"Flying Carpet", Steven Millhauser - "flying up to the sky"

Résumé du document

Steven Millhauser is a writer of realist fiction. However, his work cannot be limited by labeling it only realistic. Another dimension is added to his short stories. They are full of interpretations. In Flying Carpet, though the story seems to be quite casual, even banal - a child trying to reach the sky on to his flying carpet - there is another way to read it. This story is a way to catch reality and to express a hidden meaning through inter-textuality.

The passage studied here begins with the achievement of the dream of the child: he is flying up to the sky. However, when he reaches this space, he feels a "fear of never coming back". He feels oppressed and begins to look forward to something else: materiality. Through this change of mind, the author includes transcendentalism to his work, which is a new way to look at things. The narrator however still hesitates between the two paths. Does he really want to live in total reality, or does he want something else? Does his flight reveal a will of subversion?

Throughout this passage, the narrator feels a "fear of never coming back" (l.14). This denotes the fear of the infinite, which leads to a loss of identity.

Extraits

[...] This is why the image of the escalator (l.38) appears. This is a way to subvert the space, to go up towards the sky, as did the carpet. The narrator even says himself that he has outgrown everything (l.39). He has transgressed the order of things, of the usual way to do things. Nothing seems to be the same for him. Several times, he goes close to the carpet, noticing it without using it. This is always associated with dark colours in opposition to light, as I mentioned before. [...]

[...] This text is constructed on oppositions of spaces. First of all, the opposition between sky and earth. While in the sky, surrounded by blue, the child feels oppressed, he imagines himself on the earth: I imagined myself standing in my yard (l.2-3). The sky is a space of expansion: blue stretched above like fields of snow, like fire (l.1-2). It is a world in an upper dimension, as opposed to the earth. These are to opposite spaces where the narrator goes through. Earth is a release. [...]

[...] This revelation has consequently changed his point of view. When taking into account the whole story, it can be noticed that the child wanted to escape reality using his carpet, to go up in the sky, touching maybe the moon as the child he saw during the night. But in this extract, the narrator clearly wants to go back to earth. He is afraid of never coming back (l.14). This change is a revelation. This revelation is transcendental. Indeed, the child has found a new way to look at the world. [...]

[...] Oppositions remain present everywhere. He is torn between spaces, between shades and lights, between childhood and adulthood, dream and reality. Does he really want to grow up? He does not seem to be ready for that. The oppositions, the hesitation found throughout the text show a clear tendency for subversion. This is the metafictional side of the text: writing always tends to subversion, to transgression of order. The title, enabling a carpet to fly, shows itself this will for subversion, transgressing the order of things. [...]

[...] Indeed, the narrator seems to have chosen something else, a new way to look at things. A transcendental vision of materiality is added to this text here. When he comes back, things have changed. They are colourful, he is happy to be there, and he comes back to old games, more realistic ones. The imaginary can no longer catch him. He is away from that period, from childhood: he is now an adolescent, or at least ready to enter this period of life. [...]