Flight Symbol Analysis

In the novel, airplane flight serves as a symbol of the transcendence that is achieved through spiritual insight. When Larry describes his experience of flying planes during World War I, he tells Somerset, “I felt that I was part of something very great and very beautiful. I didn’t know what it was all about, I only knew that I wasn’t alone any more, by myself as I was, two thousand feet up, but that I belonged […] I felt I was at home with infinitude.” That description bears a striking resemblance to Larry’s description of spiritual illumination, during which he says he is “ravished by the beauty of the world” and that he has “never known such an exaltation and such transcendent joy.”

Notably, Larry doesn’t just experience beauty while flying. He also experiences the trauma that catalyzes his quest for spiritual meaning when his closest friend in the air corps, Patsy, loses his life while trying to save Larry’s life. In a sense, Larry sets out to find spiritual insight in an attempt to reconcile what might seem like two wholly disparate experiences: the transcendent beauty of flight and the cruelty and sorrow of Patsy’s death, which also occurs while flying. With that in mind, Larry’s question about the problem of evil, and why evil exists, can be formulated in terms of flight. Essentially, Larry asks: does Patsy’s death contradict the beauty Larry experiences while flying, rendering it meaningless, or does that beauty and infinitude also somehow encompass the pain and suffering of Patsy’s death? Ultimately, Larry wants to find out if it is possible, and if it makes sense, to maintain a feeling of transcendent joy, peace, and connection with “infinitude” in the face of great suffering and evil. He eventually finds his answer through religious illumination when the secrets of the universe are revealed to him and clarify all of his previous confusion.