GROUP 6

DORIS LESSING & FLIGHT

(1919-2013)

GROUP 6 MEMBERS:
1.
2.
3.
4.

V THANH HIN
LNG TH THU AN
NGUYN TH THU H
NG PHNG KHANH

I.HISTORICAL BACKGROUND(THE 20TH 21ST CENTURY)

- 1901: Death of Queen Victoria
- 1914-1918: The 1st World War
- 1939-1945: The 2nd World War
- 1956: Suez Canal Crisis: Britain-France vs. Egypt
- 1991: Gulf War
- 1997-2007: Tony Blair The Rise of New Labor
- 2011: US declared Global War on Terrorism.
- 2007-2010: Gordon Brown replaced Tony Blair.
- 2010-present: David Cameron became Prime Minister.

II.MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE & NOBEL PRIZE

A.MAN BOOKER
INTERNATIONAL PRIZE

B.NOBEL PRIZE

*Awarded annually to a long

*The prizes are warded

novels which was voted best

be written in English
*Started in 1969
*Awarded partly in translaton
*50,000 prize for the winning
title

annually to an author from any

country by the Swedish
inventor and industrialist
Alfred Bernhard Nobel
*Alfred Nobel was born on 21
October 1833 (10 Dec 1896) in
Stockholm, Sweden.

III.BIOGRAPHY OF DORIS LESSING

Synopsis:
* Was born in Persia (present-day Iran), on October 22, 1919
* Left house and started living her independent life when she was 15
* Married for the first time at the age of 18
* Became the oldest recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature in
2007
* Passed away at the age of 94
Writing Career:
* 1949 published her first novel The Grass Is Singing, began a
professional writer
* Got remarkable in science fiction novelssuch as the series
Canopus in Argos.
* Left a legacy of more than 55 works
* Wrote Alfred and Emily for the last time

Awards and Honors:

* Somerset Maugham Award (1954)
* France's Prix Mdicis (1976).
* Being shortlisted multiple times for the Man Booker Prize.
* In 1999, she was recognized by the British government as a
Companion of Honour.
* Most notably, Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in
2007.

IV.FLIGHT
A.SUMMARY

In the short story "Flight" by Lessing, it's the story of an old man
who raises homing pigeons for a hobby and who constantly
worries about his last granddaughter, Alice, leaving and getting
married to the postmaster's son, Steven.

The old man is very overprotective and also possessive of his

daughter. In a way, the grandfather is also jealous of Alice's
fianc, Steven. The Old man argues with Alice about her
behaviour when Steven is with her and he complains to his
daughter, Alice's mother, Lucy

DORISS POINT OF VIEW IN FLIGHT

The story is told in an

omniscient third person
point of view

enables us to see into the minds

of all characters and helps us to
understand their feelings and
attitudes.

THE SETTING- TIME AND PLACE

The place: in South Africa - FRANGIPANI TREE which is repeatedly
mentioned throughout the story
The time: hard to figure out

CHARACTERS IN FLIGHT

* The old man is Alice's grandfather. He always feels possessive

towards her.
* Alice is the old man's granddaughter. She is a young woman. mostly
she has a serious and grown up wish to marry her boyfriend.
* Lucy is the old man's daughter and Alice's mother. She is depicted as
a grown up in her appearance her actions). Her husband is absent.
She knows that Lucy will marry soon at and never regret it. She
tries to reassure the old man about Alice.
* Steven is Alice's boyfriend. In the story we see him through the old
man's eyes. The old man didnt like him. He is thoughtful enough to
give the old man a present of a pigeon in the end of the story.

ACCORDING TO YOU, WHO IS THE PROTAGONIST?

DORIS LESSING'S TECHNIQUE

Body language - actions and gestures

* Attitudes usually appear in actions

They hung about him, affectionate, concerned. They took his arms
and directed him.enclosing him, petting him...
wide-eyed while tears run down Alices face
at the end of her childhood.

She is also sad

Dialogue
A lot of sentences are in the form of conversation
Hey - Waiting for Steven, hey?and Think you're old enough to go
courting, hey? (The old man askes Alice)

Language

Repetition usedin the story

reinforce details of the scene

(sunlight, the frangipani tree,

the veranda, Lucy's sewing)
identify people (the
postmaster's son and his
daughter or the woman).

Comparisons
Alice's long legs are likened to the frangipani stems - "shiningbrown" and fragrant
The old man's fingers curl like claws
Later Alice and Steven tumble like puppies

Symbolism

Alice = the old mans favorite pigeon

Pigeon releasing -> shutting it in cage is not right -> the old man
still feels the sadness of his loss.

THEME OF THE STORY

Leaving home and becoming independent

are things which most people face sooner or
later. Everyone can be alarming, but they
are natural and almost inevitable.
Sometimes this kind of story is described in
the phraserites of passage.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR

WATCHING