39 pages • 1 hour read
Flyin' West
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Symbols & Motifs
Sophie’s Shotgun
From the first moment of the play, when Sophie returns from shopping in town, her shotgun is a constant presence. She carries it when she leaves the house, including when she goes to the train station to pick up Minnie and Frank; she cleans and oils it; and she pointedly shifts it in her arms to emphasize to Frank that she’s both armed and wary of him. Sophie’s need for the shotgun highlights the wildness and danger of the frontier, not only from animals but from men. As a woman who is the head of a household of women, Sophie assumes the responsibility of the protector. She must prove to outsiders that she can defend her home and family as well as any man, or the women risk being seen as a target.
Although Sophie doesn’t hesitate to brandish her shotgun, she’s controlled enough to aim but not fire too quickly, as when she hears the deer in the yard and then lowers her weapon. However, while cautious, she isn’t afraid to shoot or kill. At the end of Act I, when Frank threatens Minnie, Sophie points the gun at him, cocking the hammer and nearly pulling the trigger before Minnie stops her. She briefly allows Wil to guard the house with her gun but otherwise refuses to permit a man to take away her authority on her property. At the end of the play, however, Sophie leaves her shotgun with Miss Leah, certain that she has the same fortitude and determination to protect the baby as Sophie does.
Sophie exerts traditional masculinity and uses a traditionally masculine, phallus-shaped weapon to keep harmful and untrustworthy men out. Her plan to kill Frank with her shotgun is bold but messy and without nuance. It’s an act of direct violence that requires perfect aim and steadiness, and an error could result in a physical attack in which Sophie would likely be at a disadvantage. Even if Sophie managed to shoot him, the killing might not hold up to a police investigation. Miss Leah’s pie idea capitalizes on Frank’s predictable underestimation of women, particularly Black women. He believes that his charisma is endlessly effective against the fairer sex and doesn’t imagine that Fannie, who is feminine and romantic, could be ruthless to protect her sister—or that she’s even more skilled in affecting convincing charm than he is. The women defeat Frank by exploiting his presumption of superiority.
The Deed
Nicodemus, Kansas, was founded in 1877 by former slaves as an all-Black settlement. Many believe that the founders named the town after Nicodemus, an enslaved African prince who became mythologized as the first slave to buy his own freedom. Although the town’s association with the legendary prince is unproven (Nicodemus is also a biblical figure), the symbolism of naming the town for a former slave is immense. By definition, slaves weren’t paid for their labor, so they rarely accumulated enough money to self-purchase; to do so typically required a combination of extra work, cleverness, and luck. Achieving land ownership in Kansas (or any of the western states) through the Homestead Act was a similar act of self-purchasing freedom. To earn the deed to their land, settlers had to cultivate it for five years.
The narrative of the Wild West and the taming of the frontier is integral to the construction of US national identity and pervades popular imagery of how Americans recognize the qualities of their Americanness. However, the endless media portrayals of pioneers and mythologized frontier life almost entirely omits the history of African American pioneers and Black frontier townships—and the women who went west and worked together, unaided by men, to form their own farms and households. For women who toiled as slaves, who weren’t permitted to keep even their own children, the chance to own the land that they worked was a rare opportunity.
To Sophie, the advance of white speculators upon the land in Nicodemus is just a new way to exploit Black labor and destroy Black agency. Sophie sees the deed to her land as safety for herself and her sisters and makes a point to add Minnie’s name to it as soon as she’s of age so that they each have equal protection and ownership. Frank, who is desperate to see himself as white, views Minnie’s deed from the perspective of white investors. After years of living on his father’s money, the fruits of slavery, Frank has no qualms about trying to steal what the women labored to achieve. When Frank is dead and Sophie refuses Minnie’s offer to take the deed back, Minnie finally recognizes what it means to have a home that is a safe refuge and can’t be taken away.
Flowers
Fannie’s love for flowers indicates the romance and whimsy of her personality, the sweetness that makes her seem soft at first compared to Sophie’s hardened protectiveness. Flowers are impractical on a wheat farm, and impractical seems contrary to the harsh and difficult frontier life. However, when Fannie planted flowers around their house, they elicited laughter from Sophie when they bloomed. According to Fannie, Sophie didn’t laugh in Memphis, only finding the capacity for joy once she felt free in Kansas. As hard as they must work to maintain a farm, flowers represent the enjoyment that makes the work worth the effort. Sophie loves sunflowers, which are too large to grow inside, suggesting that Sophie appreciates something strong and beautiful that cannot be domesticated. Fannie’s recollection about planting flowers makes Sophie sound less cynical and makes Fannie seem less silly.
In addition, flowers symbolize Fannie’s connection to her mother. Her father criticized her mother for cultivating roses, complaining, “colored women ain’t got no time to be foolin’ with no roses,” to which her mother replied, “as long as colored men had time to worry about how colored women spent their time, she guessed she had time enough to grow some roses” (14). Roses represent her mother’s refusal to allow her husband to take away something she enjoys just because he doesn’t see its value. However, Fannie and Minnie’s parents were a poor model for marriages. After Frank hits Minnie, Fannie soothes her by reminding her that their father had a violent temper and that Minnie ought to be patient with her husband.
Flowers are also one of the ways that Fannie expresses fondness. Fannie’s first flirty show of affection is to thread a flower through Wil’s buttonhole. When Minnie arrives, Fannie has collected and arranged her favorite flowers. In addition, although Wil is too shy to tell Fannie how he feels, he shows his fondness for her by bringing her flowers. Through flowers, Wil demonstrates that he is entirely different from her father, and by extension, Frank. Wil learned from his mother to treat Black women with adoration and respect. He won’t hurt or belittle her or try to control how she spends her time. He’s even willing to kill Frank to protect her and her family, but Fannie proves in the end that she’s not a delicate flower in need of protection.
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