LITR 5731: Seminar in American Minority Literature
University of Houston-Clear Lake, fall 2001
Student Research Proposal

Jamie Grayson

To: Dr. White

From: Jamie Grayson

Re: LITR 5731: Research Proposal

Date: 10/16/01

Dr. White,

I would like to research and write on the topic of flight in minority works. I know this topic was suggested for the MidTerm papers, but I believe I can find a great deal of information on it in various forms and delve deeper into this subject. Besides, I also noticed that no one in our class chose this as a topic for their Mid Term, therefore, I thought you wouldn’t oppose my writing on it for the research paper.

In addition to the works by African American writers, I've noticed there are also references to flight in the American Indian works too.

I would like to research poetry, short stories, novels, and music of African Americans and American Indians. I'm thinking of comparing the references to flight from each of these two minority groups and showing how it means something different to each of them. I believe the slaves/former slaves view flight as equal to FREEDOM, whereas the American Indians view flight as a way of bringing them closer to their creator...as a spiritual reference.

So far, I've found references to flight in the following sources:

The Bible: When Moses delivered the enslaved Israelites from Egypt, the Lord told him to tell them, "You have seen what I did to the Egyptions, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself." (Exodus 19:4)

"But those who wait on the Lord/ Shall renew their strength; / They shall mount up with/ wings like eagles" (Isaiah 40:31) (**Check MLA form on quoting from and citing from the Bible)

Morrison, Toni. Song of Solomon.

Hansen, Joyce. I Thought My Soul Would Rise and Fly: The Diary of Patsy, a Freed Girl.

Sapphire. Push.

short story by Eudora Welty, "A Worn Path" about a woman named 'Pheonix', with a flight reference.

I found two children's stories with beautiful references to flight: "The People Could Fly"by Virginia Hamilton on Black Folktales, and "Now Let Me Fly: The Story of a Slave Family" by Delores Johnson.

a couple of poems: "Flight" by Rich Washabaugh and "Slave Song" by Edith Nesbit.

I've also been looking for words to old slave songs, slave spirituals, and 'chain gang' songs for references to flight.

Alexie, Sherman. The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. New York: HarperPerennial, 1994.

Neihardt, John. Black Elk Speaks.

Runnels, T.J. Rise Above with Eagle. American Indian story on the importance of the Golden Eagle to the indian people.

Phelps, Erik. Eagle. American Indian story of creation involving an eagle that touches down and becomes a man. Eagles carry messages to the creator, therefore flight is the American Indian connection with their source of spirituality.

I'm also searching other Alexie sources for flying references: Reservation Blues, The Business of Fancydancing, and Indian Killer

Dear Jamie,

Yes, the topic isn't limited to midterms, so I'd be glad to see it developed as a research project. Are you planning on the essay or journal option, or still deciding?

You'll see yet another reference to a "Flying Man" in Bless Me, Ultima--I think he was Ultima's teacher.

Otherwise your research seems to have started well.

If you choose to write an essay and are looking for a central theme, one possibility that strikes me would be to examine how much flying is a universal theme in human cultures and literatures, and how much it's a local or particular theme. In all likelihood you could find evidence for both. For the universal, it's hard to imagine humans who've never seen birds or who've never wanted to escape the prison of gravity to explore all that space that's out and up there. Thus flying, in your biblical quotations as in your course texts, is a metaphor for liberation and transcendent power. There are lots of ways to say and to elaborate this; it's kind of inspiring, but it's also somewhat obvious. So it might be interesting to trace some of the local or cultural differences in flying themes, the variations on the metaphor, the circumstances under which it appears, the powers it grants or imagines. In terms of organization, you could move back and forth between the similaries in flying motifs in various texts and the peculiar, special variations the texts make on the theme.

The night I passed around the library's copy of "The People Could Fly," I also passed around a library reference to the thesis on the subject in the library, if you want to look that up. Here's the library information: http://library.uh.edu/search/t?SEARCH=flying+africans