Analysis Of 'People Who Could Fly'

This scene shows how the “flying Africans” were able to gain the strength to fly because the circumstance of being a slave pushes them to fly away from their oppressors. Like Milkman, the “flying Africans” want to get away from the people who want to take their freedom away. The “flying Africans” want to go far away from the place that dehumanizes them, which results in them taking flight. In the folktale “People Who Could Fly,” Julius Lester explores the myth of the “flying Africans” in which he shows them leaving the “blood drenched fields of [their] misery behind” (Lester 23). Like the “flying Africans” in “All God’s Children Had Wings,” the slaves in this folktale share the same reason to escape circumstances that prevents them from being

[. . .] Captured Africans who arrived on slave ships realized their position in the New World, so they flew back to Africa rather than submit to slavery” (21-22). Gay Wilentz explains in his article that slaves obtain the gift of flight because they don’t want to live in a world where people considers them to be slaves. Wilentz’s statement also relates to the “flying Africans” in “People Who Could Fly.” In the folktale, Lester explains how the slave owners capture Africans from their homeland and brings them over to the New World, which results in the Africans flying back to Africa and resisting to slavery. In “The People Who Could Fly,” the “flying Africans” decide to fly away from their problem than to surrender and continue to be a

Milkman gains interest in his family’s lineage and learn the names of his family members that are meant to have an ability to fly but none of the other family members are concern as Milkman to find out that have a gift to flight. Solomon wants the gift of flight to be known and pass down to generations and generations but does not get to teach his son, Jake, the gift of flight because he drops him when he is in flight. Milkman goes back to where his people comes from and finds out his ability to take flight then he passes the information on to his family although none of them believe in the act of physically flying but Pilate. In “All God’s Children Had Wings,” the narrator reveals the gift of flight in an old African-American slave, who remembers where he came from, which means he also remembers what his ancestors taught his people; He remembers that he knows how to fly and helps his people remember by saying one odd word. Likewise, in “People Who Could Fly,” the slave-owners unknowingly bring an African witch-doctor over from Africa to the New World. The magical witch doctor brings over his crafts with him and reveals to the other African slaves that they can fly by