Flight (Characters)

Characters

Mama

See Mrs. Torres

Papa

See Mr. Torres

Mrs. Rodriguez

Mrs. Rodriguez lives in Monterey and is a friend of the Torres family. Although she does not appear in the story, it is at her home that Pepe becomes drunk and stabs the drunken stranger. Her home is the only location of social gathering in the story.

Mr. Torres

Mr. Torres is Pepe’s father who, ten years prior to the time of the story, died when he tripped over a stone and fell on a rattlesnake. The switchblade Pepe now owns was inherited from his father. Although the story says nothing about the father other than his manner of death, his presence is constantly felt.

Mrs. Torres

Mrs. Torres is Pepe’s widowed mother. She lives on the family’s seaside farm with her two sons and her daughter and is determined to maintain her home without the help of a man. She keeps the two younger children home from school so they can fish and bring in food for the family. She believes that Pepe is “fine and brave,” though there is little evidence to substantiate her opinion. In fact, she constantly tells Pepe how lazy he is, and says that he is foolish when he asserts that he is a man.

When Pepe returns from an errand in Monterey and tells his mother he must flee, she helps him pack, admitting that she had been worried about his quick reflexes with the knife. Despite the fact that he has failed to stay out of trouble while on his errand, she believes that Pepe’s experience in Monterey has made him “a man now,” for “[h]e has a man’s thing to do.”

Pepe Torres

Nineteen-year-old Pepe Torres is the main character in “Flight.” He is tall, thin, gangly, and lives on the family farm with his widowed mother and a younger brother and sister. While his mother believes that he is “fine and brave,” there is no indication that he is anything but lazy. He is very skilled in throwing his father’s switchblade, however, and wants to prove that he is a man.

In Monterey, Pepe gets drunk and knifes a man who quarrels with him. He tries to explain to his mother how much of a man he is now, but refuses to accept full responsibility for his actions. He even claims that, at one point, “[T]he knife — it went almost by itself.” Pepe then flees to the mountains, taking only his father’s coat, rifle, and a few provisions. In his flight, he loses the hat, the provisions, the rifle, and his horse — everything he needs to survive. Such carelessness shows how much Pepe still has to learn about being a responsible adult.

With no skills to aid him and with an infected hand becoming gangrenous, Pepe becomes exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and is reduced to crawling away from his pursuers like an animal. His parched mouth can no longer form words. In his degradation, he is able to stand up — like a man — to his pursuers, and face his death.

Growth and Development

At the beginning of “Flight” Pepe Torres is a nineteen-year-old youth living on an isolated farm with his mother and two younger siblings. He keeps insisting to his mother that he is a man, but she dismisses him with belittling names. Pepe does not understand what it means to be a man. When he is given the responsibility of riding to town to buy medicine and salt for the family, like a child he excitedly asks if he can wear his father’s hatband and handkerchief. The clothing makes him appear to be an adult, but his idea of maturity is very superficial. In town he gets drunk and argues with a drunken man who insults him. He does not accept responsibility for knifing the man. He tells his mother that “the man started toward [him] and then the knife — it went almost by itself. It flew, it darted before [he] knew it.” He insists that because he is now a man he cannot allow himself to be insulted. While Pepe does appear changed — his eyes are sharp and bright and purposeful, with no laughter or bashfulness in them anymore — he is not mature. When his mother tells his brother and sister he is a man now, Pepe’s appearance changes “until he looked very much like Mama.”

The ride into the wilderness is a test of Pepe’s maturity. However, he loses his hat, his horse, his father’s coat, his father’s rifle, and his water supply. These are all necessary to protect him from the heat of the sun and the cold nights as well as the dry desert mountains while he tries to escape punishment for his crime. Injured by a chip of granite which his pursuers’ bullet drove into his right hand, Pepe becomes more and more debilitated as the infection spreads. He is described as an animal, as he crawls on his stomach, wriggling and worming toward the top of the next ridge. Because he is so thirsty, he loses the ability to talk. At the end of the story, he manages to stand on his two legs again at the top of the ridge and face his pursuers. Most critics see this stand as proof that Pepe has finally matured and now, like a man, is able to accept the consequences of his actions.

Change and Transformation

The central idea of “Flight” is Pepe’s transition from boy to man. In the course of running from his crime, Pepe starts as a youth fleeing responsibility. As he loses the tools that define his humanity, he is reduced to crawling on the ground like an animal, wriggling like a snake and “worming” his way along. This recalls his father’s death ten years earlier from a rattlesnake bite. Pepe first changes not from boy to man but from human to animal. He even loses the most distinctive trait of his humanity — the ability to speak. After suffering with thirst, a wound which becomes gangrenous, and the effects of being without shade in the hot sun, Pepe pulls himself to his feet to face his pursuers. Most critics see this as the point where Pepe becomes a man. Maturity is not a condition which comes at a certain age; it must be learned and earned through suffering. It is this suffering which changes Pepe into a man. Other critics, however, maintain that Pepe fails in his quest for manhood.

Individual Versus Nature

When Pepe flees to the wilderness to escape from the consequences of his crime, he also flees from his humanity. The wilderness tests not just his maturity but also his place in the natural world. It is no longer just a question of whether he will become an adult but whether he will become human. He loses the marks of his humanity when he loses his tools and the ability to speak. He is just one animal among others in the natural world. He is reduced to digging for water and struggling to find shelter from the hot sun. But instead of dying like an animal among animals, Pepe stands up like a man in both senses of the word to face his punishment for his crime.

Media Adaptations

• “Flight” was adapted as a film by Barnaby Conrad, starring Efrain Ramirez and Ester Cor-tez and produced by Columbia Pictures in 1960.

Topics for Further Study

• Based on what Mama Torres says to Pepe in the story, what do you think she believes about his level of maturity at the beginning of the story? Does her opinion of him change when he returns from Monterey, or just her expectations of him?
• Before going to Monterey, Pepe is eager to wear the black hat with the leather hatband and the green silk handkerchief. How does he look and feel while wearing these? How does he look when he puts on his father’s black coat before he rides into the mountains? What is the significance of his losing the hat, the coat, and the tools and supplies his mother sends with him?
• Who or what are the “dark watchers”? What does their presence add to the atmosphere and feeling of the story?
• Think of some other folk tales you have read or heard. How is this story similar to them? How is it different?
• Explain how Steinbeck’s biological view of human nature can be applied to the character of Pepe.

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