Jonathan Livingston Seagull

Near the Far Cliffs, Jonathan observes Fletcher attempt a dive and vertical slow roll; Fletcher loses control and grows frustrated, but Jonathan is patient and encouraging. After three months of working with Fletcher, six more Outcast students have joined Jonathan’s school of flight. However, while the students are committed to learning physical skills, they lack interest in the spiritual framework Jonathan tries to teach them. Eventually, Jonathan decides to bring his students back to the Flock.

The students are not receptive to the idea; they do not feel that their skills are ready, or that the Flock is ready for them. Jonathan, however, reminds them, “We’re free to go where we wish and to be what we are” (77). The group flies in formation to Council Beach, where Jonathan resumes his flying lessons, pushing his students harder than ever, with impressive results; his students begin to discover their own particular talents.

Initially, the Flock ignores Jonathan and his gulls, but slowly gulls start approaching Jonathan to listen to the lessons. The turning point for the Flock comes when Kirk Maynard Gull, a handicapped gull, asks Jonathan to help him fly. Jonathan simply tells Maynard that he is free, and Maynard is able to take to the sky. The next day, close to 1,000 birds arrive for flying lessons. Although Jonathan insists that he is no different than any other gull, and that any bird can do what he does, the Flock begins to call Jonathan the “Son of the Great Gull Himself.” Fletcher discusses this with Jonathan, and the two conclude that “this kind of flying has always been here to be learned” and that they’re simply “ahead of the fashion” (84).

Fletcher begins teaching students himself, but one day during a lesson he is startled by a near collision and detours into a cliff. He finds himself alone in an unfamiliar sky, where he hears Jonathan’s voice telepathically inform him that he managed to jump to a new level of consciousness. The voice offers him the choice of remaining in this new level or returning to the Flock. Fletcher chooses to return, and the Flock, amazed and frightened by his apparent resurrection, threatens to kill Jonathan. As they fly towards Jonathan, ready to attack, Jonathan and Fletcher disappear together, reappearing half a mile away.

The next morning, Fletcher asks Jonathan about his decision to return to the Flock; he doesn’t understand how Jonathan can claim to love the birds that have tried to kill him. Jonathan explains that what he loves is the potential of each gull, and that this is why it is important to continue trying to teach them. From now on, Jonathan continues, this will be Fletcher’s job, because he himself has to go share his teachings with other flocks. With that, he vanishes, and Fletcher returns to his students. As he tries to explain the metaphysics of flight, his students become confused, and he abruptly realizes how Jonathan must have felt teaching him; the thought encourages him, and as he turns back to his students, he feels renewed love for them, as well as hope that he can one day match Jonathan’s skills himself.