Flying Home Bird Symbolism
One of the things I liked most about Flying Home was the symbolism behind flight, buzzards, and eagles. The black men, who wish to gain flight and fly like white men do, are subtly portrayed as buzzards, while white men are symbolized as eagles. The buzzards, however, are the cause of Todd’s crash, and the images we get of them for most of the story seem dark and disturbing. Perhaps Ellison was making a comment that if they were not careful, black people in America could land themselves in a worse spot than they were already in. I believe that this was Ellison’s way of telling his readers that Todd’s flight and crash were a possible future for black people in America, if they flew too high too fast and allowed themselves to panic in their new positions. I think that he was urging his black readers to be careful, and not allow for any mistakes that would let the black rights movement come crashing down to earth. The end of the story closes with a buzzard flying across the sun. The description of its flight conjures the image of a phoenix transforming in flames, which I believe Ellison saw as the dynamic position of the Black rights movement of the time period. He saw their position as one full of potential, and yet not far at all from the “buzzard” position they were trying so hard to distance themselves from.
I really like this interpretation of the bird imagery in Flying Home. I too commented on the image of the black bird flying across the sun at the end of the story, but didn’t quite take the image to portray all of the black race– rather just Ellison. I also thought it was interesting to contrast the buzzard and the black bird at the end. I figured that the buzzard was the black bird, but I think it makes more sense that the black bird at the end is not necessarily a buzzard. While the bird is still black it is not a buzzard, thus seemingly one step up from the way blacks are portrayed in this story (not too big of a step to be dangerous, but big enough to make a difference).