Compare two short stories where the characters face difficult Essay

Compare two short stories where the characters face difficult situations We are comparing the stories ‘Flight’ by Doris Lessing and ‘Your shoes’ by Michele Roberts. They both deal with the issue of daughters leaving home and how it affects the whole family. In ‘Flight’, the granddad is affected most severely but in ‘Your Shoes’, it is the mother. ‘Your Shoes’ is written in a first person narrative from the mother’s perspective. ‘Flight’ is written in the third person. The main theme of the stories is growing up and letting go/ moving on. In ‘Fight’ the granddad is overprotective of the granddaughter and she craves freedom from him and the atmosphere of the house she has grown up in. Her granddad makes her feel that getting married and moving away is wrong, ‘She’ll marry him next, I’m telling you; she’ll be marrying him next!’. In ‘Your Shoes’ there is a similar theme of over protectiveness and inability of the guardian to let go. However, in ‘Your Shoes’ the daughter actually runs away from the mother, whereas in ‘Flight’ the granddad simply feels that she is running away. The two stories conclude in very different ways. In ‘Flight’ the granddad symbolises that he is finally ready to let go of his granddaughter by releasing, if only for a short while, the pigeon that has symbolised her throughout the whole story. In ‘Your Shoes’ it contrasts this by the mother becoming increasingly unstable as the story progresses and ending with her seeming to have a mental breakdown. In ‘Flight’ the characters deal with the difficulties very differently than in ‘Your Shoes’. The granddad in ‘Flight’ tries to lock his granddaughter away from the world and convince himself he is doing it for her own good. The gra... ...of the mother’s family history, which shows that she didn’t take the side of her mother either, but went onto her father’s side. In ‘Flight’ and ‘Your Shoes’ the characters deal with the similar difficulties very differently. Both authors use symbolism to emphasise the difficulties or dilemmas, pigeons are used in ‘Flight’ and trainers are used in ‘Your Shoes’. The symbols in both stories relate to travelling or a journey. I think that the symbolism is effective in both stories but more so in ‘Your Shoes’ as the shoes represent several things; the pureness that the mother wants the daughter to have, the overbearing nature of the mother, the mother’s obsession with order and the fact that the mother can communicate better with a pair of shoes than she can with her own daughter. In comparison, I enjoyed ‘Your Shoes’ far more and found it more interesting. Compare two short stories where the characters face difficult Essay Compare two short stories where the characters face difficult situations We are comparing the stories ‘Flight’ by Doris Lessing and ‘Your shoes’ by Michele Roberts. They both deal with the issue of daughters leaving home and how it affects the whole family. In ‘Flight’, the granddad is affected most severely but in ‘Your Shoes’, it is the mother. ‘Your Shoes’ is written in a first person narrative from the mother’s perspective. ‘Flight’ is written in the third person. The main theme of the stories is growing up and letting go/ moving on. In ‘Fight’ the granddad is overprotective of the granddaughter and she craves freedom from him and the atmosphere of the house she has grown up in. Her granddad makes her feel that getting married and moving away is wrong, ‘She’ll marry him next, I’m telling you; she’ll be marrying him next!’. In ‘Your Shoes’ there is a similar theme of over protectiveness and inability of the guardian to let go. However, in ‘Your Shoes’ the daughter actually runs away from the mother, whereas in ‘Flight’ the granddad simply feels that she is running away. The two stories conclude in very different ways. In ‘Flight’ the granddad symbolises that he is finally ready to let go of his granddaughter by releasing, if only for a short while, the pigeon that has symbolised her throughout the whole story. In ‘Your Shoes’ it contrasts this by the mother becoming increasingly unstable as the story progresses and ending with her seeming to have a mental breakdown. In ‘Flight’ the characters deal with the difficulties very differently than in ‘Your Shoes’. The granddad in ‘Flight’ tries to lock his granddaughter away from the world and convince himself he is doing it for her own good. The gra... ...of the mother’s family history, which shows that she didn’t take the side of her mother either, but went onto her father’s side. In ‘Flight’ and ‘Your Shoes’ the characters deal with the similar difficulties very differently. Both authors use symbolism to emphasise the difficulties or dilemmas, pigeons are used in ‘Flight’ and trainers are used in ‘Your Shoes’. The symbols in both stories relate to travelling or a journey. I think that the symbolism is effective in both stories but more so in ‘Your Shoes’ as the shoes represent several things; the pureness that the mother wants the daughter to have, the overbearing nature of the mother, the mother’s obsession with order and the fact that the mother can communicate better with a pair of shoes than she can with her own daughter. In comparison, I enjoyed ‘Your Shoes’ far more and found it more interesting.