DANIELLE O’NEAL MRS. STRATTON How to Read Literature Like a Professor Thomas C. Foster 15. Flights of Fancy

What is Flight? Flight means the act of flying through the air Wondrous Beautiful Compelling Humans cant fly, BUT most birds can.

Flight in Literature In literature flight is… FREEDOM imagination love Example: Steven Spielberg’s E.T. When the bicycles fly off to escape the adults and they are free from conformity. spiritual escape

Flight is Freedom Example: Gabriel García Márquez’s “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings” (1968)  A very battered old man with wings falls from the sky into a small town. One of the residents locks him up in a cage and society judges him for his appearance, but they see him as a spectacle. Whoever visits him receives some type of aid but they are ungrateful for it. Once the man regains his strength he flies away.  The old man is now free from the cage and from the way society judges him.

Flight vs. Fall To fall is the opposite of flight, to collide, to collapse. fearful If falling from great heights death is expected, but if one survives it is a miracle and an act of wonder. The same feelings of flight. frightening

Metaphorical Flight Flight is symbolized by… Souls are said to take flight when a person dies.  Birds  Feathers  Wings

Power of Flights of Fancy Flights of Fancy allow readers to… Feel FREE! Wonder Experience what the characters feel Imagine

Works Cited Foster, Thomas C. How to Read Literature Like a Professor. New York: Harper, Print.