Hallo. Hab den Text von Doris Keller "Flight" und soll dazu folgende Aufgaben machen.
1) Write a summary of this story in about 150 words.
2) What is the relationship between the old man and his birds?
3) How could you characterizse Lucy, Alice´s mother? How is she viewed by her father?
4) Comment on the author´s use of
a)symbolism and
b)poetic language
Das ist was ich dazu gemacht habe. Kann das bitte sich jemand auf Fehler anschauen und ob ich noch was dazu schreiben sollte? Danke. Ach ja: das ist wirklich meine eigene Arbeit.
Doris Lessing - „Flight“
1) This short story act about an old man who keeps pigeons. He has four granddaughters. Two of them are married and the third one (Alice) wants to marry his boyfriend Steve. The old man hate Steve. He hates him as an person and the work of his father. The old man is possessive of Alice and jealous of Steven, because he have see how his other children’s leave the home and he fear it again. It the reason of quarrel between Alice and the old man. During the story Steve makes him a present of a new pigeon. That makes the old man more able to accept that his favourite grandchild wants to go. He let his favourite pigeon, that he keep shut up in the beginning of the story, go. In the end of the story Alice look at the old man and cry. It´s not clear why she cry and could have more than one meanings. 160
2) The old man has many of pigeons but one of them is his favour, that hi shuts up. He fear to lost his favour. He can control the pigeons, but he can´t control Alice, that will leave home. We know that the old man is very possessive and because he can´t control Alice he control his birds. But as he gets the new Pigeon from Steve, he let them all fly. 73
3)Lucy is calm and reasonable, the mother of Alice and the daughter of the old man. She care for his father. Lucy is marry at 17 but she never regret it. In the story is nothing written about her husband, maybe Lucy is widowed or divorced. The old man see in her an adult woman and square-fronted and calm-eyed woman, but after she has married. 61
4) In the story “Flight” Alice is compared with the pigeons of the old man. He can lock up the pigeons and take control this way of them, but it´s not possible with Alice. The old man was scarred that his “favourite” will leave him and never come back. The situation changes when he gets as a gift a new pigeon. He realized that it is wrong to lock up his favourite and let them fly. The gift is a symbol for an compensation for the loss. That he loses the one thing but get an another. But in reality he knows that he loses his favourite. The author show us her the one part of growing up and the other part of letting them go.
“Flight” is an short story and is written in the third person but from the perspective of the old man. About the setting of the action Lessing written only one note. The note is the frangipani tree which is mentioned several times. This trees growing in South Africa. The tree is not the only repetition. There are the sunlight:”The sunlight broke on....” or “...in a wave of sunlight...”, the gate:”...and went back to the gate.” or “...swinging on the gate...”. Others were the veranda. The garden or Lucy´s sewing. The garden could be an second symbolism. In the garden Steve makes an gift to the old man and give him a new young pigeon. It could symbolism the beginning of new life. 251