SOURCE: "Ralph Ellison's 'Flying Home,'" in Studies in Short Fiction, Vol. IX, No. 2, Spring, 1972, pp. 175-82.

In the essay below, Trimmer explores symbolic patterns of race and myth in "Flying Home, " discussing the narrative in terms of the black protagonist's identity within his racial community, the myths of Daedalus and the Phoenix, the Christian doctrine of the fortunate fall, and the story of the prodigal son.

Ralph Ellison is known chiefly for his single novel, Invisible Man, for which he won the National Book Award for Fiction in 1952, and for his collection of essays, Shadow and Act, published in 1964. It is not widely acknowledged, however, that Ellison is also a master of the short story. This ignorance or neglect of Ellison's short fiction is due mainly to two facts—his stories have appeared in relatively obscure journals, and to date they have remained uncollected. Recently, anthology editors...