The Leap

A flashback interrupts the present flow of the narrative to show the reader events or images from the past. In “The Leap,” the narrator notes:

Sometimes, as I sit sewing in the room of the rebuilt house in which I slept as a child, I hear the crackle, catch a whiff of smoke from the stove downstairs and suddenly the room goes dark, the stitches burn beneath my fingers, and I am sewing with a needle of hot silver, a thread of fire (Paragraph 2).

In postmodern literature, narrative flashbacks are often associated with the psychological phenomena of mental flashbacks and trauma triggers. That is the case here, where the scent and sound of fire cause the narrator to experience overwhelming childhood memories from the night her house burned down.

When learning of Anna’s pregnancy and seeing the narrator defend her decision to “work high above the ground when any fall could be so dangerous” (Paragraph 6), it is easy to conclude, falsely, that the baby whose life is threatened has grown up to become the narrator. That Anna’s skill allows her to safely reach the ground lends further credence to this idea: After all, the narrator owes her mother her life three times, and this could be the first instance. It comes as a surprise, then, when the baby is born dead. The unborn baby and the assertion that the narrator owes her mother her life together constitute a red herring: a misleading or false clue that increases readers’ suspense and engagement with the story. This red herring also serves the thematic purpose of displaying the narrator’s longing for closer connection with her mother’s flying days. However briefly, readers will likely believe her to be aloft with Anna.