Fly Away Peter Analysis

Fly Away Peter

Through out the book "Fly Away Peter", Jim Saddler has grown from innocent to mature and even to death. This seems like a cycle of nature. People born and people die. In this novel, I think the novel is trying to convey the idea of regeneration than how Jim changed throughout the story.

Regeneration is an important theme of Malouf's Fly Away Peter. According to the novel everything regenerates, and not only in the physical sense, but also in the spiritual sense too. The term regenerate means to bring back again or bring out something new in our awareness of life. Its occurrence can be seen throughout the book and it includes the digging by the old man, the digging by Jim at the end of the novel, the fact birds come and go with old ones replaced by new ones and how Jim's spirit lives on as the young surfer in the eyes of Miss Harcourt.

California surfer in Santa Cruz

Jim Blowing Out Candles

Jim McBee Photo by Ted Van Pelt

They are all regenerations that are part of the cycle of life.

Earth is associated with the cycle of life as it is a sign of birth, where lives stem from. Soil has always been where the life starts, this can been seen in the novel, "It (earth) was a smell that belonged to the beginning of things (life)." It is clear that soil is where life stems from; it is where plants receive their nutrients in order for new life and this is why the old man is digging, he is digging to plant new lives. Even though there is a war going on around him, he still prepares the field for the seeds, because he understands that live still goes on in all circumstances. It is through the plants from the seeds can new lives...