12/12/2014
Review of ''His First Flight''............................................
Liam O’ Flaherty pictures the Irish Sea coast, and bird life through his
inspirational story of a seagull in “His First Flight”. Bird life and habits are
revealed clearly through the story. A bird attains independence only when it
succeeds in flying. Flying encourages a bird to cover the land and the seas
through air. One such young seagull and his first flight overcoming fear is
the central character and theme of the story.
The young seagull is alone on the ledge, his usual place of rest. His head is
down, he is depressed. The reason is that his brothers and sister (siblings)
have learnt to fly, but he hasn’t .His attempts have not become successful.
Somehow the fear of failure and the lack of confidence has pulled him down.
He has formed a judgment in his mind that his wings will never support him
even though his wings are larger and stronger than the others. He cannot
muster up (gather) courage to take, that plunge or leap which will inspire
flying .His parents scolded him, and threatened him to starve on the ledge, if
he did not fly. But all this was nothing. He was scared to death.
Now 24 hours of tension has passed. His parents have tried their best to
encourage him, to make him fly, but they failed. Moreover he had seen his
parents perfecting his siblings in the art of flying, teaching them to skim the
waves and dive for fish. The young seagull felt jealous seeing his older
brother catch a herring and eat.
The parents wanted him to feel jealous, they wanted to show him their
anger in his refusal to fly. He must not be a coward, a fool. Birds are born to
fly, and if this seagull did not have the courage to do he would be a failure.
Other birds would make fun of him. He would die of starvation.
Now it was evening, he was hungry. Not a single bit of food on the ledge. His
stomach hurt from starving. But still he was not ready to try and fly. But
moreover the funny fact was that he was burning his head, thinking of a
method to reach his parents without flying. Between him and his parents
there was a deep crack.
He tried to make his parents notice his presence. He stood on one leg, with
the other leg hidden under his wing, closing his eyes and pretending to fall
asleep. But no one saw him. Again he secretly viewed his brothers and
sisters lying and dozing after their first day of flying. His father was preening
his feathers. But his mother, she was the only one who was still worried.
She was looking at her young one. She wanted to give him some more
inspiration, so she started pecking at a piece of fish .When she rubbed her
beak on the rock, the young seagull grew mad. “Food….oh God its so long
since I’ve had some food. His mother understood his needs. She cackled
ga,ga,ga…. He too cried out loud. To his surprise, he saw his mother pick up
a piece of fish and fly towards him. As he came nearer and nearer, his heart
jumped with excitement. The thought of food bought water in to his mouth.
But as she came nearer the rock, she halted. He unknowingly dived at the
food, and he fell into open space. And he felt frightened. But the fear lasted
only for a moment. He spread his wings outward and started to fly. He was
soaring. He was so happy. He howled with joy. His family too came to
accompany his joy. The whole family soared and dived through the air. He
forgot his fear. Next he came on to the sea. His feet fell into water. He
thought he would fall, but his belly touched the water .He felt balanced. He
could fly and float too. Thus he made his first flight.
