Rone skinner literary essay:

Theory of flight:
Politics and power are both terms which can be put together and are
expounded as a theory in international relations which contends with
distributions of power and national interest. Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu expressed
multiple characters throughout her 2019 winner of Barry Ronge Fiction prize
novel, the theory of flight. Each of these characters plays a salient mantel in
the development of the novel, Ndlovu dedicated every chapter to a certain
character explaining the plot and connecting them to each other in a unique
way cording the story significantly. She portrayed her strong characters and
their actions during the war (noem die war) showing their ability to empathise
with fellows. This essay will outline 2 modest characters: Vida De Villiers and
protagonist Imogen Zula Nyoni (Genie) and how they have managed to cope
and develop as characters throughout the novel.

Zula Nyoni is a phenomenal character in this novel, she plays an independent,

determined, and brave protagonist. She was diagnosed with HIV and yet that
did not interfere with her steadfastly kind and optimistic, fearless soul she
lived with. She found an undying love in the little things such as the sunflower
field which she and Marcus discovered; she described it as “They had never
been told such a thing of beauty”. After being diagnosed with HIV “For the next
2 years Genie laughed, loved and lived as though nothing has changed…”. She
chose not to make this disease rule her until one day after her eighteenth
birthday she decided to leave the Masuku’s house and live on the streets
making her way to Jesus. She did not want to make the Masuku’s lives harder
by entertaining them with her disease and be a burden to them. She displays
humility and moral sensitivity unmistakably.

Therefore, we can surely say that Genie’s story is a true representation of love,
family, community and also an exploration of the self’s relation to itself, to
others and the state. Genie has to constantly negotiate her sense of self when
she encounters others who have a different sense of who she should be, when
she is written upon by violent histories, when the state wants to reduce her to
a body or a statistic.
We learned a lot about character Vida De Villiers as an individual. He was
christened by the people as Jesus because he had a long beard and long hair
from lack of care of his appearance. He has shown a lot of character
development in the sense that he has never felt like he belonged anywhere
because of his sexuality, “He liked both boys and girls, what did that make
him? He had never heard the name for such a person. Did such hybrid even
exist?” He had been bullied all his life for being a “moffie”. After his first lover
had died in the war, he decided he would also like to die so he joined the army,
and after he came back alive, he just took to the streets. Vida explained that
being homeless you follow codes of ethics: “you respect people’s property
zones, marks, clients, customers you neither interfered nor intervened…” Yet
one day Vida intervened in a fight between “David (young street dweller) and
Goliath (leader of gang The Survivors)” saving David’s life and him taking the
fall for him. He also tried to save a young girl to be raped by an Indian
businessman. Genie and Vida became lovers in the story and this relationship
allowed Vida to properly process his grief and trauma.

In conclusion this novel has created a total of 32 characters connecting them

all together and allowing us as readers to be inspired by how such amazing
characters from a book can all grow and develop in such a great way, examples
Genie and Vida. Genie saved Vida and Vida saved Genie and their love story
and how they bloomed in this novel was truly an exquisite text to read!