Kimberley Jayne Fletcher :: English Literature

Kimberley Jayne Fletcher The links and connections between ‘Flight’-by Doris Lessing, ‘Your Shoes’-by Michele Roberts, ‘Chemistry’-by Graham Swift, ‘Superman and Paula Browns new snowsuit’-by Sylvia Plath, and ‘growing up’-by Joyce Carey. The main theme in all the pieces of prose is ‘family’. In ‘Flight’ the granddad and granddaughter growing up and having to let go because the granddaughter is getting married, and it’s hard for family to let people you love go. In ‘Your Shoes’ the mum is upset about her child running away and is telling the audience/reader how she is feeling and how certain she will come back because she hasn’t got her new shoes she bought her. In ‘Chemistry’ the relationships betweens the granddad, mum, son and new boyfriend and how their lives change when their close family die. In ‘Superman and Paula Browns new snowsuit’ the boys family and friends not believing him that he didn’t push Paula brown in oil slick and ruining her new snowsuit. In ‘Growing up’ the dad is too tied up with his work during the week and one weekend he decides to spend time with his two daughters and he realises how much they have grown up. Both ‘Chemistry’ and ‘Flight’ the children feel betrayed by their granddad. The boy in ‘Chemistry’ feels betrayed by his whole family but his granddad the most because he has just committed suicide to get away from his daughter who has changed because of her new boyfriend and the boy think that his granddad is the only one who understands him and now that he's gone he has no one like his granddad. The girl in ‘Flight’ is feeling betrayed by her granddad because she knows how much he loves his birds and he also loved her as much as his birds. So when he let go of his birds it was symbolical of him letting go of her, so she can have freedom in her life and not have him interfering in her life. But the irony is that she wants him in her life. All of the stories portray betrayed but by different people, ‘Flight’ and ‘Chemistry’ the boy and girl betrayed by their granddad. ‘Your Shoes’ the mother is betrayed by her daughter. In ‘Your Shoes’ the mother is talking about what her daughter is like and how she feels betrayed by her because her daughter had always liked her grandmother more than her and she had always hated her mother because of the way she treated her when she was young. ‘Superman and Paula Browns new snowsuit’ the child is betrayed by their family and friends. In ‘Superman and Paula Browns new snowsuit’ the writer doesn’t tell us