Flight to Canada/Death of a Salesman Flight

Flight to Canada/Death of a Salesman

Flight to Canada, written in 1976 by Ishmael Reed, is sort of an atypical slave narrative taking place in the antebellum south (however, this is an antebellum south where airplanes already exists and Lincoln's assassination is seen on television) and depicting Raven Quickskill's and his fellow fugitive's escape from their master Arthur Swille. The entire plot revolves around the relentless search for Raven who is on his way to "Camelot" (i.e, Canada) while his fellow fugitives, Stray Leechfield and 40's go to whatever lengths possible in order to find their own freedom. However, what Reed illustrates in the story is that one cannot so easily escape slavery because slavery exists everywhere and some forms are harder to escape than others, but some bring on slavery themselves. In Arthur Miller's play, Death of a Salesman, Willie Loman also believes in a sort of Camelot -- the American Dream. The American Dream, for Willy, comes to those who are well-liked and attractive. He fervently believes that all one needs is "a smile and a shoeshine." If one has these qualities, then he can achieve great success. Willy is so focused on achieving the American Dream that he, ironically, becomes a slave to the pursuit and ends up killing himself so that he family can pay for all that he cannot give them. For Willy, life becomes more about acquiring things as a representation of success. Leechfield and 40's also have false beliefs about what it means to be free and how to go about getting it. Raven seems to be the only character in these two stories who understands what it truly means to be free in both body and spirit.

In Flight to Canada, Leechfield is unable to find complete freedom because he decides to sell his body in pornographic movies so that he can earn enough money to buy his freedom back from his master. For Leechfield, one must sell one's soul in order to attain freedom and complete salvation; however, this is just another form of slavery. Along those same lines, 40's goes about his American Dream in another way -- violence. He buys guns in order to protect himself from his master's followers. The only character who strives for complete freedom is Raven who believes that he must get to Canada in order to get away from both the Southern slaveowners and the Northern abolitionists whom he sees as duplicitous; he is not safe in the north or the south in this story. Raven believes that once he gets to Canada he will be able to freely be with Quaw-Quaw, his Native American lover, and he'll be able to work on his poems like "Flight to Canada." He will have freedom in body and in mind -- or so he believes.