96 pages • 3 hours read
Sherri L. SmithFlygirl
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2009A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Chapters 4-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 4 Summary
The next day, Ida shows Jolene the newspaper article. Jolene tells Ida that the program is only looking for white women. Even though the article doesn’t say so explicitly, Ida knows Jolene is right, remembering how Thomas is only allowed to treat black soldiers in the army. Jolene mentions to Ida that she could try to pass as white. Ida and Jolene both know other black women who have passed as white, such as Stevia, a girl a year ahead of them in school who has fair skin and is married to a white man. But they also remember being invited to Stevia’s graduation party. When they arrived, Stevia’s cousin, Janice, wouldn’t let Jolene into the party because of her dark skin. Ida walked out of the party with Jolene, thinking to herself:“I never wanted to be like Janice Johnson and her cousin Stevia” (35).
At home, Abel notices that one woman in the photograph accompanying the article is Chinese. Ida thinks that maybe if they let another woman who isn’t white become a WASP, they will let her as well. But Ida still needs a pilot’s license to apply. Abel asks if she can use their father’s license. Ida says she can’t do that, but later,Ida goes to the attic and finds her father’s license. The picture is almost completely faded. Her father was named Iden Mahé Jones, and Ida was named after him. Ida looks at the license:“I believe my daddy is with me, and he’s telling me what to do next” (37). Ida leaves the attic and goes to look for the camera, knowing Jolene will help her take a new picture.
Chapter 5 Summary
Jolene helps Ida take a picture in front of a white sheet they’ve hung up on the clothesline. After Ida gets the pictures developed, Ida picks the one that looks most like the picture on her father’s license, and carefully erases the “n” and the “hé” from his name. She sends in the license along with an application and soon receives a letter inviting her in for an interview.
At the Wilson home, Jolene helps Ida get dressed for the interview. Ida wears a navy suit her mother bought for her graduation and borrows a pair of Jolene’s nylons, but Jolene is worried the outfit isn’t nice enough. She convinces Ida to borrow one of Mrs. Wilson’s fur stoles and a small hat. Jolene reminds Ida to use proper language to help her pass as white, but Ida tells Jolene that she isn’t going to try to pass. Jolene convinces Ida that she’ll have a better chance of being accepted to the program if they think she is white, and finally, Ida agrees:“I’ll be able to do something more than collect bacon fat and iron scraps if they’ll let me fly. Light skin and good hair could put me in a military plane” (42).
Ida takes the trolley into town and has to remind herself to sit in the front, where only white people are allowed to sit. She arrives at the building and a secretary asks her to take a seat outside of the representative’s office. As she waits for her interview, Ida sees another black woman who is also interviewing for the WASP program. She thinks that if this woman can apply as a black woman, maybe she can join the program as a black woman as well. The other woman is called in to interview first but leaves after only three minutes. Ida realizes that she was rejected from the program for being black.When Ida goes into the interview, she decides to try to pass as white. Ida is nervous the whole time that the interviewer will realize she isn’t white, and that her license is a forgery. But the woman accepts her license and tells her that the papers will arrive in a week, and if she is approved, she will begin training in Texas in a month.
Chapter 6 Summary
As Ida returns home, Abel mistakes her for a white woman walking up toward the house. Seeing her, Ida’s mother becomes angry. Grandy tells Ida to go upstairs and change and then come back down to talk. Once Ida is back downstairs, her mother accuses her of having gone to see Grandmère Boudreaux, her father’s mother.
Ida’s father and his family have the same light skin as Ida. Several generations back, one of Ida’s ancestors had a child with a white man. After that, her father’s family continued to marry people who were white or biracial in order for future generations to have light skin. Ida’s father was expected to marry a white woman but fell in love with Ida’s mother instead. Grandmère Boudreaux barely speaks to Ida’s family and has only come to visit them once.
Ida tells her mother that she did not go to visit her grandmother, but instead interviewed to become a WASP. Ida’s mother is angry that she used her father’s license and passed as white, but Ida explains that she sees it as an opportunity to fly planes and help the war efforts. But Ida’s mother doesn’t think Ida realizes what she is getting herself into:“[Y]ou cross that line, you cannot cross back just as you please” (56).
Chapters 4-6 Analysis
These chapters further establish the historical context of the novel and the racism and segregation that was prominent in the United States in the 1940s. Ida witnesses this segregation when she has to remind herself to sit in the front of the trolley when she is passing as white, one example of the kind of segregation that existed during this time. In addition, while Ida is waiting for her interview, she has to remind herself not to speak to the black women in the building since white women typically didn’t speak to black women during this time. Finally, Ida sees a black woman be rejected from the program because of her race. Ida will continue to experience segregation and racism throughout the novel.
As Ida passes as white, she struggles with what this decision says about her own identity. She already knows she doesn’t want to end up like Stevia and Janice, or Grandmère Boudreaux, rejecting their own friends and family. While waiting for her interview, Ida struggles to reconcile her identity:“I don’t feel white, but I do feel less like Ida Mae” (43) [...] I guess that’s what it means it pass for white—suddenly, you’re all alone” (44). Finally,Ida decides:“I am Ida Mae Jones of Slidell, Louisiana. Even if I’m playing at being white, even if I paint myself blue, I am still the child of my parents, still that little girl who loves her brother and loves to fly” (47). Ida is determined not to forget who she is even if she is passing as white. She even tells her mother this: “I’m still me” (55). Ida is determined to stay true to herself and not to reject her friends and family while passing as white, even when her mother warns her that it won’t be as simple as she thinks.
Finally, these chapters raise the difficult question of whether it is okay to lie if it is for a good cause. As Ida justifies her decision to forge her father’s pilot’s license and lie about her race, she reminds herself that “it can help [her]brother win the war” (56). Ida is determined to do her part to help the war efforts, and even though she is nervous she will be caught, she feels this cause justifies her decision to lie about her identity.
