The People Could Fly: American Black Folktales

Fiction | Short Story Collection | Middle Grade | Published in 1985

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Rules

When Tappin says, “Bakon coleh / Bakon cawbey / Bakon cawhubo lebe lebe” (22), food appears in the dipper. The magic spell functions as a rule, and the rule creates predictable results—it establishes order. When Bruh Rabbit doesn’t know the rules for Sword and says, “Go-ee-tell” (32), he loses order, and Sword leaves him with nothing. Minus rules, destruction ensues.

In Part 2, when Anton says the spell that will turn him into any one of the four creatures, he’s exploiting a rule, a foreseeable outcome, that enables him to kill the girl in the moon tower’s father and marry the girl. Manuel uses the rules about riddles and the rabbits to get the king’s fortune, and Wiley and his mother seize the rules for Hairy Man to banish him. Wiley’s mother tells him, “Old Hairy Man won’t hurt you ever again. Because we did surely fool him three times” (103).

As in Part 1, when a character breaks a rule in Part 2, peril arrives. Little Daughter breaks her father’s rules about leaving the house and meets a wolf. Once she’s back behind the gate, the rules apply, and order and safety return.

In Part 3, characters bend or break the rules. Little Eight John doesn’t follow his mother’s rules. He breaks the order that holds him and his family together: He dies, and his family almost falls apart. Jack continually breaks the rules with the Devil, getting a year extension and then a lifelong extension. Compromised rules don’t represent order, so Jack is left “wanderin in the dark” with no boundaries or destination (132).

In Part 4, the rules perpetuate slavery. The good characters must break these rules—the order they represent is vile. Yet some of the enslaved people manage to gain freedom by adhering to the rules. Warton promulgates a rule: If Nehemiah makes him laugh, he can go free. Nehemiah accomplishes the feat. In “How Nehemiah Got Free,” “The Talking Cooter,” and “The Riddle Tale of Freedom,” rules symbolize an order that the enslaved people can use against their enslavers.

The World

The orderly symbolism behind rules creates tension with the world symbolizing untold possibilities. If the worlds in the folktales weren’t enchanting and boundless, then the characters wouldn’t rely on rules to represent order. In a more restricted world, order would appear innately or less conspicuously. The need for rules and order plays off the anything-goes symbolism behind the world. The animals’ worlds contain surprises: He Lion discovers Man, Tappin learns about a magic spell that can produce food, and Alligator comes face-to-face with Trouble. The world’s permeability endangers the animals. As anything is possible, the animals can’t prepare for every threat. What they can do is work together and support their communities.

In Part 2, neither Anton nor Manuel have limits on their freedom or what they can do. Anton can turn into an eagle, an ant, a lion, or a dove, and Manuel can call the rabbits with the whistle he gets from a witch. In Part 2, the characters benefit from the world’s infinite outcomes. Little John flourishes from the unintended consequences of Big John’s abuse, and Papa John benefits from the huge turnip. It feeds him and his son for years. As Papa John tells Jake, “You et the last piece of it for your dinner today” (80).

In Part 3, the countless outcomes hurt the Devil characters. In “John and the Devil’s Daughter,” the daughter breaks from her father and flummoxes his plan to kill John. The accumulation of bad events eventually wipes out the demonic Little Eight John, and the Devil doesn’t foresee Jack tricking him two times. In worlds where anything is possible, it’s possible to trick the Devil.

It’s also possible to sabotage slavery, and the stories in Part 4 demonstrate the potential to subvert and evade the horrendous system. The collection's eponymous story pits the world’s possibilities against the limited perspectives of the Master, Overseer, and Driver. They don’t think the world represents endless possibilities. They believe they can impose their will on it. When the enslaved people fly, they have no effective answer. In a world of innumerable chances, there’s a chance that people can overcome its oppression and become free.

Identity

In Part 1, identity doesn’t symbolize fluidity, as the animals stay who they are. He Lion changes his attitude, but he never becomes something other than a lion. In “Wolf and Birds and the Fish-Horse,” Wolf gets the feathers from the birds, but he never turns into a bird. The identities of the animals remain fixed. It’s as if they have enough to worry about, so the authors maintain their identities. In Part 2, identities destabilize, with Anton vacillating from a boy to an eagle, an ant, a lion, and a dove. The Hairy Man, too, changes into a giraffe and then a possum. Fluid identities apply to good and bad characters, and the flexible compositions keep the characters and reader alert.

Little Eight John’s mom doesn’t heed the symbolism behind fluid identities. When her son becomes “a little dark spot,” she takes a “wet rag and wash off that grease-lookin spot on the kitchen table” (125). Fluid identities can symbolize a punishment. Little Eight John loses his humanity due to his apathetic behavior.

In “The People Could Fly,” fluid identities spur freedom and become a hidden weapon against slavery. The narrator says, “Say the people who could fly kept their power, although they shed their wings. They kept their secret magic in the land of slavery” (167). Alterable identities can lead to trouble: If a person has the power to change who they are, they pose a threat. With Toby’s help, the enslaved people unleash their mobile identities and fly from slavery to Freedom. Not all the enslaved people have wings and can fly; thus, not every enslaved person benefits from a fluid identity. Those without wings “must wait for a chance to run” (171)—a static identity circumscribes their movement.