Fear of Flying (novel) Fear of Flying (novel) Fear of Flying is a 1973 novel by Erica Jong which became famously controversial for its portrayal of female sexuality and figured in the development of second-wave feminism. The novel is written in the first person: narrated by its protagonist, Isadora Zelda White Stollerman Wing, a 29-year-old poet who has published two books of poetry. On a trip to Vienna with her second husband, Isadora decides to indulge her sexual fantasies with another man. Its tone may be considered conversational or informal. The story's American narrator is struggling to find her place in the world of
Fear of Flying (novel) by analysts, many of them her own from over the years, and her husband Bennett (also an analyst, naturally): "There were 117 psychoanalysts on the Pan Am flight to Vienna and I'd been treated by at least six of them" (page 5). Her fear of flying, both literally and metaphorically referring to a fear of freeing herself from the shackles of traditional male companionship, she associates with recent articles about plane hijackings and terrorist attacks. She also associates fear and loathing with Germany, her destination, because she and her husband were stationed in Heidelberg and she struggled both to fit