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Symbols
In The Theory of Flight, objects associated with flight—such as wings, birds, and eggs—represent characters’ individual aspirations, which can bolster or damage their relationships with others. The novel’s prologue mentions that a woman named Genie, immediately after her death, was witnessed soaring “on a giant pair of silver wings.” The image of a recently deceased person flying skyward activates cultural ideas of heaven as a reward for and consummation of life’s aspirations. Yet the prologue also makes clear that several as-yet-unnamed characters witness Genie’s flight, hinting that her ascension has provoked hope, awe, and belief in the people whose lives she touched: in flying, she has bolstered others’ aspirations.
After the novel introduces wings as a positive symbol, however, it complicates that characterization. Baines Tikiti, Genie’s grandfather, aspired to travel the world, an aspiration symbolized by his obsession with airplanes. This aspiration ultimately motivates Baines’s suicide, because his “wanderlust” leads him to reject and be rejected by his family. The second complication is the story of Golide Gumele, Genie’s father. During the Zimbabwe War of Independence, Golide falls in love with Elizabeth Nyoni, an aspiring country singer who longs to fly to Nashville, Tennessee. Golide wants to support Elizabeth’s aspirations, decides to build her wings, and shoots down a passenger plane so he can salvage its parts and use them to teach himself and his allies how to build planes. As Golide shoots down the plane, he has a vision of Elizabeth hatching their daughter Genie from a golden egg; this vision implies that Golide’s decision to help others fly (literally and figuratively) has made new life and a larger community possible. Yet by shooting down a plane, Golide also kills several people, including the young biracial sons of white heiress Beatrice Beit-Beauford, whom the colonial government is legally persecuting for giving money to freedom fighters like Golide. Thus, Baines’s and Golide’s stories show how aspirations can damage either the person who has them or the people around that person. The novel then returns to Genie’s story, narrating how her desire to die on her own terms at first distresses but ultimately unites and inspires the people who love her. Thus, the novel’s symbolism of flight (wings, birds, and eggs) insists on the importance of individual aspirations while showing the positive and negative impacts such aspirations can have on relationships.
Wings, Birds, and Eggs Quotes in The Theory of Flight
The The Theory of Flight quotes below all refer to the symbol of Wings, Birds, and Eggs. 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:
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Book 1, Part 1: Genealogy
Quotes
Golide knew that building airplanes was a costly business—that being capable of flight would come at a price. Parts either had to be bought or manufactured, people had to be educated and trained and the state’s monopoly on manufacturing had to be destroyed and decentralized. These obstacles made Golide spend most of his time thinking of ways to make the people understand that they were still capable of flight, and at no cost to themselves.
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Book 1, Part 2: History
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Bhekithemba did not believe in love, at least not in romantic love. He understood the love one had for one’s parents and one’s country—but that sort of love was born of respect and gratitude. It was a sort of giving back. There was a reason for that kind of love. It was only natural to love the things that had given you life, a sense of place, a feeling of belonging, a connection to things beyond yourself. You could not exist without those things and so of course you loved them. It was a selfish love: a love of self-preservation. Selfish love was understandable . . . reasonable. But romantic love had no reason.
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The man told Bhekithemba how he had come up with his theory of flight on September 3, 1978, as he watched elephants swim across the Zambezi River. What had made the first elephant cross was that it could see the other bank of the river—the elephant would not have swum into the ocean, of this the man was certain. What made the other elephants follow was the successful passage of the first. The man wanted people to know that they were capable of flight, and at first he had erroneously thought that they would realize this if he taught them how to build airplanes. After watching the elephants, he understood that what was needed was merely his own belief in flight. If people saw him build a giant pair of silver wings, then they too would believe that they could fly.
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Book 1, Part 4: Teleology
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“You understand that in the grander scheme of things you are but a speck . . . a tiny speck , , , and that that is enough. There is freedom, beauty even, in that kind of knowledge . . . and it is the kind of knowledge that finally quiets you. It is the kind of knowledge that allows you to fly.”
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Book 2, Part 1: Epistemology
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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?
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“You cannot break me. You see, I know for certain that my parents were capable of flight.”
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Book 2, Part 2: Revelations
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Genie chooses this particular moment, with the survivors as her witnesses, to fly away on a giant pair of silver wings . . . and leave her heart behind to calcify into the most precious and beautiful something that the world has ever seen.
As the survivors watch her ascend she experiences love as the release of a promise long held.
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Get the entire The Theory of Flight LitChart as a printable PDF.
Wings, Birds, and Eggs Symbol Timeline in The Theory of Flight
The timeline below shows where the symbol Wings, Birds, and Eggs appears in The Theory of Flight. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Prologue
...3 on the Beauford Farm and Estate. Upon her death, witnesses saw her grow silver wings and fly away—and her heart transform into “the most precious and beautiful something.” Due to...
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Book 1, Part 1: Genealogy
...feels an object pass out of her body and land on her mattress: a golden egg. On seeing the egg, Elizabeth realizes she and Golide are now forever linked.
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...plunges in, then the others. Golide, overcome, envisions Elizabeth hatching a daughter from a golden egg. Then he shoots down the plane.
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Book 1, Part 2: History
Elizabeth Nyoni arrives at the Beauford Farm and Estate carrying a golden egg. Thandi is struck by Elizabeth’s self-confidence. One day, Elizabeth tells Thandi that she’s so pretty,...
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...and Jestina talking. Jestina is criticizing Elizabeth for continuing to treat baby Genie like an egg—carrying her everywhere on her back. When Elizabeth asserts her pride in her and her baby’s...
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...a story: a cult on the Beauford Farm and Estate focused on a man building wings to fly his beloved wife to Tennessee.
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...and thus selfishness, e.g. familial love and patriotism. Refusing to believe a man would build wings out of love for his wife, Bhekithemba imagines there must be a secret hidden reason...
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...reporter who wants to write a story that will inspire people about a man building wings, she asks him why he would write a story and who he’s trying to inspire....
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...She tells them that Bhekithemba has arrived to tell the story about the man building “wings.” A “painfully white” man (Golide) walks out of the crowd and tells Bhekithemba he’s the...
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...have been occurring for years, but the torchbearer insists that Golide’s infamous plane-shooting and his wings brought violence to the community. The torchbearer demands that Jestina take Genie, leave, and never...
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Book 1, Part 3: The Present
...send Marcus a 1965 atlas, Krystle a Victoria Falls postcard, and Minenhle and Mordechai a bird; she also plans to take Beatrice to the spa.
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Book 2, Part 1: Epistemology
...in a past life—while she observes her blood spread across the mattress. It first looked “winged” and then like “a country with rather fluid borders . . . a country she...
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...field. Genie and the sunflowers turn to watch Elizabeth and Golide flying away on silver wings. Then sojas in trucks carrying AK-47s approach the compound. Genie hears gunfire and smells burning...
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...the world,” she realizes that her mother Elizabeth’s story about hatching her from a golden egg was accurate. Genie and Golide smile matching gap-toothed grins. When he lifts her onto his...
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...he’s experiencing “a memory within a dream.” He wakes up on the street. A pretty bird with a broken wing is flapping on his chest. Vida desperately wants to touch the...
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...straight with Bhekithemba. Then, disoriented, he asks a nearby street vendor whether he had a bird with him. After the vendor replies that her “eyes are not for beauty to see,”...
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...is walking back to her apartment, ignoring Marcus’s calls, when she steps on something—a baby bird, wounded but alive. Krystle wants to help the bird but worries she’ll hurt him if...
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The baby bird tries to flee Krystle but, unable to move, gives up. Krystle identifies with his resignation:...
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Krystle decides to move the baby bird off the sidewalk. From her purse she unearths a postcard of Victoria Falls on which...
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...soon as Krystle enters her apartment, she wants to go back and make sure the bird is all right. She finds him on the earth beside the postcard; she can’t tell...
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Krystle returns to the bird and puts him in a container she has prepared. His resolute expression convinces her that...
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...chatting with the old white woman about the statue. They agree that it represents a bird, though the woman notes her husband sees it as “a woman suspended in the air.”...
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They hear Mordechai coming down the hall. When he enters the room, he’s carrying a bird in his hand. When Marcus comments that he didn’t realize they had a bird, Minenhle...
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...Valentine watches her through the window. She rejoins Mordechai in the courtyard, and a colorful bird flies into her hand. As they pass out of sight, Valentine feels melancholy. He hopes...
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Book 2, Part 2: Revelations
Genie. As “the survivors” watch, Genie soars upward with silver wings—but her heart, which will turn into “the most precious and beautiful something,” remains behind. When...
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...It is the kind of knowledge that allows you to fly.” An airplane with silver wings passes over the scene.
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