John Steinbeck Flight

Typically, everyone loves a good story about a hero that beats the villain, gets the love of the town, and his dream girl. But The Pearl is different. The Pearl follows a plot diagram which is a chart that outlines the progression of the story. The hero's journey takes the concept of plotting a story a little further and deeper. In John Steinbeck's novella, The Pearl, Kino a regular town man turned hero follows the hero's journey. In this essay the 3 different stages of Kino's journey on his way to heroism, will be thoroughly addressed.

In America, we are privileged to have freedom. We can say what we want, and we have a voice in our government. We are extremely blessed to have access to that freedom, but it comes at a cost. In the Revolutionary War alone 650,000 US soldiers were killed, and that was just the beginning of our nation. Because of these sacrifices, we now have the freedom that is available to us today. Sadly, not all countries are as fortunate. Edwidge Danticat describes in horrific detail the struggles that Haitians face on a daily basis to obtain freedom for themselves and their children in her book, Krik? Krak! Her book contains several short stories, giving us perspectives from Haitians from past and present generations, and how they

The theme of flight starts early on in the epigraph which suggests how children are abandoned by their fathers left with only their names to keep memory. The idea of flight as freedom is clearly evident in the beginning with Mr. Smiths attempted departure from the roof of Mercy

    Flight is a major theme in Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon. “Flight echoes throughout the story as a reward, as a hoped-for skill, as an escape, and as proof of intrinsic worth; however, by the end this is not so clear a proposition”(Lubiano 96). Song of Solomon ends with ‘flight’ but in such a way that the act allows for multiple interpretations: suicide; "real" flight and then a wheeling attack on his "brother"; or "real" flight and then some kind of encounter with the (possibly) killing arms of his brother.

Flight is a novel by Sherman Alexie that tell the story of a distressed Native American teenage boy, who has sadly stretched his breaking point after years of ill-treatment at the hands of adults, named Michael but prefers to be called Zits, “Call me Zits. Everybody calls me Zits. That is not my real name, of course. My real name is not important.” (Zits, p.1). Zits was left to his own devices at the age of six when his mother died of breast cancer and his father did not stick around much after he was born and left him. “I get into arguments and fistfights with everybody. I get so angry that I go blind and deaf and mute” (Zits, p.8)Zits is a violent person and takes out his anger on anyone because he has been in and out of the foster care system, none of which felt like family, with foster parents who only cared about the government cheque. He feels left out from the rest of the society mostly because of his half-Indian heritage and his abuse. Because of this, he is easily persuaded into committing crimes.

The story “Flight Patterns” is a short story in which Sherman Alexie, the author, presents Native American literature which is new around this time in age. William Cline, the main character represents your stereotype native American. This story takes place post 9/11; therefore, the level of security has been increased greatly along with the amount of hostility towards darker skinned people. William describes how he feels out of place because he has all the traits of a native American but he feels likes he needs to try in order to keep up with his culture. He points out that his wife, Marie, is the one that lives up to the title and has no cares in the world. Her culture comes natural to her and she is not self-conscious about her appearance unlike her husband. Their daughter Grace, has a little bit of both parents. She has the carelessness of her mother and yet she strives to be like her dad as well. William’s family lives in Seattle and they are one of the first native American families to settle there; therefore, racism is a very touchy subject.

There once was a boy named Zits. He was half Native American, half Irish and completely parentless. He lived in many different foster homes until he eventually met a troubled youth named Justice, who filled Zits with ideas of violence until Zits opened fire on a bank. Subsequently, Zits was shot in the head and switched bodies throughout time and space. His journey continued as he was transferred through time and different individuals, all who related to his personality and had to make choices about violence. His story is one of self-discovery as he travels until he can return to himself and reverse his horrible actions in the bank. This story is the novel Flight by Sherman Alexie. In this novel, Alexie explores many complex themes, such as the effect of a father figure on one’s personality and how compassion can help heal a person’s soul. Throughout the novel, it is evident that Zits is strongly influenced by his parental figures or lack of them. In the beginning, he chooses to let his violent role models have total control over his version of right and wrong. After his journey of learning, he realizes that he has command over his thoughts and can choose what he believes. At the end, he also has positive role models, ones that won’t force him to be violent and care for him. Because of his change in role models and ideas, he becomes a more compassionate and empathetic person.

The 'never say die' efforts of Uncle John to stop the rising flood water is one example of Steinbeck's unremitting struggle theme (Steinbeck 567). The constant effort of the entire Joad family to find work, although poor, oppressed, and hungry, shows that Steinbeck wants to show their tremendous courage and dignity. In this way, Steinbeck is able to use the journey structure to describe these fine qualities he sees and respects in the poverty-stricken masses of his time.

All of them exhausted and some dying along the way. Elie was weakened almost to death and found a resting place in the snow. His father urged him to move on to a safer place, but Elie found it difficult: “Get up? How could I? How was I to leave this warm blanket [the snow]? I was hearing my father’s words, but their meaning escaped me, as if he had asked me to carry the entire shed on my arms…I got up with clenched teeth.” Elie and his father continued to make efforts to take care of each other. In this case, his father was trying to not let Elie give up.

This month marks the 50th anniversary of John Herschel Glenn Jr.’s historical flight. On February 20, 1962, John Glenn Jr. lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida and he was ready to do something no American had done before – fly a spacecraft around the Earth. After nearly five hours in space, orbiting the Earth three times, Glenn landed the spacecraft safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

There are many authors, poetry writers, and novelists around this world, but what make them into a famous author or writer? One of the famous American writer was John Steinbeck. He earned a Nobel prize of literature from his American classic novels that he had written in the past. The Nobel prize was not the only award that he had earned for his literature, he earned different awards for his writings also (John Stein..). John Steinbeck is a man who had overcome different obstacles and being successful in life.

All people possess the ability to fly, the inability comes from living a life that weighs them down. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison exemplifies the difficult journey of discovering identity through her character Milkman Dead. The novel follows him through the series of unfortunate events that make up his life and uncovers his complex family history that leads him to understand not only his heritage, but his identity and desire to fly. Everyone craves flight, whether conscious of it or not, but most let their other desires blind them and cannot “let go of the shit that weighs them down” (Morrison 179). Revenge consumes the life of the avenger, ruining it more that they could ever ruin their victim’s life, as Song of Solomon clearly depicts through the contrast between the inability and ability to fly.

The novel “Flight” was a very interesting story about a young boy who seems to be lost in life and has an identity crisis which leads him down the wrong path and makes the poor decision to shoot up a bank. To have the boy come to the conclusion what he was doing was wrong Sherman Alexie sends him to different places and times to show teach him something more, almost like the Scrooge and the many ghosts he encounters in “A Christmas Carol”. I will discuss a few of his “flights” analyzing each flight and his journey from Zits to Michael through emotional encounters and tough lessons.

“It is true that we are weak and sick and ugly and quarrelsome but if that is all we ever were, we would millenniums ago have disappeared from the face of the earth.” John Steinbeck said this of all humankind. He thought highly of us as a species, just as Dr. Stockmann did in Henrik Ibsen’s play Enemy of the People. Both men had problems in their societies, Stockmann in his town and Steinbeck in America, and both believed that humans were capable of seeing the problem and fixing it. The rest of the population did not see this as the case. They believed he was an enemy of the people and a threat to their way of life. Because of how Steinbeck expressed his views, people felt threatened by what he wrote and they called him a threat to

The poem “Icarus” by Edward Field explores the downfall of a man named Icarus from glory to mediocrity. He crossed the sea with huge wings to escape prison, but he flew too close to the sun, which melted his wings, causing him to fall into the ocean. Field uses several literary devices, such as connotation, alliteration, metonymy, and repetition, to adapt the Icarus myth to a contemporary setting.