Previous
Wings, Birds, and Eggs
In The Theory of Flight, sunflowers symbolize the history that its characters share despite their disparate individual personalities, demographics, and commitments. The colonizer father of white heiress Beatrice Beit-Beauford plants sunflowers on the estate he has bought in an unnamed African country implied to be Zimbabwe because he has noticed that his daughter loves them. Sunflowers originated in the Americas; European colonizers of the Americas brought them back to Europe and spread them elsewhere. Thus, the planting of sunflowers on a colonial farm in Zimbabwe represents, in the first instance, the impact of global colonialism on Zimbabwe’s land and local culture.
After Zimbabwe’s independence, young children Genie and Marcus discover the sunflower fields first planted for Beatrice. They (particularly Genie) love the sunflowers for their beauty and begin playing regularly in the field, which represents how people in countries that have been colonized both inherit the colonial past and can repurpose it for their own ends. Moreover, the sunflowers’ death and rebirth with the seasons teach Genie and Marcus about life cycles, which symbolize history’s continuity: individuals may live and die, and a country may be named and renamed, but a land’s history continues across those changes. When Genie is beginning the process of dying after decades of carefully managing her HIV, she compares herself to a sunflower, considering herself simultaneously “rooted” and capable of flight. This incongruous juxtaposition of images—rooted things and flying things—indicates that each person is made up both of their individual aspirations and of their group history, the context in which they are “rooted.” Genie ultimately chooses to return to the sunflower field to die—and her loved ones follow her there, so that her death among the sunflowers reunites disparate and scattered individuals into a group made up of shared loves and histories. Thus, the novel uses the sunflowers to celebrate the power of group history—both negative and positive—without suggesting that individuals like Genie can be reduced purely to their historical context.
Sunflowers Quotes in The Theory of Flight
The The Theory of Flight quotes below all refer to the symbol of Sunflowers. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Book 1, Part 2: History
Quotes
So engrossed were they in their travels that it took them a while to notice that shoots were beginning to rise out of the reddish-brown earth. The sunflowers were being reborn. This was how they learned their most valuable lesson about death—that after it there is life again, that things that perish will rise again, that after every ending there is another beginning.
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Book 2, Part 1: Epistemology
Quotes
Funny that during her final moments her thoughts and concerns should be so domestic.
After a lifetime of believing she was in flight, of believing that she was something spectacular in the sky, had she rather been a hybrid thing—something rooted but free to fly? Could such a hybrid thing even exist?
Related Characters:
Related Symbols:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire The Theory of Flight LitChart as a printable PDF.
Sunflowers Symbol Timeline in The Theory of Flight
The timeline below shows where the symbol Sunflowers appears in The Theory of Flight. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 1, Part 2: History
...complex. After his wife dies giving birth to Beatrice, he notices that his daughter likes sunflowers and plants “a few acres” on his farm.
(full context)
...doll named Penelope. On the way, getting tired, the children spot a field of gorgeous sunflowers. Genie veers off into the field. Marcus, more “cautious,” leaves a clue behind to others...
(full context)
...up on reaching the hills and begin leaving the compound just to play in the sunflowers. Over time, the sunflowers wither and die. Genie tries to resurrect them—and, after hesitating, Marcus...
(full context)
While in the car, Genie and Marcus notice the sunflowers growing again—an experience that teaches them about lifecycles and resurrection. One day, playing in the...
(full context)
...goodbye wave through the window; he doesn’t return it. The car drives off, and the sunflowers vanish from his view.
(full context)
Driving toward the farm, Bhekithemba sees a field of sunflowers; then, suddenly, a scowling girl carrying a doll and a teddy bear (Genie) appears in...
(full context)
Genie tells Jestina that she was in the sunflower field when she heard guns and screaming. As the sojas were leaving, they stopped by...
(full context)
Book 1, Part 3: The Present
...shot down Beatrice’s plane; Genie and Beatrice have much in common, e.g. a passion for sunflowers, and are now friends across racial and generational lines.
(full context)
Book 1, Part 5: Epidemiology: Love in the Time of HIV
...demands he stay away, and tells him “the story of her life,” including details about “sunflowers, sojas, saviors, and secrets.” After, Vida blurts that he “didn’t save her after all.” He...
(full context)
...Frederick, herself, or anything—and starts picturing her as a child “playing in a field of sunflowers,” the way Genie used to, without knowing whether sunflowers had been planted in the country...
(full context)
...is nothing to forgive.” She recalls how she used to stick her feet into the sunflower field’s earth, while Marcus wouldn’t. She says: “My letting you go is my way of...
(full context)
Book 2, Part 1: Epistemology
Genie. Genie recalls her childhood play among sunflowers—and specifically her conviction that she was a sunflower in a past life—while she observes her...
(full context)
Just as suddenly, Genie is standing in the abandoned car by the sunflower field. Genie and the sunflowers turn to watch Elizabeth and Golide flying away on silver...
(full context)
Back in the sunflower field, Genie holds hands with Marcus and watches Golide emerge from the trunk of a...
(full context)
...and Dingani counters that he didn’t used to: when Dingani first met Marcus in the sunflower field, Marcus stared at him like he was missing an important quality—a judgment with which...
(full context)
Book 2, Part 2: Revelations
...asks Kuki, who is driving them, when they’ll reach the farm. Then she sees the sunflower field and yells, “Home!”
(full context)
...the streets have none, which prompted The Survivors to leave. Genie’s stories about the beautiful sunflower fields on the farm had so moved Goliath that he decided to buy it for...
(full context)
...often find bones in the fields, they claimed a “fresh” corpse had appeared among the sunflowers recently. When he asks whether the corpse is Genie, Vida says they’ll have to find...
(full context)
...been alive when she did, because she dug her feet into the soil of the sunflower field before she died. Jestina says they all ought to be glad Genie “chose her...
(full context)
