The Fledgling Literary Qualities

The Fledgling Literary Qualities

The Fledgling is a commentary on the American transcendentalists, a fantasy, and an animal story. By mixing these traditions with suspense and comedy, Langton has produced a highly original novel.

A fantasy presents a believable, logical world different from the world of everyday experience. In Langton's fantasy world, Georgie is able to fly and to talk with animals; otherwise, the world is a realistic one with certain aspects of it exaggerated for comic effect. Flying and communicating with animals recur frequently in mythology and in contemporary works. Randall Jarrell uses flight as a metaphor for freedom in Fly by Night (1976), and A. A. Milne uses talking to animals as a metaphor for unity with nature in Winnie-the-Pooh (1926).

Georgie is initiated into this freedom and unity in The Fledgling by the Goose Prince's teaching her to fly and leaving her the rubber ball. She also...
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