Flying Pussyfoot Incident Essay

Ryohgo Narita’s tenth book of his award-winning series Peter Pan In Chains combines many complex characters and relationships into a 433 page novel about betrayal, Identity, and humanity. It covers 2 stories that combine for a single ending, one set in Alcatraz and the other in the heart of Chicago in 1934. The author relies heavily on prior knowledge and motifs to develop characters and the plot. The greatest Recurring allusion in the book refers to the Flying Pussyfoot Incident involving all of the main characters. It also has a deeper meaning linked to the primal fears of early man. It is a driving reason behind the “coincidental” nature of these specific characters meeting again three years later. The incident happened in 1931 aboard the Flying Pussyfoot express railway from Chicago to New York. Three separate groups attempted to …show more content…
The three biggest dangers to early humans were Birds of prey, large cats, and snakes. Combining these yields the Dragon, the biggest threat in literature across many cultures in the world. Its scales imitate the snake, it has wings and can fly like a bird, and has the ferocity and claws of a cat. The Flying Pussyfoot also retains similar attributes to this “bird-cat-snake” thing. We get the threat of a cat and its claws from the word “Pussyfoot,” the aerial aspect of birds from the word “Flying,” and the snake element from the train’s shape and the way it winds across the terrain. The snake element also references a “lying serpent” as many of the characters betray others and are betrayed. This foreshadows Sham’s behavior in 1934 when he manipulates many of the characters in Peter Pan in Chains. The Dragon and by extension the Flying Pussyfoot is the horrifying amalgamation of all these primal threats. This keeps it relevant as an important event in the character’s lives, making it the true beginning of the book’s