Piacentino is an Associate Professor of English at High Point College. In the following essay, he "attemptsJ to demonstrate [that] there are a significant number of animal references which seem to function either to define features of Pepe Torres' character or to accent some of the physical challenges he experiences during his flight for survival and the resulting psychological traumas of this ordeal."

Published initially in The Long Valley (1938), "Flight," a work that one of Steinbeck's most discerning critics [Warren French, in John Stem-beck, 1975] has called a tale of "frustrated young manhood," a "depressing account of an unprepared youth's failure to achieve maturity," has often been regarded as one of John Steinbeck's best stones. Peter Lisca, in his analysis of the story [in The Wide World of John Steinbeck, 1958], sees Pepe Torres' flight as reflecting two levels of meaning. "On the physical level," Lisca observes, "Pepe's penetration...