Fear of Flying is the story of Isadora Wing, one of the most hilarious and touching anti-heroines to ever appear in fiction. A compulsive daydreamer, a seeker of saviors and psychiatrists, the author of a book of supposedly erotic poems, and a full-fledged phobic who fears flying but will not allow that fear to keep her off planes, Isadora relates her adventures and misadventures with wit, exuberance, and the sort of absolute candor that for centuries was permitted only to men.
Though Isadora fears flying (in all possible senses of the word), she forces herself to keep traveling, to risk her marriage and her life is pursuit of her own brand of liberation. How she finds it and loses her fear is what Fear of Flying is all about.
Fear Of Flying Erica Jong Free Pdf
Isadora Wing is a Jewish journalist from New York City's Upper West Side. Wing is on a plane flight to Vienna for the first psychoanalysts conference since analysts were driven out during the Holocaust. She is surrounded by analysts, several of them her own from over the years, and her husband, Bennett (also an analyst): "There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six of them" (page 5).[2] Her fear of flying, both literally and metaphorically referring to a fear of freeing herself from the shackles of traditional male companionship, she associates with recent articles about plane hijackings and terrorist attacks. She also associates fear and loathing with Germany, because she and her husband were stationed in Heidelberg and she struggled both to fit in and to wrestle with the hatred and danger she felt being a Jew in post-Holocaust Germany.
A 1963 graduate of Barnard College with additionally an MA (1965) in 18th century English Literature from Columbia University, Jong is best known for her first novel, Fear of Flying (1973), which created a sensation with its frank treatment of a woman's sexual desires.[2] Although it contains many sexual elements, the book is mainly the account of Isadora Wing, a woman in her late twenties, trying to find who she is and where she is going. It contains many psychological and humorous descriptive elements, as well as rich cultural and literary references. The book tries to answer the many conflicts arising for women in late 1960s and early 1970s America, of womanhood, femininity, love, one's quest for freedom and purpose.[8] The saga of thwarted fulfillment of Isadora Wing continues in two further novels, How to Save Your Own Life (1977) and Parachutes and Kisses (1984).
Akin to the title, the assertion refers to the anxiety of flying in that on board an airplane during turbulence the occupants get in touch with their religious beliefs. As Isadora is on board she thinks of the dangers of flying which also acts as a metaphor of her own life. In her journey, she seeks freedom and sexual freedom away from her abusive and banal marital life and the fear of it thereof. She gets in touch with herself more and believes in affection through Adrian. The disorder in her life in regard to the dysfunction in her marriage forces her to see a different perception of love, hence belief in love. 2ff7e9595c
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