Things That Fly by Douglas Coupland

In conclusion, the setting is important in this particular short story because it aids in revealing the narrators emotional state.

CHARACTERIZATION

Characterization is achieved through a first person limited perspective.

The narrator is a COWARD, RELIGIOUS, and MISERABLE character in the story

The narrator is a gloomy, religious coward which doesn’t help him because instead of taking action towards his problems he avoids them and hopes it will solve itself and go away, (his messy living room is an example of this).

CONFLICTS

Douglas Coupland uses varied sentence length very frequently throughout the short story. His contrasting use of extremely long and extremely short sentences creates the true feel of a first person narrative

The run on sentence creates the feeling of the reader being inside of the narrator’s head, experiencing every unedited thought.

Casual Diction

The author uses casual diction to add to this, portraying a true, relaxed first person narrative.

Other Stuff

Allusion:

Personification:

Similes:

The genre of "Things That Fly" by Douglas Coupland is post-modernistic, based on his use of untraditional sentence structure and casual diction, lack of cohesion between paragraphs, and use of minimalistic drawings scattered throughout the story.

One could possibly take a psychoanalytical approach to "Things That Fly", analyzing, in-depth, each of the symbolisms portrayed throughout the short story, and what they mean to the narrator.

One could even diagnose the narrator with some sort of psychological disorder based on these symbolisms. An interesting quote to analyse comes after the narrator retreats to the TV room the second time where he reflects,

“I got to thinking about all of the bad stuff that has happened in my life recently. It made me think of all the bad things I had done to other people in my world – and there have been so many bad things I have done. I felt ashamed. I was feeling as though none of the good deeds I had ever done had ever mattered.” (146).

The narrators total disregard of all the good deeds he has done and exclusive focus on the bad things he has done sends him into a spiral of depressive thoughts and is a major delusion that could be diagnosed in a psychoanalytical approach.

Narrative

Voice

Each of these different things that fly causes him to think of “of all the bad things [he] had done to other people in [his] world (146), so much so that he becomes “so fed up with all the badness in [his] life, and in the world and [he] said to [him]self, ‘Please, God, just make me a bird – that’s all I ever really wanted.’” (147).

CHARACTERS

There are three characters in the short story. The main character is the narrator and the two supporting characters are his parents.

We can see this when the narrator starts to pray to God so his problems could disappear.

The narrator is miserable when he reflects on all the badness in his life.

The narrator shows his cowardice when he wants to be free from his problems and decides to go to his parents’ house.

“Please, God, just make me a bird – that’s all I ever really wanted – a white graceful bird free of shame and taint and fear of loneliness… But instead God gave me these words, and I speak them here.”(147).

“It made me think of all the bad things I had done to other people in my world – and there have been so many bad things I have done. I felt ashamed. I was feeling as though none of the good deeds I had ever done had ever mattered.” (146).

“So much has happened in my life. And after hours of this pointlessness I finally had to admit I couldn’t take being alone one more minute. And so I swallowed my pride and drove to my parents at their house further up the hill.” (144).

He sees himself as a bad person although he admits to having done good deeds, making him truly miserable.

Even when he arrives at his parent’s house, the narrator tries to avoid any discussion about what happened to him recently.

INCLUSION OF

The main conflict in the story is

CHARACTER VS SELF

Another conflict of the story is

The narrator wants to be a bird because he sees them as animals with freedom. As a bird, he wouldn’t have to deal with all the stress and problems he has faced. The narrator thinks he is not free and can only pray to be free.

CHARACTER VS SOCIETY

The narrator doesn’t see society as being free. The one person the narrator sees as free is Superman because he doesn’t do bad things and has the ability to fly.

“If only I could be a whooping crane and was able to float and fly like them, then it would be like always being in love.”(147).

“I have always liked the idea of Superman because I have always liked the idea that there is one person in the world who doesn’t do bad things. And that there is one person in the world who is able to fly.”(146).

The narrator doesn’t see himself or society as free.

THE IMPORTANCE OF

SETTING

The setting is important in the short story, “Things that Fly” because it effectively helps to reveal the main characters mental state. The author begins his narrative explaining the state of his apartment. He shares that he has,

“…just woken up from a deep deep sleep on a couch shared with pizza boxes and crushed plastic cherry yogurt containers.” (143).

Due to the mess of the setting, it is clear at this point that the main character is not in an average state of mind.

After waking and watching television, the narrator then decides to leave for his parents’ home instead of cleaning his own apartment. The narrators escape from his problems is a common theme throughout the duration of the story.

“…odd and under the microscope…”

Even after the narrator escapes to his parents’ house they make him feel, at which point he,

“went upstairs to sit in the guest room to look out the window at the honking V’s of Canadian geese flying towards the united states from British Colombia.” (144).

This constant escape of setting (where his problems are) helps to reveal the apparent depression that the narrator is dealing with.

Works Cited:

Coupland, Douglas. “Things That Fly.” Imprints 12. Toronto, Canada: Nelson

Education, 1987. 143-147. Print.

CRITICAL

Narrative

APPROACH

RELEVANCE OF THE

In, “Things That Fly” the main character has gone through an unmentioned emotional turmoil (we presume a divorce).

Since emotional turmoil and sadness are feelings felt by every mentally stable human being, this short story is relative to any reader.

The story also deals with the main characters infatuation with birds and flying.

This is relevant to human experience because bird watching is a very popular hobby.

Also, aviation has captivated the human race for millions of years.

AUTHOR'S IDEAS

Techniques

TO

HUMAN EXPERIENCE

The Use of

Sentence Length

DESCRIPTION

SOME

EXAMPLES

OF

Douglas Coupland is a very quirky writer who uses a great deal of description to effectively produce vivid images in his writing.

“On another channel there were pictures of a zee in Miami, Florida, which had been whacked by a hurricane and there were pictures of ducks and tall elegant birds swimming in the wreckage except they didn’t know it was wreckage. It was just the world.” (146).

The

DESCRIPTION

Coupland often ignores run on sentences in order to produce an effective description of what the character is doing and what his surroundings are.

I’m sitting hunched over the living room coffee table on a Sunday night, in a daze, having just woken up from a deep deep sleep on a couch shared with pizza boxes and crushed plastic cherry yogurt containers.” (143)

“I drifted listlessly about the house, from silent room to silent room, spinning the wheels of the two mountain bikes on their racks in the hallway and straightening a pile of CDs glued together with spilled Orange Crush in the living room.” (143)

“And I will add in closing that when I got back home tonight, I stepped through the door over my messes; I fell onto the couch and into a sleep and then into a dream, and I dreamed that I was back in Minneapolis, back next to the corn fields.” (147)

Coupland’s descriptions results in a very detailed understanding of what the narrator is feeling and why.

and

GENRE

TONE

The tone of "Things That Fly" is casual and informal, based on the varied sentence lengths and casual diction found in sentences like the very first one,

None of the listed activities were important, and the diction supported that.

Untraditional sentence structure and casual diction is seen in sentences like,

“Today went like this: I was up at noon; instant coffee; watched a talk show; a game show; a bit of football; a religious something-or-other; then I turned the TV off.” (143).

THE

“I’m sitting hunched over the living room coffee table on a Sunday night, having just woken up from a deep deep sleep on a couch shared with pizza boxes and crushed plastic cherry yogurt containers.” (143).

The list could have been structured far more appropriately, and each item could have been more eloquently worded, but Coupland chose not to, staying true to the anarchic ideals of a postmodernist.

SIGNIFICANCES

This gives it a true first person feel, and creates the informal conversational tone Coupland is trying to achieve.

The lack of cohesion between paragraphs can be seen between practically every paragraph.

The first paragraph ends with,

“well- let me describe what happened today.” (143)

and the second paragraph begins with,

“Today went like this:” (143).

This style of cohesion strays completely from the norms of traditional literature, making Coupland’s piece postmodern.

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF

THE FIRST SENTENCE

THE TITLE

In the first sentence the narrator wakes up in his messy living room.

“I’m sitting hunched over the living room coffee table on a Sunday night, having just woken up from a deep deep sleep on a couch shared with pizza boxes and crushed plastic cherry yogurt containers.” (143).

The story also includes line drawings depicting what each paragraph mentions. Their basic design gives the short story an almost child-like feel, which acts as an amusing contrast to the deep philosophical thesis that the narrator is attempting to comprehend.

The fact that the narrator is waking up to a mess makes the reader infer that he does not like dealing with problems, would rather escape from it all- would rather sleep. The messy living room represents all the issues he has in his life.

THE LAST SENTENCE

“According to the TV, Superman was supposed to die in an air battle over the city with supremely evil force, and while I knew this was just a cheesy publicity ploy to sell more comics—and I haven’t read a superman comic in two decades—the thought still made me feel bad.” (144)

In the last sentence the narrator returns to his messy house and falls asleep, not having dealt with his issues.

The significance of the title, "Things That Fly", is that whatever can fly is free of problems. Birds don’t have to deal with problems like divorce, job loss, money issues, or stress, and neither does Superman. Superman can make problems disappear that the narrator can’t. The narrator has issues in his life and he doesn’t want to face those problems,

he wants to escape his problems by flying

away from them like in his dreams. The

significance of the title is that the ability to

fly can make one truly free.

I dreamed I had taken a glass elevator to the top of one of the city’s green class skyscrapers, to the very top floor, and I was running around that floor from one face of the skyscraper to the other, frantic, looking though those big sheets of glass—trying to find a way to protect Superman.” (147).

In his dream, the narrator wants to protect the only embodiment of freedom in a human—Superman.

An interesting point to note is that there is a unity of waking up at the beginning surrounded by filth, surrounded by problems, and falling asleep at the end surrounded by filth, surrounded by problems, having not dealt with anything.

“On another channel there were pictures of a zoo in Miami, Florida, which had been whacked by a hurricane…” (146)

“The cold air sparkled and the maple leaves were rotting , putting forth their lovely reek, like dead pancakes.” (144)

“a new crystal city all shiny like quartz rising over the Midwest corn fields. (144)

“Yo-yo darted about the yard like a pinball.” (145)

yo yo ^

The Use of

Symbols