IEB 12th grade character and theme quotes from the novel the Theory of Flight by Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu. Analysis of the characters and the breakdown of themes are also included.
The Theory of Flight Notes/Quotes
Themes/Symbolism
• Theory of Flight -TOF
o Travel, Freedom, Dreams, Flight
• Colonialism -C
o Discrimination. Segregation, Erasure of History
• Bearing Witness -BW
o Speaking/Telling the truth, to show that something exists
• Magical Realism -MR
o Surreal beauty, Fantastical elements
• The Power and Experience of Life and Choice- P/C
o Taking the power to choose one’s own path and place
• Love and Beauty-L/B
o Good triumphs evil, love for each other, the beauty of life
Genie
The main character to whom the novel is essentially dedicated. The novel honors/glorifies her
life through all her pain and suffering. She is a passive character in her own story until she
starts making her own choices about her ending.
Genie’s essential being and how she is special.
• “Of ways of living, remembering, seeing, knowing and dying” BW
• “Genie’s beginning was like all our beginnings-beautiful and golden” TOF MR
• “She strongly suspected that she had once upon a time been a sunflower, for
she too was thin and tall, reaching for the sky” MR
o The sunflowers symbolize several things to Genie, such as belonging, peace,
and safety. That seems to be the case when she imagines her father and her
walking through the field, and the sunflowers’ faces are no longer facing the
sun but have turned, each and everyone, towards her father and her as they
make their way home. The life cycle of the sunflowers represents the cycle of
birth, life, and death. They are a metaphor for the impermanence and
transience of the beauty of life.
• “You cannot break me. You see, I know for certain that my parents were
capable of flight” BW MR
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, Theory of Flight Notes by Micayladejesus
• “The sunflower field grows of its own volition, has its own rhyme and reason”
MR
• “Genie flying through the air, looking like something truly wondrous”. TOF
o When she was hit by the car and Vida saved her
• “She, Genie, was hatched from a golden egg” MR TOF
Genie’s character of being independent and “unconventional”
• “Genie had no husband and had never been married. She simply came either
her two children to every tea party and never explained how it was possible to
have children without a husband” P/C
• “I am HIV-positive, Marcus,” Genie said, still not looking at anyone” P/C BW
• “to fly away on a giant pair of silver wings… and leave her heart behind to calcify
into the most precious and beautiful something the world has ever seen”
TOFMR L/B
• “She was someone who lived a life that mattered” TOF L/B
• “Without warning, told him about the sunflowers, sojas, saviours and secrets”
BW
Genies being the heart of the story
• “I am already home”, she said with a smile of her own”.(Vida) L/B P/C
• “You remind me of rivers I swam in a long time ago. You are home to me” (Vida)
L/B P/C
• “Imogen was looking at him, watching him closely. She looked so …fulfilled”
(Vida) L/B
• “My letting you go is my way of loving you” (Marcus)
• “She had loved the sunflowers in a way that he had not. She had loved them
deeply” (Marcus) L/B MR
• “Were it not for Genie he would not have seen that theirs was a beauty worth
cherishing” (Marcus) L/B MR
Genie choosing her own ending/ being killed by a broken system
• “This is not an ending of my choosing. From now on I will choose my own
ending” P/C TOF
• “You have killed me. I am dead” (pg192) P/C BW
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