Flight Themes

The question of Pepé’s manhood defines the story from beginning to end, informing his actions and the way people treat him at every turn. He begins as a lazy and easygoing boy, telling his skeptical mother that he’s become a man now as he ventures out to complete the errands he’s been given. But when he returns home, having killed a man, he begins to understand his mother’s harsh conception of manhood in a more…

While the story opens in a peaceful domestic setting, there are indications from the beginning that “Flight” takes place in wild country. As Pepé travels farther and farther from home, the landscape around him becomes increasingly desolate and deadly, practically making him into a hunted animal himself. Every detail of the situation and the environment suggests that when people venture into the mountains, they’re no longer fully human; they become predators and prey. As Pepé…