Aging

 One of the primary themes in ‘‘With All Flags Flying’’ is aging and issues related to the elderly. Carpenter is an eighty-two-year-old widower who has lived alone in a two-room house since his wife’s death. For many years he has had a plan for how he wants to spend the end of his life. This short story focuses on what happens when Carpenter realizes that he can no longer live alone. Describing his feelings of weakness, Tyler writes, ‘‘A numbness in his head, an airy feeling when he walked. A wateriness in his bones that made it an effort to pick up his coffee cup in the morning. He waited some days for it to go away, but it never did.’’ This situation makes it clear to Carpenter that he has to put his plan for his last years into motion, confirmed by the physical cost of his effort to try to walk to his daughter Clara’s home in Baltimore.

 At Clara’s, Carpenter continues to feel this age-related weakness but stands firm on his plan to move into an old folks’ home. While Clara and her family as well as three other daughters try to change his mind, he is also loved and respected by them. However, Carpenter focuses on his plan— inspired by Lollie Simpson’s which he had heard years ago—well aware of how physically weak he feels. Though he feels lucky about his life, he also is aware of issues of life and death, especially after the relatively uncomplicated death of his wife. Tyler writes, ‘‘His final lot was to weaken, to crumble and to die—only a secret disaster, not the one he had been expecting.’’ Living in an old folks’ home allows Carpenter to live his aged years as he likes— somewhat independently without being a burden to his family. While his roommate Mr. Pond questions Carpenter’s true motives for wanting to live at the home, Pond has been forced to live at the home by his son and pregnant daughter-in-law. The path of his elder years is different from Carpenter’s but shows another common way the elderly are treated by their families.

 Control

 Another main theme found in ‘‘With All Flags Flying’’ is the concept of control. Carpenter is determined to maintain control of his life as much as possible. After his wife’s death, he chooses to live alone in a two-room house with as few possessions as possible. When Carpenter begins to feel the effects of aging—a weakness that limits his ability to take care of himself and his home—he puts his plan into motion for how he wants to spend his last years.

 Though Carpenter’s family tries to convince him to abandon his plan, he is determined to spend his last days living in a home for the elderly. He knows he has to fight off their attempts to change his mind and maintain control. He tries to do so by not hurting the feelings of Clara, his other daughters, son-in-law, Francie, and others, but his goal and retaining control are all that matters. In the end, Carpenter checks into the home where he believes he will not be a burden to his family and where he does not have to hope to be loved. Unlike Pond, who has had no control over his fate because his family put him there, Carpenter is exactly where he wants to be because he chose to be there.

 Ironically, one of the moments in which he has the least control also has the most meaning for Carpenter. Struggling to walk along the superhighway to reach Clara’s house, Carpenter accepts a ride from a young male motorcycle rider into Baltimore. While he feels uncertain riding on the back at first, he soon becomes ‘‘perfectly comfortable’’ save for the helmet he wears. While he is directing the young man where to go, he is not in control of the bike but free to feel the air from its back.

 In the city, Carpenter feels ‘‘People in their automobiles seemed sealed in, overprotected; men in large trucks must envy the way the motorcycle looped in and out, hornet-like, stripped to the bare essentials of a motor and two wheels.’’ In the end, ‘‘he was sorry to have the ride over so quickly.’’ When he goes to the old folks’ home in his daughter’s car—reaching his final goal of control over how he lives his life—he finds himself wishing he was going there on a motorcycle.

 Family

 One undercurrent to the story is the importance of family. Though Carpenter does not want to live with his family, they are important to him. In his quest to control his own destiny as much as possible, he does not want to hurt them or their feelings as he tries to ensure that his last days are spent as he so desires. He knows he has become too weak to live alone, but he cannot choose to continue to live alone and die neglected because it would cause an intense, lifelong hurt on his children: ‘‘for his daughters that would have been a burden too—a different kind of burden, much worse. He was sensible enough to see that.’’ He loves them too much to inflict that kind of pain on them. So Carpenter makes the choice to go to Clara’s house and demonstrate her importance to him by allowing her to help him by closing up his home and finding him an old folks’ home.

 While on a waiting list for a home, Carpenter has to fight for his plan to be executed but appreciates his time with his family, particularly with his thirteen-year-old granddaughter Francie. During his stay at Clara’s, Carpenter reflects on his family with pride as they try to convince him to let them take care of him. He appreciates their efforts and is proud of them: Even when Clara leaves him at the home, he is concerned with his daughter’s feelings, telling her ‘‘Don’t you worry about me. I’ll let you know if there is anything I need.’’ By the end of the story, it seems clear that he wants to maintain his relationship with his family as long as he can live at the home on his own terms.

Source:

Sara Constantakis – Short Stories for Students – Presenting Analysis, Context & Criticism on Commonly Studied Short Stories, vol. 31, Anne Tyler, Published by Gale Group, 2010