị Ngọc Chúc)

Lucy and Steven are the minor characters in “Flight” of the author Doris Lessing.
The author has described the actions and behavior of two minor characters with the
main characters, namely the old man and Alice.

The effect of clearly depicting the character and actions of the main characters is
more likely and attractive.

Please you must read the story at home, because, I mentioned some details during
my presentation.

Furthermore, there is an exercise section exclusively below.

Now, let’s learn more about these two characters Lucy and Steven!

10
 a. Lucy:

Lucy is the old man's daughter and Alice's mother who is a forbearance, reasonable,
calm, and patient. “His daughter looked at him and her eyebrows went up in tired
forbearance”.

She is depicted as a grown up in her appearance square-fronted and calm – eyed, her
actions she looks after her father) and the way in which her father thinks of her.
Her husband is absent (perhaps she is a widow or divorcee, but there is no evidence
to tell the reader more, save that it is Lucy who gives Alice permission to marry).

But we know that Lucy married at seventeen and she never regretted it.

“I was married at seventeen and I never regretted it.”

She tries to reassure the old man about Alice. She has already agreed to her marrying
Steven, and tells her father this in the story. “You never did like it when we married.
Why not? Every time, it’s the same. When I got married you made me feel like it
was something wrong. And my girls the same. You get them all crying and miserable
the way you go on. Leave Alice alone. She’s happy”

b. Steven

Steven is Alice's boyfriend.

The old man finds things wrong with him (his red complexion, his physical
appearance and his father's job).
“ Her smile made hi, see her, as he had every evening of ths warm end – of – summer
month, swinging hand along the road to village with that red – handed, red throated,
violent bodie youth, the son of the postmaster.”

In the story we see him through the old man's eyes. In the old man’s eyes, he never
like relationship between Alice and Steven.

“But it’s not like that at all, he muttered miserably. “It’s not like that. Why can’t you
see? Running and giggling, and kissing. You’ll come to something quite different.’

The reader is not likely to share this disapproval. Lucy expects him to be as good a
husband as her other three girls have. And he is thoughtful enough to give the old
man a present of a pigeon.
11
 c. Question.

1/. “You never did like it when we married?” who said this sentence?

=> Lucy said

2/. What is his daughter’s reaction when the old man tells her about the girl’s dating?

=> His daughter thinks that the girl’s dating as well as marriage’s normal thing.

“What wrong with it? Why not? She eighteen. Eight!

3/. What kind of gift does the young couple give the old man?
=> They give the old man a young Pigeon for gift.

4/. What words does he use to describe Steven to show his dislike?

=> Red –hand, red throated, angrily,

…to the village with that red – handed, red throated,violent – bodied youth, the son
of the postmaster.”

IV. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE:

1. Body language: (Nguyễn Hồng Đăng)
This is a story in which attitudes appear often in actions and gestures.

For example, when her grandfather shouts: Hey! - Alice jumps. She is alarmed, but
then becomes evasive, as we see when her “eyes veiled themselves”. She adopts a
neutral voice and tosses her head, as if to shrug off his confrontational stance. When
he thinks of Steven, the old man's hands curl, like claws into his palm. When Steven
gives the old man the present of a new pigeon both Alice and her boyfriend try to
reassure the old man: “They hung about him, affectionate, concerned …They took
his arms and directed him …. enclosing him, petting him. “The old man turned,
slowly, taking his time; he lifted his eyes to smile proudly down the garden at his
granddaughter”. His granddaughter was wide-eyes.

We can find another reference to eyes - they are “lying happy eyes”, telling the old
man that nothing will change, when he and they know this is false. At the end of the

12
 story Alice is “wide-eyed” while tears run down her face. Earlier it was the old man
who was crying at the thought of losing her. And her tears at the end of the story,
perhaps she knows that she really is to be married and the mark of the end of
childhood.

2. Dialogue: (Nguyễn Hồng Đăng)

A dialogue is a literary technique in which writers employ two or more characters to
be engaged in conversation with one another. In literature, it is a conversational
passage, or a spoken or written exchange of conversation in a group, or between two
persons directed towards a particular subject. Generally, it makes a literary work
enjoyable and lively.

The dialogue has several purposes, such as advancing the plot of a narrative. It also
colors the personalities and thoughts of the characters, creates a conflict and moves
the storyline forward.

- The gap of the way of thinking between the old generation (the old man) and the
young generation (Alice and Lucy)

Lucy: 'What's wrong with it? Why not?' 'She's eighteen. Eighteen!'

'The other three have done fine. They've three fine husbands. Why not Alice?'

The old man: 'Liar,' he said. 'Liar. Then you should regret it. Why do you make your
girls marry? It's you who do it. What do you do it for? Why?'

'She's the last,' he mourned. 'Can't we keep her a bit longer?'

- The contrast in Personalities between characters: While Lucy is calm and reasonable,
the old man and Alice like children how the old man asks questions with the word
“Hey” - “Waiting for Steven, hey?” And “Think you're old enough to go courting,
hey?”. His threats are childish: “I'll tell your mother” and “I see you!”
- The contrast in particular character:
Alice: + childish: he refuses to care about her grandfather will tell her mother “Tell
away! She said, laughing, and went back to the gate” or “go and tell! Go on, what
are you waiting for?”

13
 + mature: She and Steve encourage and comfort the old man by her careful
behavior.
The grandfather: inner struggle between love and his selfishness.
“Growling under his breath he turned towards the dovecote, which
was his refuge from the house he shared with his daughter and her husband and their
children”.

The psychological changes of the elderly people was carefully described in the story.
The grandfather is typical of the elderly, who feels lonely and upset when all their
descendants are all married and settled, living or being about to live away from them.
He even got angry upon seeing Alice waiting for Steven and playing with the boy in
the garden. In fact, he felt jealous with Steven when he realized that Alice was more
interested in Steven than in him. In the end, He accepts the reality.

During the story his mood changes: Happy -> Fearful -> Impotent -> Acceptable
and it
impacts the result of the story.

Questions for class:

What is the effect of Dialogue on the Story?

Answer: it makes a literary work enjoyable and lively.

How do grandfather’s mood change?

Answer: Happy -> Fearful -> Impotent -> Acceptable

What is the different in grandfather’s attitude?

Answer: love and his selfishness.

3. Repetition: (Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải)

Words or phrases are repeated many times to emphasize significant

circumstances, to steer readers to stay focused on the complicated mood
developments of the character.

● ‘Pretty, pretty, pretty, he said, as he grasped the bird’

14
→ Emphasize his love pigeons.

● ‘Hey!’ he shouted

● ‘Waiting for Steven, hey?’

● ‘Think you’re old enough to go courting, hey?’

● ‘Think you want to leave home, hey? Think you can go running around the fields
at night?’

→ Emphasize his control.

● ‘Rubbish,’ he shouted. ‘Rubbish. Impudent little bit of rubbish!’

→ Emphasize his anger.

● ‘But I never meant...’... ‘I didn’t mean...’

→ Emphasize his regret.

● ‘Lucy,’ he said urgently, ‘Lucy...’

→ Emphasize his unacceptable.

● ‘She’s eighteen. Eighteen!

→ Emphasize his defertination.

● ‘Liar,’ he said. ‘Liar’. Then you should regret it. Why do you make your girls
marry? It’s you who do it. What do you do it for? Why?’

→ Emphasize his irritate.

● ‘For me?’ said the old man, letting the drops shake off his chin. ‘For me?’

→ Emphasize his surprise.

4. Simile: (Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải)

15
Simile is a comparison between one thing with another, it uses the words “like” or
“as”.

● “his fingers curling like claws into his palm.”

→ Doris Lessing uses “claws” image to describe his anger. Because of love to the
granddaughter and the fear of losing her, the old man acts angrily when coming
closer to ask her.

● “When I got married you made me feel like it was something wrong. And my girls
the same.” Lucy said.

→ The author uses “like” in this sentence to describe his control. Before he had
control over his daughter and now he is continuing with his granddaughter.

● “their grown-up seriousness shut him out, making him alone; also, it quietened
him, took the sting out of their tumbling like puppies on the grass.”

→ Doris Lessing uses “puppies” image to describe his happiness. It is compared

with the happiness of puppies when they play on the grass. When Steven and Alice
gave the old man a young pigeon as a gift, he gave up his selfishness, he approves
granddaughter’s marriage.

5. Metaphor: (Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải)

Metaphor is comparison between two different things have the same features.

● “Her hair fell down her back in a wave of sunlight.”

→ Phrase of “wave of sunlight” tell us Alice still preserves the natural beauty of a
young girl that is innocent and bright.

● “Now you can go, he said aloud.”

● “Then, clenched in the pain of loss, he lifted the bird on his wrist, and watched
it soar.”

→ “You can go” and phrase of “lifted the bird on his wrist” here means he accepts
Alice leaving.

16
● “They wheeled in a wide circle, ... returning to the shadowed earth over trees and
grass and field, returning to the valley and the shelter of night.”

→ “Returning” here means the young may leave home, but at last they come back
to their relatives.

6. Personification: (Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải)

Personification shows things, plants, animals have the characterictics like

humans.

● “hearing the wooden veranda creak angrily under his feet. ”

→ The veranda cannot angry. Doris Lessing changes the veranda into the human to
refer the anger of the old man.

● “It seemed to the old man that the whole afternoon had stilled to watch his
gesture of self-command, that even the leaves of the trees had stopped shaking.”

→ Time cannot be stopped, even leaves cannot. The author personified something
to help the reader recognize the old man's action. He decides to release his favorite
bird, to give it freedom.

7. Symbolism: (Nguyễn Bùi Vũ Hải)

Symbolism is an effective device that Doris Lessing used to bring profound

significance to the story.

a. The favorite pigeon:

- The way the old man holds it like the way he tried to control Alice.

- The old man gave the favorite pigeon freedom, he understood the right way to love
Alice.

→ The favorite pigeon is the image of Alice.

b. The dovecote:

17
The devocote is described as a refuge where the old man keeps the birds and feels
satisfied with them. The bird symbolizes Alice, the dovecote is considered his
narrow space, his safety zone, where he wants to keep Alice under his protection.

c. The gate:

● “His eyes travelled homewards along this road until he saw his granddaughter
swinging on the gate underneath a frangipani tree.”

● “He move warily along the hedge, stalking his granddaughter, who was now
looped over the gate, her head loose on her arms, singing.”

● “Hey!’ he shouted; saw her jump, look back, and abandon the gate.”

● “Tell away!’ she said, laughing, and went back to the gate.”

→ A transition between the old and the new things, the old generation and the young
generation. The gate is a gateway to a new beginning of Alice and Steven.

d. The garden:

● “She sighed, letting her eyes linger on the sunlit garden.”

● “Wet spread down over his chin and he took out a handkerchief and mooped his
whole face. The garden was empty.”

→ The garden was associated with the old man. It reflect how he feels : the feeling
of emptiness. No one supports and undertands him.

● “The garden was all a fluster and a flurry of returning birds.”

● “He lifted his eyes to smile proudly down the garden at his granddaughter.”

→ An image of the continuity of change. The old man finally understands the
meaning of love. He knows that Alice has grown up and she does not live in his arms
forever, she has her own life and she still has to leave so acceptance is an inevitable
thing.

18
V. THEME:

1. Growing up and leaving home: (Bùi Nhân Hậu)

The story centres on Alice and reactions to her plan to leave home. Growing up,
leaving home and becoming independent are things which most people face sooner
or later. These are natural and almost inevitable.
Lucy, her mother, thinks of it as completely natural and is very positive, saying she
never regretted getting married and her other daughters have done well.
Alice has a serious and grown up wish to marry her boyfriend, and settle into a
domestic routine.She is carefree, swinging on gates, singing and waiting for her
boyfriend. She has everything in life to look forward to and cannot really understand
the feelings of her grandfather. However, at the end of the story she perhaps starts
to realise the heartbreak that leaving home can cause.

The old man is very negative about Alice leaving home. He feels possessive towards
her. He thinks of it as the end for him - he will be left 'uncherished and alone' with
his daughter, and will no longer have a house full of life. We know he did not like it
when his own daughter left to get married, and each time one of the girls leaves he
gets them 'crying and miserable'.

The title, Flight, reminds us that leaving home is a key theme in the story. Both the
pigeon and Alice are trying to escape, while the old man is trying to stop them. He
eventually lets the pigeon go. We are not sure how Alice will leave, or whether her
grandfather will learn to accept this.

2. Nature: (Lương Tuấn Anh)

Now let’s talk about nature.

The story starts with the man grasping his favorite pigeon but then putting it back to
its shelter. However, the story turns out positively with the act of the old man
releasing the bird for good, as a symbol of accepting one’s freedom.

Speaking of surroundings, this story reminds us a vibrant colorful picture with full
of lively aspects.
The shadows, the sunlight, the skies and the trees. Hollows of sunlight and shade,
the dark red soil, which was broken into great dusty clods, stretched wide to a tall
horizon. Trees marked the course of the valley; a stream of rich green grass on the
road.
19
At the end of the story, the nature still remains its beauty. The cloud of shinning
silver birds flew up and up, with a shrill cleaving of wings, over the dark ploughed
land and the darker belts of trees and the bright folds of grass. The shadowed earth
over trees and grass and field.

Surroundings still show how beautiful they are but rapidly change, some follow the
story fluctuation, some do not but change at their own will. As the reference to
freedom, the man finally tolerates the undeniable truth and release his most beloved
bird as a gesture of opening his mind to his granddaughter.

3. Conflict: (Lương Tuấn Anh)

Now we talk about conflict

We can see if anything wouldn’t go well as he expected, the old man will act like a
child. His childish behavior is prominent throughout the story. For example:

‘Rubbish, ‘he shouted. ‘Rubbish. Impudent little bit of rubbish!’. Growling under
his breath.
He stumped into the little whitewashed house, hearing the wooden veranda creak
angrily under his feet.

He stumped his feed alternatively, thump, thump, on the hollow wooden floor and
shouted:’ She’ll marry him. I’m telling you, she’ll be marrying him next!’
Oppositely, his granddaughter and her boyfriend, despite the fact that they’re much
younger than him, Alice and Steven behave more in a mature manner.
Near the end of the story, Alice and Steven brought the old man a bird.

From around the corner came the young couple; but their faces were no longer set
against him.

Do you like it? The girl grabbed his hand and swung on it. It’s for you, Grandad.

They hung about him, affectionate, concerned, trying to charm away his wet eyes
and misery.

They took his arm and directed him to the shelf of the birds, one on each side,
enclosing him petting him, saying wordlessly that nothing would be changed,
nothing could change and that they would be with him always. They said, from their
lying happy eyes, as they thrust it on him. There, Grandad, it’s yours. It’s for you.

20
4. Comparison: (Lương Tuấn Anh)
There’s a symbolic comparison between the nature and the character, particularly,
between the old man favorite pigeon and Alice.

Both the pigeon and Alice are adorable, delicate but so desperate to fly away, to
shake off the old man’s constraint.
But not like the pigeon, so small, Alice is too much, too big for the old man to handle.
In other words, he is not capable of controlling Alice as he has done to his favorite
bird every time since. That is why he’s so frustrated and behave childishly.

But in the end, after Alice as well as Steven express their mature treatment on the
old man. He finally realizes that his doing is apparently wrong and determine to
make up for both Alice and his beloved pigeon by releasing the bird as well as
accepting the fact that although Alice grows up and flies away but still, she’s a
human being, not a bird, she still remains the old man’s beloved granddaughter.
=> By bringing up this symbolic comparison, the author means to attach the nature’s
aspects to Alice herself in order to transmit a fine message: It is absolutely natural
for Alice deserves to be free like other wild animals, in particular, a pigeon.

5. Conclusion: (Lương Tuấn Anh)

This story is all about freedom and the elderly is complete wrong thinking that they
can keep the young ones for their own pleasure like forever. No matter what the
odds, nature will call, the young ones, one way or another, must fly away and stand
on their feet because the elderly cannot live eternally to protect them.

21