The Intricacies of Identity
This is a story about two women who are famous in different ways. One was already a famous aviator who transformed into legend after her mysterious disappearance on her final flight. The other is a modern-day Hollywood starlet looking to make that transition into serious award-winning actress by playing the pilot in a movie. The exploration of themes related to identity is complex because the conditions of the characters are similarly complex: already famous but with still enough room to become even more famous in a slightly different way while at the same time still being the person they were before fame altered the dimensionality of their own self-identity. Toss in the extra added feature that one of the women wants to “become” the other and you have the addition of yet another layer to already tall cake.
Female Empowerment and Self-Determination
Both of the women at the center of the novel are attempting to empower themselves in industries dominated by men. While the construction of that dominance is hugely divergent between aviation in the early decades of the 20th century and the movie industry in the early decades of the 21st century, there is no getting around the fact that the fate of women in both circumstances is largely determined by decisions made entirely by men. The dual narrative structure which spans across not just two different centuries but two different millennia is highly suggestive of a certain focus of this them: some things never completely change, but merely have the details altered.
The Great Circularity of Feminism
Fascism is fairly embodied in in the singular figure of Hitler. Communism is shared perhaps, ironically, just a little bit unequally between Marx and Lenin. But feminism has many heroes rather than a single figurehead. It is a progressive and revolutionary movement dependent upon the connectivity that exists from one generation to the next. It is just as difficult to imagine Susan B. Anthony without there first being Mary Wollstonecraft and it is to imagine Gloria Steinem without Susan B. Anthony. Once again, the dual narrative and encompassing timeline serve to illustrate and define the theme. The revolutionary pilot who dared to challenge expectations and conventions inspires the actress who becomes determined to take greater power over defining her public persona. The idea that the movie the actress makes about the aviator will almost certainly serve to inspire some young girl sitting in a movie theater to become a pilot need not even be directly addressed as it is implied in the very title of the novel.
