Boots Symbol Analysis

The special pilots’ boots that Maddie receives as part of her uniform represent, for Maddie, the idea that she belongs with the other pilots despite being female. Becoming a pilot is far more difficult for Maddie than it is for her male peers. She’s part of one of the last groups to receive training, and at various points throughout her military service, Maddie doesn’t even get to fly planes—as a woman, she has to work jobs on the ground. So when she finally joins the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) and begins flying planes around, she’s thrilled. It’s especially thrilling when, at various points, people recognize her as a pilot because of her boots. This helps establish them in Maddie’s mind as one of the major indicators that she’s in the right place, doing the right thing.

So, when Maddie crash-lands in France and has to give up her boots (the Resistance fighters dress up a killed Nazi sentry in Maddie’s pilot’s clothes and then blow the plane and the body up to make it look like Maddie died), Maddie experiences something of an identity crisis. Without her boots or the clothes that made her feel worthy and useful, Maddie spends much of her time crying. When she finally meets up with Jamie, who has also been stranded in France, she specifically takes issue with the fact that unlike her, he got to keep his boots. Jamie insists this is because he lost his toes when his plane got shot down and needs the boots to be able to walk. But Maddie takes this difference as proof that, as a man, Jamie enjoys privileges that Maddie never will—and further, she believes this is proof that because she’s a woman, she’ll get in even more trouble than a man would when she returns to England and has to answer for having destroyed a plane.

Maddie therefore finds it very touching when Jamie leaves France and leaves his boots behind for her (though this doesn’t affect how Maddie is treated when she finally does return to England). While the romantic chemistry between the two suggest that Jamie might have more than one reason for leaving Maddie his boots, Maddie nevertheless takes the gesture as proof that the other pilots respect her and think of her as one of them.