Flying Home

Todd, a young, Black Air Force candidate in flight training school, is the story’s protagonist. The story is told from the third-person limited point of view and explores Todd’s preoccupation with proving that he and other Black people are just as capable as white people. Todd’s persistent anxiety coexists with his resentment of the injustices he and his people face. He tends to be defensive and temperamental; for example, he becomes angry when he remembers the letter from his girlfriend encouraging him to use good judgment, and he assumes that Jefferson is mocking him when he tells the story of the Black angel. He almost too proud to even accept help from Jefferson and Teddy.

In the racist society of 1940s America, Todd’s pride is dangerous. When Dabney Graves mockingly tries to put him in the straitjacket, Todd speaks up for himself, even though he likely knows that Graves will not be receptive or kind.

Another of Todd’s central traits is sensitivity. While he drifts in and out of a pain-induced delirium, he reflects on why he decided to enter flight training school in the first place: because he saw a plane as a child and was amazed. Connecting with this innocent memory, which is nonetheless marred by the memory of the Ku Klux Klan dropping racist flyers from a plane, helps Todd remember who he is outside of the judgment of white people.

The story’s Black characters are foils for one another, as each embodies a different aspect of Black Identity and Stereotypes in America. Todd eventually realizes that Jefferson and Teddy are more than the poor, uneducated Black stereotypes he thought they were. Without realizing it, Todd had come to see them through the eyes of the white people whose judgment he so feared. By the end of the story, Todd accepts that he should appreciate and value his fellow Black Americans regardless of their upbringings and backgrounds, rather than judge and distance himself.