His First Flight quiz

Questions and answers

1. 1

   Question 1. Which literary genres best describe "His First Flight"?

   • Fable & Allegory
   • Correct answer: Animal Story & Realism
   • Gothic & Horror
   • Romanticism & Adventure
   • Satire & Comedy

   Animal Story & Realism is the best fit. O'Flaherty follows a real seagull's fear, hunger and first flight in close, physical detail: the dried mackerel's tail, the dirt-caked straw nest, the wind under his stomach. Nothing magical happens, and the story stays true to how young gulls actually leave the nest.

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2. 2

   Question 2. Why does the young seagull refuse to fly when his brothers and sister do?

   • Correct answer: He is certain his wings will not hold him over the long drop to the sea
   • His parents have forbidden him to leave the ledge until he is older
   • His wings are shorter and weaker than those of his brothers and sister
   • He was injured in a tumble out of the nest a few days earlier

   Every time he runs to the brink, he sees "the great expanse of sea stretched down beneath" and feels "certain that his wings would never support him." The problem is fear of the drop, not his body. In fact his wings are longer than his little sister's, and his parents want him to fly, not to wait.

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3. 3

   Question 3. Which detail shows that the young gull's problem is fear, not his body?

   • His older brother caught a herring on the very first day that he flew
   • His father once told him his wings were the strongest of all four chicks
   • He had already flown once before, as a chick, down to a rock below the cliff
   • Correct answer: His little sister flew away easily, though her wings were far shorter than his

   O'Flaherty notes that his little sister, "whose wings were far shorter than his own," ran to the brink and flew away. If she could do it with shorter wings, he could too. What holds him back is the plunge "which appeared to him so desperate," a fear in his own mind.

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4. 4

   Question 4. How did the young gull's parents respond when he refused to fly?

   • They pushed him gently off the ledge, then caught him before he fell
   • They ignored him completely and never once called across to him
   • Correct answer: They scolded him shrilly and threatened to let him starve on the ledge
   • They brought him fish every hour so he would grow strong enough to fly

   His father and mother came "calling to him shrilly, upbraiding him, threatening to let him starve on his ledge unless he flew away." When that failed, nobody came near him for twenty-four hours, and the whole family spent the morning "taunting him with his cowardice."

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5. 5

   Question 5. What does "Upbraiding" mean in this story?

   • Correct answer: Scolding someone sharply for a fault or failure
   • Lifting someone up and carrying them higher
   • Pleading humbly with someone for a favor
   • Encouraging someone warmly with gentle, hopeful praise

   To upbraid is to scold or criticize someone sharply. His parents come "calling to him shrilly, upbraiding him" because he will not fly. The word has nothing to do with lifting up, despite its first syllable, and it is the opposite of gentle encouragement.

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6. 6

   Question 6. Searching for food, the gull gnaws dried eggshell, and O'Flaherty writes: "It was like eating part of himself." What does this image suggest?

   • He has come to prefer living alone to living with his family
   • He is growing angry with the brothers and sister who left him
   • Correct answer: He is still bound to the nest he hatched from and must leave it behind
   • He secretly regrets that he is not the oldest chick in the family

   The eggshell is what is left of his own beginning, the shell he hatched from in that "dirt-caked straw nest." Feeding on it shows a chick who is still living off his childhood when he should have left it. The simile quietly says that the nest has nothing more to give him.

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7. 7

   Question 7. Why can't the young gull simply walk across to his family on the plateau?

   • A pair of hawks guards the cliff path that leads around to the plateau
   • The tide has risen and covered the rocks he would have to climb across
   • He is far too weak from hunger to walk more than a few steps at a time
   • Correct answer: The ledge ends in a sheer drop on each side, with a deep chasm between

   He trots back and forth "trying to find some means of reaching his parents without having to fly," but "on each side of him the ledge ended in a sheer fall of precipice, with the sea beneath." Between him and his parents lies "a deep, wide chasm," and the top of the cliff is out of reach too. The only way off is through the air.

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8. 8

   Question 8. What does the ledge most clearly stand for in the story?

   • The pride that keeps him apart from his brothers and his little sister
   • Correct answer: The safety of home and childhood, which he must leave in order to grow up
   • A prison his parents built to punish him for disobeying their orders
   • The danger of the natural world that threatens every young creature

   The ledge is where he was hatched and where he sleeps in "the little hole under the ledge," the only ground he trusts. But staying there means starving. It stands for the safety of home and childhood, which feels secure but becomes a trap once it is time to grow up.

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9. 9

   Question 9. What does the gull do to get his family's attention before he begins begging aloud?

   • He throws pieces of straw from the nest down toward the sea
   • He flaps his wings wildly while hopping along the whole ledge
   • Correct answer: He stands on one leg at the brink and pretends to fall asleep
   • He hides in the hole under the ledge and refuses to come out

   He steps out to the brink and, "standing on one leg with the other leg hidden under his wing," closes one eye, then the other, and pretends to fall asleep. Still they take no notice of him, except his mother, who is watching.

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10. 10

    Question 10. What does "Derisively" mean in this story?

    • In a careless way that shows boredom
    • Correct answer: In a mocking way that shows contempt
    • In a gentle way that shows sympathy
    • In a fearful way that shows alarm

    Derisively means mockingly, with scorn. When he begs for food, his mother answers "Gaw-ool-ah" and "screamed back derisively," ridiculing him for begging instead of flying. It is the opposite of a sympathetic reply.

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11. 11

    Question 11. What does the mother do with the piece of fish?

    • She leaves it on a rock below so that he has to fly down to fetch it
    • She drops it onto his ledge and then flies straight back across to the plateau
    • She hands it to his little sister, who carries it across to his ledge
    • Correct answer: She flies toward him with it, then halts in midair just out of his reach

    She picks up the fish and flies across, but "when she was just opposite to him, abreast of the ledge, she halted," her wings motionless, the fish "almost within reach of his beak." The halt is deliberate. "Maddened by hunger," he dives at it, and the moment he leaps she swoops upward.

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12. 12

    Question 12. Which statement best describes the mother's role in the story?

    • Correct answer: A tough teacher who withholds help so that hunger will push him to fly
    • A cruel parent who has given up on her son and is willing to let him starve
    • A gentle helper who carries him safely down to the sea on her back
    • A distant figure who ignores him until after he has finally flown

    While the father preens and the siblings doze, "Only his mother was looking at him." She mocks his begging, then baits him with fish she will not quite deliver, swooping away the instant he leaps. Her method looks harsh, but coaxing and scolding had both failed. Her tough love is what gets him into the air, and she is the first to swoop past him once he flies.

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13. 13

    Question 13. What does "Plaintively" mean in this story?

    • In an angry, demanding, furious way
    • Correct answer: In a sad, pleading, mournful way
    • In a cheerful, carefree, playful way
    • In a plain, direct, matter-of-fact way

    Plaintively means in a sad, pleading way, like a plaint or lament. After his mother's mocking answer, "he kept calling plaintively" until she picked up the fish. The word sounds like "plain" but has nothing to do with plainness.

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14. 14

    Question 14. What happens in the moments after he dives at the fish?

    • He snatches the fish in his beak and flutters back onto the ledge to eat
    • He drops straight into the sea and must swim back to the foot of the cliff
    • Correct answer: He feels a monstrous terror for a moment, then his wings spread and carry him
    • His mother catches him by the neck and carries him back up to the ledge

    "Then a monstrous terror seized him and his heart stood still." "But it only lasted a moment." His wings spread outward, the wind rushes under him, and he is "soaring gradually downwards and outwards." The fear he had carried for a whole day vanishes in seconds once he is actually in the air.

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15. 15

    Question 15. Once he is flying and diving with his family, what does the young gull forget?

    • Correct answer: That he had not always been able to fly
    • That his brothers had taunted him all morning
    • That the sea lay so far beneath the ledge
    • That his parents had threatened to starve him

    "Then he completely forgot that he had not always been able to fly." The fear that kept him on the ledge for a whole day is gone so completely that he cannot remember a time before flying. This is the story's clearest statement of how fear shrinks once you act.

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16. 16

    Question 16. What does "Curveting" mean in this story?

    • Gliding slowly in long, still circles
    • Huddling close together for warmth
    • Calling loudly to warn of danger
    • Correct answer: Leaping and prancing in lively bounds

    A curvet is a lively leap, first used for a horse's prancing jump. O'Flaherty borrows it for the gulls' playful flight: his brothers and sister fly around him "curveting and banking and soaring and diving," and soon he begins "to dive and soar and curvet" himself.

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17. 17

    Question 17. What happens when the young gull tries to stand on the "green floor" of the sea?

    • Correct answer: His legs sink, he screams with fright, and then he finds that he floats
    • He crashes into a wave and has to be pulled onto a rock by his father
    • He lands gracefully on his first try, just as his brothers and sister do
    • He is too frightened to land and flies back to the safety of the ledge

    Thinking the sea is solid, "He dropped his legs to stand on the green sea." His legs sink, he screams with fright, and he is too tired and hungry to rise. But his belly touches the water "and he sank no farther. He was floating on it." One last fear turns out to be groundless.

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18. 18

    Question 18. What does his family offer him as he floats on the sea?

    • A whole herring
    • Correct answer: Scraps of dog-fish
    • A dried mackerel tail
    • Bits of crab shell

    Around him his family is "screaming, praising him, and their beaks were offering him scraps of dog-fish." The food he could not get by begging now comes freely, as a reward for flying. (The dried mackerel's tail was the last scrap he found on the ledge the night before.)

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19. 19

    Question 19. How does the gull's family treat him before and after his flight?

    • They comfort him gently all morning, then mock him once he finally flies
    • They pay him no attention at any point, before or after the flight
    • Correct answer: They taunt his cowardice from the plateau, then scream praise around him
    • They argue among themselves about him, then quietly fly off to sea

    All morning the family walks about on the plateau "taunting him with his cowardice." Once he flies, his mother swoops past, his father flies over him screaming, and his brothers and sister circle him. On the sea they are "screaming, praising him." The same family that mocked him now celebrates him.

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20. 20

    Question 20. Which statement best expresses the central theme of "His First Flight"?

    • Nature is cruel and cares nothing for creatures who are weak or afraid
    • Young creatures should never be rushed and must learn only when ready
    • Family loyalty matters far more than individual courage or achievement
    • Correct answer: Fear shrinks once you act, and need can push you where coaxing cannot

    For a whole day the gull believes flying is impossible. The moment he leaps, the terror "only lasted a moment," and soon he "completely forgot that he had not always been able to fly." Encouragement and scolding both failed; hunger succeeded. The story says that fear is overcome by acting, and that necessity can force the first step toward independence.

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21. 21

    Question 21. Why is hunger so important to the plot?

    • It makes him angry enough to fight his brothers for the food they catch
    • It is a punishment that his parents end once he says he is sorry
    • Correct answer: It drives him to dive at the fish, doing what his courage alone could not
    • It makes him too weak to fly, so his family must carry him down to the sea

    Hunger is the engine of the story. He has not eaten since the night before, and the sight of his mother's fish "maddened him." At the key moment, "maddened by hunger, he dived at the fish." Need did what a day of scolding and taunting could not: it got him off the ledge.

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22. 22

    Question 22. From what point of view is "His First Flight" told?

    • Third-person omniscient, moving freely among all six gulls' minds
    • Second person, placing the reader on the ledge and calling us "you"
    • First person, with the young gull telling his own story as "I"
    • Correct answer: Third-person limited, staying close to the young gull's feelings

    The narrator calls the gull "he" but stays inside his experience: we feel his hunger, his fear of the drop, his surprise when his mother halts. We never learn what the mother or father is thinking; we only see what the young gull sees. That is third-person limited point of view, and it makes his fear and triumph feel like our own.

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23. 23

    Question 23. "The wind rushed against his breast feathers, then under his stomach and against his wings." What does this sentence mainly use?

    • Hyperbole that exaggerates the force of the wind to make the scene comic
    • Correct answer: Sensory imagery that lets the reader feel the flight as the gull does
    • A simile that compares the gull's flight to a kite caught by the wind
    • Foreshadowing which hints the gull will soon fall into the sea and drown

    This is sensory imagery, specifically the sense of touch. O'Flaherty follows the wind across the gull's body, then adds that "He could feel the tips of his wings cutting through the air." There is no "like" or "as," so it is not a simile, and nothing in it is exaggerated or ominous.

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24. 24

    Question 24. How does the meaning of the sea change over the course of the story?

    • Correct answer: From a deadly drop he fears to a "green floor" where his family welcomes him
    • From a source of food he longs for to a place of danger he learns to avoid
    • From a peaceful view he enjoys to a storm that very nearly drowns him
    • From a barrier he cannot cross to a road leading him to a new cliff

    At first the sea is the enemy: "such a long way down," the drop he is sure will kill him. At the end it becomes the "green floor" where his family lands, and the place where he discovers he can float. The space below the ledge turns from a threat into his new home.

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25. 25

    Question 25. Which of these events actually happened in the story?

    • The young gull watched his older brother catch his first herring.

      Happened

      The day before, he "had, in fact, seen his older brother catch his first herring and devour it, standing on a rock," while their parents circled around with a proud cackle. Watching his brother succeed made his own failure feel worse.

    • His father flew across to the ledge carrying the piece of fish.

      Didn't happen

      It was his mother. While his father preened "the feathers on his white back," only his mother was watching. She tore at a fish on the plateau, picked up a piece and flew across with it.

    • The young gull found a dried piece of mackerel's tail on his ledge.

      Happened

      At the previous nightfall he had found "a dried piece of mackerel's tail at the far end of his ledge." It was the last food he had before the morning of his flight.

    • He climbed to the top of the cliff to look for another way down.

      Didn't happen

      He could not climb. The precipice above him "was sheer, and the top of it was perhaps farther away than the sea beneath him." He could only pace the ledge from end to end.

    • The young gull's ledge faced the south.

      Happened

      The sun was "blazing warmly on his ledge that faced the south." The heat made him feel his hunger all the more.

    • His brothers and sister stayed beside him on the ledge to keep him company.

      Didn't happen

      They had flown away the day before. All morning they walked about on the plateau on the opposite cliff, taunting him, and later dozed there with "their heads sunk into their necks."

    • His mother answered his first begging cries with a mocking scream.

      Happened

      To his "Ga, ga, ga" she screamed "Gaw-ool-ah" back "derisively." Only after he kept calling plaintively did she pick up the fish and fly toward him.

    • The young gull caught a fish on his own during his first flight.

      Didn't happen

      He caught nothing. By the time he reached the sea he was "tired and weak with hunger" and could not rise again. His family fed him, offering him scraps of dog-fish as he floated.

    • When he first tried to stand on the sea, he screamed with fright.

      Happened

      He dropped his legs to stand on the green sea, his legs sank into it, and "He screamed with fright" before discovering that he could float.

    • His parents carried him down to the water after he grew tired.

      Didn't happen

      He flew down to the sea by himself. He was tired when he landed, and could not rise again, but nobody carried him. He floated on his own while his family praised him.

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26. 26

    Question 26. In which book was "His First Flight" published in 1924?

    • A wartime anthology of sea stories collected by a London newspaper
    • Correct answer: Spring Sowing, the very first collection of O'Flaherty's short stories
    • The Informer, the novel that won O'Flaherty fame in the following year
    • An Irish schoolbook of animal fables put together for young readers

    "His First Flight" appeared in Spring Sowing, O'Flaherty's first collection of short stories, published in London by Jonathan Cape in 1924. The collection is full of the cliffs, sea and wildlife of the Aran Islands where he grew up. The Informer is a real O'Flaherty novel, but it came out in 1925 and is not a story collection.

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