The most complex character in this collection undoubtedly is Todd ("Flying Home"). He resembles the mythic Icarus in his obsessive love of flying, and like Icarus, he twice falls to earth—when he climbs to the housetop to catch a lowflying plane, and again when a buzzard flies into the front of his airplane. In the first instance, his mother worries about his "crazy" ambition to fly; the second time he sees the crash as further proof of his failure to be good enough to fly in combat. In fact, he almost accepts the evaluation of white society, as expressed by Dabney Graves. At the same time, Flying Home and Other Stories Todd's ambition and his training have separated him from men like Jefferson; yet he believes Jefferson secretly ridicules him for trying to break out of his role as a black man, especially when Jefferson tells...