Fear of Flying
Fear of Flying is a novel that explores the journey of Isadora Wing, a middle-class Jewish woman navigating her identity as a writer and a sexual being in the 1970s. The story is infused with autobiographical elements from the author, Erica Jong, and functions both as a satire and a commentary on the struggles women faced regarding sexuality and societal expectations during this period. Through humorous flashbacks, Isadora reflects on her youthful romantic misadventures while engaging in a tumultuous affair with a psychoanalyst, seeking a sexual experience devoid of emotional ties, exemplified by the concept of a "Zipless F—-."
The narrative challenges traditional literary tropes of female fulfillment through romantic love, instead presenting a complex portrayal of Isadora's sexual liberation and self-discovery. The novel garnered significant acclaim for its candid exploration of human sexuality and the evolving role of women, resonating with readers amid the broader women's movement of the time. However, it also faced criticism from conservative and feminist perspectives for its treatment of marriage and femininity. Ultimately, Fear of Flying serves as a poignant reflection on the conflicting desires for autonomy and affection, offering a voice to women grappling with similar dilemmas.
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Subject Terms
Fear of Flying
Identification Controversial comic novel
Date Published in 1973
Author Erica Jong
With seven million copies sold in the United States and more than thirteen million copies worldwide, Fear of Flying made Jong into a literary celebrity and launched heated debates about the pros and cons of women pursuing sexual independence.
Key Figures
Erica Jong (1942- ), author
Fear of Flying is the lascivious story of Isadora Wing, a proper middle-class Jewish woman who is struggling to find her identity as a writer and as a sexual being. The novel draws heavily from biographical details of Erica Jong’s own life but is clearly a fictional satire somewhat in the style both of Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749) and Philip Roth’s Portnoy’s Complaint (1969). Jong was tackling the difficulties that women faced during the 1970’s in breaking through a culture that denied them their own sexuality and used a double standard in judging aggressive feminine behavior in the war between the sexes.
In flashbacks, Isadora humorously recounts to the reader her awkward, erotic misfortunes as a youth while telling the ongoing story of a precipitous love affair as a married woman of twenty-nine. While at a professional psychiatric conference in Vienna with her husband, Isadora runs off on a mad fling with a Laingian analyst, Adrian Goodlove. Isadora is in pursuit of a sexual encounter without sticky emotional obligations—that is, without any clumsy disrobing, famously described as the “Zipless F—-.” In fact, Wing is fantasizing about reversing standard male aspirations for effortless, orgasmic conquest of women. At the same time, the novel ruptures the ageless literary stereotype of a heroine finding fulfillment in the embrace of her beloved. Adrian, for all of his existential babble about individual freedom, turns out to be a cad and largely impotent.
The novel ends in London with Isadora, a little wiser and a little more secure in her sense of self, unabashedly breaking into her husband’s lodgings to await, in a hot bath, his return. Jong became famous because of the success of Fear of Flying, and her trials and tribulations as a media icon are narrated once again by Isadora Wing in How To Save Your Own Life, published in 1977.
Impact
The women’s movement profoundly transformed American society over the course of the 1970’s. Isadora Wing’s story was received enthusiastically by women who were discovering their own sexuality and were revolting against the inequities imposed upon them by male notions of femininity and romance. Fear of Flying was praised for its satirical literary qualities by John Updike and for its forthright honesty about human sexuality by Henry Miller.
At the same time, conservative authors denounced it for attacking the sanctity of marriage and the ideal of feminine virtue.
However, some feminists questioned the heroine’s objectification of her own body in engaging men in sexual relations simply on a physical basis, while others believed that Isadora’s self-indulgent insecurities were not a strong model for woman’s liberation. At a time when feminine ambiguity over conflicting desires for sexual fulfillment and male affection was unresolved, Isadora Wing’s ironic honesty about her own erotic misadventures was appreciated by millions of women.
Bibliography
Jong, Erica. Fear of Fifty: A Midlife Memoir. New York: HarperCollins, 1994.
Jong, Erica. Fear of Flying. Thirtieth anniversary ed. New York: New American Library, 2003.
Templin, Charlotte, ed. Conversations with Erica Jong. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2002.