FINAL FLIGHT & FINAL SHOES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

 Introduction
 Theme

 Plot

 Conflict

 Element of style

 Figurative Language

 Conclucion
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

 Introduction
 Theme

 Plot

 Conflict

 Element of style

 Figurative Language

 Conclucion
 INTRODUCTION
 This guide should help you study flight It should
be useful to students from all part of world.
 I have written it specially to support students in
England and Wales preparing exam for GCSE in
English and English Literature
 The author Doris Lessing was born in 1919 in
Khermanhah in Persia now Iran
 His parents were British At six she moves to
Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia)
 Flight was published in 1957
 INTRODUCTION
 Michele Roberts was born in 1949. Her father was
English, while her mother was French and a Roman
Catholic.
 The family lived in North London, and Michele attended a
convent school.
 The Catholic Church influenced her work profoundly, and
the young Michele wanted to become a nun.
 She went on to study at Oxford University, where she
rejected her religious faith and became a feminist. In an
interview for the BBC,
 THEME

Is this story about an old man receives a present

from granddaughter’s boyfriend ?
 In one way it is. But is this all ?

Or does this outward or surface narrative lead

into another ?
 Leaving home and becoming independent are
things which most people face sooner or later.
They can be alarming, but they are natural and
almost inevitable.
 THEME
 Your Shoes is very much about the ways in which parents and
children communicate, or fail to do so.
 This story seems on the surface to have quite a lot in common with
Doris Lessing's Flight, in looking at the relationships between
generations and the ways in which young people become in
dependent.
 Michele Roberts considers how parents can oppress
children by trying to live through them, and how we
confuse material gifts with real concern for others'
welfare
CONTINUED

 in Flight, the old man moves on and accepts his

grand-daughter's growing up as necessary and
healthy. In this story the mother refuses to
move on - where the old man lets his favourite
pigeon go
 PLOT

SUSPENSE
 Old Man-possesive towards his family, keeps
pigeons, No real name in the story, doesn't
want his granddaughter to get married.
 PLOT

Suspense
She takes the attitude that when she was young
they weren't spoilt and that they have given her
everything she wanted, but this is contradicted by
the curtain incident, which shows that they gave
her everything they wanted her to have, not what
she wanted.
 CONFLICT

 The main source of this internal conflict is in

the Grandpa.
 The key problem he has is that he does not
want his granddaughter to grow up,
 He does not want his granddaughter to marry,,

 And finally he does not want his granddaughter

to leave him just like the rest of his
granddaughters
CONTINUED

Exposition
When Alice waits for Steven.
Rising Actions
When the grandfather gets mad at Alice and she
does not care about his opinions, he argues with
her mother because he does not want her to get
married.
CONTINUED

Climax
Old man expresses his worry of being forgotten
about granddaughter and fiance begin to pay
attention to showing him they will always be around.
Resolution
Grandfather lets the birds go and the whole world
seems to slow around him, he is able to pause and
savour the moment he didn't want to let go of.
 CONFLICT
 The conflict in the story Your Shoes is the mother did not
give the permission that her daughter to go outside. The
Mother is the narrator and she just wishes to keep her
daughter always with her.
 She becomes protective enough to think that her daughter
who has just eloped and got married shall not be taking
care of herself..
 In return, she also fights with her husband and just start
talking to her daughter's shoes.
 It seems that she has become insane out of her
daughter's love..
CONTINUED…

Rising Actions
When the mother gets mad at her daughter and
she does not care about his opinions, she argues
with her mother because he does not want her to
get married.
 CHARACTERS
 This is a very short story so it does not have fully
developed characters
 As we might meet in a novel or one of
Shakespeare's plays.
 Doris Lessing tells us only what we need to know
(and perhaps misses lots of things we might like to
know).
 So who are these characters?
 Representation of a person place, or thing performing
traditionally human activities or functions in a work of
fiction
CONTINUED

Protagonist – the protagonist in this story is

grand daughter of old man.
Antagonist – the antagonist in this story is old
man.
Minor character - minor character in this story is
lucy (Alice’s mother)
Dynamic character – pigeons are the dynamic
characters in this story.
CONTINUED

Setting :-
Doris Lessing grew up in Zimbabwe, in southern
Africa. Yet the setting of this story could almost be
anywhere, except for a few clues.
One is the wooden veranda at the front of the
whitewashed house.
Another, which is repeatedly mentioned, is
the frangipani tree. (This species of tree takes its
name from an Italian perfumier
CONTINUED
But many details make the story seem almost English in
its setting. Some of these are listed below. Can you think
of others?
 The valley, the earth, the trees;

 The dovecote;

 Lucy's sewing;

 Plates and cups of tea;

 Steven's father's job - he is a “postmaster”

 CHARACTERS

Protagonist - The protagonist in this short story is

her daughter.
Antagonist - The antagonist in this story is her
mother.
Minor character - The minor character in this
story is her father
Dynamic character – The dynamic character in
this story is shoes of the daughter
CONTINUED
Settings
The Time setting short story was published in 1993, which
means that the events are most likely supposed to take place
around that time.
The main physical setting of the story is the daughter’s
bedroom, where the mother locks herself and where she talks
to the shoes.
The social setting presents how the gap between generations
can come to affect the members of the same family, but also
the way in which a teenager can be influenced by entourage.
The narrator believes that her daughter is “spoilt” and
influenced by “her lot”, which is the main reason why she
drinks, experiences with drugs
 ELEMENTS OF STYLES
 This story, though written in the third person, is
told almost entirely from the old man's point of
view. How does this affect our reading of it?
 How does Doris Lessing suggest other viewpoints?
 Look at the descriptions the writer gives of Steven,
Alice and her sisters, not as they are
 But as the old man sees them. How do these
affect the reader's response.
 Comment on the structure of the story - how Doris
Lessing makes the narrative about Alice parallel
the secondary narrative about the pigeon.
CONTINUED
Point of view
 Third person point of view in the story Helps us see
the story as if it was happening in front of us, for
example like a movie
 This effect on the reader makes the story more easy
to understand
 The reader can see the revelation of the plot not only
from the eye of one character but from the eyes of
none and all of the characters.
CONTINUED
 In this situation the reader does not only emotionally
respond to one character but often to most of them.
Syntax
 Alice‘s legs: stems of trees

 Body language - actions and gestures

 lying happy eyes

 Repetition

 Comparison

 “courting”: “old

 fashioned phrase” (generation gap)

CONTINUED
 Narration and description to catch the reader sattention,
making us feel the grandfather's state of emotions
Tone
The conclusion can be seen when the author writes,
"The harden was all a fluster and a flurry of returning
birds. Then silence, and the sky was empty." The "fluster
and flurry" being the final action before the "silence"
indicating the end of the action.
 ELEMENTS OF STYLE
Title
The title of the story is very relevant to the events which
are presented from the mother’s perspective, yet it does
not reveal much about the plot. In fact, the shoes are more
important because of their symbolic value, not because of
the objects they represent.
Beginning
The beginning of the story is quite ambiguous, as we do
not know whom the narrator speaks to, if that person is
dead or alive or any details about the identity of the
narrator:
CONTINUED
Middle
The middle of the story presents the context of the narrative – a
mother is writing a letter to her daughter who has run away from
home. The woman initially seems concerned and expresses her
worries while imagining her daughter begging or becoming a prostitute
to survive. Later on, the real reason why the girl left home is revealed.
Ending
The end of the story reinforces our initial assumptions about the
mother descending into madness. She thinks that she is holding her
baby daughter in her arms in fact she is cradling and kissing her
shoes.
CONTINUED
Point of view
 “Your Shoes” by Michele Roberts is a first-person narration
told from the perspective of the main character, a mother
whose daughter has run away from home.
 As with every first-person narrator, you must reflect on the
narrator’s reliability.
 The mother renders the events from her perspective, and
there are no other characters that can contradict her or
tell otherwise. The daughter is not there to defend herself
and neither is the narrator’s mother, who might have had
a different opinion regarding her daughter’s childhood..
CONTINUED…

Tone:
The tone used in the short story is miserable &
frustrated.
I locked the door on those rebellious shoes. The
word locked is emotive here . it reinforces the
idea the mum has been over protective.
‘Rebellious hints an accusatory tone; the mum is
blaming the daughter for the whole conflict.
 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Personification
Pigeons are the personification in this short story flight
which is written by Doris Lessing.

Symbolism
 This story is very obviously one where symbolism is important to our
understanding.
 Alice is clearly likened to the favourite pigeon.
 The old man can keep the bird in, where he cannot control
Alice.
 But when he receives the new pigeon, he is able to release
the favourite : he accepts that shutting it in is not right.
CONTINUED
 The gift also suggests that there may be some compensation for
the old man in the new situation. But really he knows that nothing
can make up for the loss of his last grandchild.
Simile and metaphors
Simile example
His fingers curling like claws into his palm.
Metaphor example
Her hair fell down her back in a wave of sunlight.
 FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE

Hyperbole
Hyperbole, derived from a Greek word meaning “over-
casting,” is a figure of speech that involves an exaggeration
of ideas for the sake of emphasis. In this short story written
by Michele Roberts shoes her daughter is used as the
symbol of freedom because she wants freedom and her
shoes is compared to herself because her mother talks with
her shoes by thinking that these shoes were her daughter.
Personification
In this short story written by Michele Roberts shoes is used
as personification. Because her mother talked with her
shoes by thinking she is her daughter
CONTINUED…
Symbolism
Miss La-di-Da is the way the narrators mother calls her when
she learns about nutritional science. This form of address is
symbolic of the way in which the narrators the mother sees
her daughter as pretentious, as ‘la-di-da’ is used to express
disrespect for someone affected.
Simile and metaphors
The shoes are the main feature of the prose and used as a
metaphor to symbolise the daughter. The shoes follow the
thoughts experienced bythe mother towards her daughter.
Metaphor is used when her mother said “At first she wants to
punish the shoes
 CONCLUSION

There is a huge difference in the lifestyle of adult

and an old person it is mandatory that old person
have to help the adults to grow up with healthy
and strong body and mind
 CONCLUSION

In conclusion, I believe that although the prose are

fictional, many people can associate with some of the
experiences portrayed by the characters, such as the
relationships between family members in ‘Your Shoes’
and the lifestyle of the woman in ‘Lists.’ This is why the
reader finds both of the prose entertaining and
humorous.