LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, Fall 2001
Sample Student Midterm

Elizabeth Martin
Minority Literature
Mid-term
Due 2/19/3003

I’ll Fly Away, Oh Glory

The flight of the Africans, from myth to reality

but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Isaiah 40:31

            Flying in stories can be interpreted in many ways.  In the books Classic Slave Narratives, Song of Solomon and Push the picture of flight appears in spiritual, physical and mental forms. The image of flight is present through many literary works including the Bible, the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus and the spiritual hymn, “I’ll Fly Away”. It is a possibility that the myth of Daedalus and Icarus might be an underlying theme, but in these books it has more to do with the actual story that some Africans can fly.  This dream leads to the hope that they could defy gravity and social conformity and just lift off.

Kum, Yali, Kum Buba Tambe

            The People Could Fly, by Virginia Hamilton, is a book containing folktales from African-American history.  I have included a paraphrase of one of those tales.  In Africa before men became enslaved there were magical people that could fly.  When they were taken as slaves the had to rid themselves of their wings because there was not enough room on the boats.  Eventually they forgot all about flying. Then on a plantation a slave girl named Sarah, worked the fields and remembers a story of magical Africans that could fly.  There comes a point were she can not stand the crack of the whip over her back or her child’s.  She cries to her father Toby it is time.  He says, “Kum…yali, kum buba tambe” ( Hamilton169) and her feet lift off the ground and she and her babe fly away.  The next day in the fields a slave man collapses and the driver whips him.  Toby whispers the magic words to him and he lifts off.  Toby then spreads his arms, yells and the slaves begin to rise and fly away while Toby follows behind.  The ones that can not fly tell the story to their children and it has been passed down since then. (Hamilton 166-172)

O cleave the air fly away home

            In Classic Slave Narratives the concept of flying away appears in the “Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass” and in “Incidents of a Slave Girl”.  The stories focus on fleeing slavery and incorporate being in the air with this idea.  When talking to God he compares his dilemma to a ship that is steered and moored, but once loosened the ship has freedom Douglass can only dream about.   Douglass laments,

            “You are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and am       a slave!  You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody             whip.  You are freedom’s swift-winged angels that fly around the world; I am             confined in bands of iron! O that I were free!  O, that I were on one of your     gallant decks, and your protecting wing!  Alas! Betwixt me and you, the turbid waters roll.  Go on, go on.  O that I could also go!  Could I but swim! If I could             fly!...There is a better day coming,” (Douglass 293-294). 

Where ships can swim, Africans can fly. Frederick Douglass is aware of the freedoms that are kept from him.  His education has hindered him by making him realize his plight.  Douglass knows there are better ways and better days. 

            In “Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl” Linda hovers above the earth for seven years.  It calls to mind images of angels.  She associates being in the garret as safe, or being in the sky gives her a sense of invulnerability.  The chapter were she flees from Dr. Flint is titled, The Flight.  She describes the hideaway as a “dungeon” (Brent 448) and a “cell” (Brent 452), but she is still grateful because it keeps her protected. Even though she is not lounging on a bed of clouds, she is still in an elevated position both physically and mentally from Dr. Flint.

            Throughout the Classic Slave Narratives the authors use words that depict flight or sky, with the characters not actually leaving the ground.  For example in the “Life of Olaudah Equiano” the author describes a bullet as, “Wing’d with red lightening and impetuous rage” (Equiano 61).  This implants the notion that slaves were ready to fly away at any moment.

 The fathers may soar

And the children may know their names  

            In Song of Solomon the story begins and ends with a flying African.  The novel starts with a man high above a small crowd.  He is preparing to jump and in his note he calls it flying away on his own wings.  Suicide is not supposed to be pretty, but the way that Morrison portrays his leap, it is beautiful and it does not seem like a death, but more of a flight.  The crowd watches as,   “…saw Mr. Smith emerge as promised from behind the cupola, his wide blue silk wings curved forward around his chest…” (Morrison 5). After the wings are described it becomes a fall and it is clumsy, as if he did not really believe he could fly. Without belief he just tumbles into a bloody mess below.

            The Classic Slave Narratives deals with flight from slavery, Song of Solomon is a story of flight from prejudices and from past dreams.  While Robert Smith opens the novel with flight, characters such as Pilate, Milkman and Solomon carry the symbol throughout the story. There are also anti-fliers that backup why Pilate and Milkman can not achieve this fulfillment till the end.  While Milkman is on a journey his father stands still.  Guitar on the other hand ventures off, but he takes a wrong turn and follows in the footsteps of Smith.  His descent will be messy.

            Flying is a forward action.  The central characters in this novel are all moving or staring backwards. Milkman’s parents are lost in their past and do not see a future.  They are self involved and teach their children to always look behind.  In car rides he is,             “Pressed in the front seat between his parents, he could only see the winged             women careening off the nose of the car…So it was only by kneeling on the dove             gray seat and looking out the back window that he could see anything other than     the laps, feet, and hands of his parents, the dashboard, or the silver winged woman

            poised at the tip of the Packard.  But riding backwards made him uneasy.  It was     like flying blind,” (Morrison 32). 

From an early age Milkman sees only what is behind, while yearning to move forward.  He must learn about his past to have a future with meaning.

                        Metaphorically white people, and black people that forget their roots or become power hungry can not fly.  For example the peacock that appears in the novel is white and grounded.  The tail of the peacock is too ornate and therefore it can not fly.  It serves as a reminder that this is an African myth.  Black people that become consumed by materials or try to be white are also doomed to being earthbound. Smith was a member of the Seven Days gang.  His flight was marred by his connection with them.  Killing people becomes an issue of domination. He could not perform a perfect trip with the weight of that association, neither can Guitar.  Milkman’s father is another case of a man who traded in his heritage for wealth and power.  He never ventures outside of his empire, he never is enlightened.  Another example is Circe’s story of the last Butler woman.  She tried to commit suicide by throwing herself over the banister on the landing.  But as white women do not have the power to fly over a banister she managed to injury herself in the fall and it took another week for her to die. 

            Solomon and Jake are two central characters in Milkman’s life that do not surface till the end.  The images of flight are overwhelming in theses scenes.  Solomon was known as the flying African.  He was descended from legendary men that journeyed home through the air.  Milkman says to Susan Byrd, “When you say ‘flew off’ you mean he ran away, don’t you?  Escaped?”(Morrison 322). Byrd replies, “No, I mean flew,” ( Morrison 322).  Solomon picked up his son Jake and soared, but he dropped Jake and the Byrds took care of him.  He eventually fell in love with Singing Bird, a creature of wings.  They left Shalimar driving a load of slaves to freedom, like Pilate they take a symbolic flight.

            The last pages of the novel show two people unfurling their wings.  Pilate can not fly because she carries to much baggage, both symbolically and literally.  Her father’s spirit tells her she can not fly off and leave a body, so she carries it around for the rest of her life, never understanding why she can not reach freedom.  It is not until the last pages that she finds out it is her father’s body and he was never properly buried.  After she lays him in a grave her freedom is given. When Pilate dies a bird swoops down upon the open grave and snatches her locket, her name.  She achieves symbolic flight, she is lifted up with the birds and her name is then Pilot. Milkman also leaves the ground, but he does it physically.  For the first time he understands the people he comes from and he is proud.  When he leaps there is no doubt that his wings are true.  He will not fall from the sky, like Icarus or Smith.  He will gracefully float away because he is a descendant of Solomon.

She see herself dancing in videos, in the movies; she be breaking, fly, just a dancing ,maybe, no! not maybe --- she out there!

            Push uses the contemporary form of the word fly and a literal meaning of elevation to help Precious emerge.  To be “fly” in the 1980’s is to be a little above cool.  Precious might dress “fly,” but she is not.  She has no freedom.  At her first school children laughed at her.  She wet herself.  In her home she was abused and hated.  Using the term fly is incredibly important to the novel because it reminds you that she is always evolving.

            Precious lacks the strength in the beginning to sprout wings. She is a weed in the sidewalk cracks.  Through education Precious is raised up, the same way that Frederick Douglass gains the knowledge that as a human he had the right to a better life,.  She begins to understand that her life was horrible; she can’t change the past, but can enable herself in the future.  Not only that, but she can path the way for her children. At a group for incest survivors she calls herself a bird. During a recant of molestation she floats above the reality and thinks, “I see flying. Feel fling. Am flying.  Far up, but my body down in circle.  Precious is bird” (Sapphire 131).  After the meeting she says, “I’m alive inside.  A bird is my heart” (Sapphire 132).

            The opposite of being in the air is to be in the water.  She describes the pain from an attack from her mother as drowning, “She was at the point in drowning when water fills the lungs and the fight for air is over and death is a second away” (Sapphire 22).  The image of flight is not as obvious as in Song of Solomon, but it is still there.  Good is associated with rising.

            Precious’s sense of security rises with her physical altitude.  When she goes into labor for the first time she is at home.  Her mother kicks and hits her until she is huddled on the ground.  The EMT that is Spanish is kind to her, he tells her to push.  In a dream she is in an elevator that opens to the EMT man, “I recognize him from when I was having my baby bleeding on the kitchen floor,” (Sapphire 16).  The elevator rises and presents her with her representation of good.  The kitchen floor is also symbolic because it evokes feelings of pain; it is where she has Little Mongo.  Abdul she has in a hospital.  The differences in elevation between the two show a positive reinforcement for the higher.  Another example of this is the school is on the nineteenth floor.  The school she attends is where she goes for security.  Ms. Rain teaches there.  Rain falls from the sky to help flowers on the ground grow.  It is as if the sky is calling to Precious and giving her the nutrition she needs to rise and bloom.

            While the stories in Classic Slave Narratives, Song of Solomon and Push are different they have the common thread of rising above.  Song of Solomon is drenched with pictures of flying Africans, the other two books are more subtle and it is not the main focus.  The books follow along with the way Minority Literature is set up.  Classic Slave Narratives is a creation story.  Equinao, Douglass and Linda all flew away from slavery.  It is symbolic of escape. They lead the way for Milkman.  Song of Solomon is a classic tale.  It has folklore ribboned within. The meaning of flying is literal and figurative. Push is a contemporary novel.  The word fly is even used as contemporary slang.  The imagery of being lifted into the air is very powerful It becomes clear that to have a flight does not necessarily mean you are physically in motion.  It can be a journey of the mind, spirit or body.

WORKS CITED

Brent, Linda. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.

Douglass, Fredrick. Narratives of the Life of Fredrick Douglass. 1845. The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.

Equiano, Olaudah. The Life of Olaudah Equiano. 1814. The Classic Slave Narratives. Ed. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. New York: Penguin Group, 1987.

Hamilton, Virginia. The People Could Fly. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc, 1985.

Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon. New York: The Penguin Group, 1977.

Sapphire. Push. New York: Vintage Contemporaries, 1996.