Ginsfarb

Ginsfarb is the barnstorming wing walker who performs the aerobatic stunts suggested by the story's title. His characterization emphasizes his Jewish ethnicity, sometimes in very stereotypical ways. Although he is a "short man," his "nose" would "have fitted a six-foot body" (187); he is so greedy for money that he can't be trusted to negotiate with the small towns the team performs in: "he'd stick out for his price too long" and so might well attract the attention of "anybody that might catch them" running the illegal show (195, 194). His favorite expression of disgust is "Gruss Gott" ('great God'); he speaks "in the diction of Weber and Fields in vaudeville, making his wh's into v's and his th's into d's" (187) and his syntax is unidiomatic ("What for fun? Fly?" Gruss Gott," 192) - all suggesting that he is perhaps a first-generation immigrant. The narrative contrasts him in several ways with the aviators it admires: unlike Jake, Ginsfarb talks a lot; unlike Captain Warren, he wasn't injured in a war but in an airborne argument over the amount of his fee; his hatred of flying contrasts with Jock's obsessive love of it. He seems obsessed with money, which is a stereotypically antisemitic trope, but it's easy to sympathize with his desire to get paid enough, given the way he risks his life in every performance. And there is no questioning the courage he shows in the extremely dangerous stunts he performs. The narrator says "he has the most tragic face we had ever seen" (187).