Essay on Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House

First, it symbolizes her connection to God and her desire to please Him. She represents herself and her family as birds because they were also creations of God; however, they are not human, therefore they do not sin. The bird family also symbolizes freedom. As her young grow up and spread their wings, they leave the nest to fly on their own. This represents one of the facts of life; children grow up and leave their parents’ homes to find their own way to make it in the world.

Viramontes uses symbols as a way of illustrating the oppression women feel to the narrator. The sun, the moths, and the bird of paradise are symbols to represent aspects of life to the

The canary helps her remember the joy she had singing. The canary is something she could care for and love. ”If there had been years and years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful-still-after the bird was still” (Glaspell 557). The bird’s cage defines how when she marries Mr. Wright she became trapped in his cage. The broken door symbolizes that she was a broken woman barely hanging on to hope. Mr. Wright cruel and unjust treatment to her and the bird causes retaliation. When he snapped the canary’s neck she is forced to kill him.

Much like the kitchen, the birdcage is also used as a symbol for Mrs. Wright. In the play, Mrs. Peters finds the birdcage empty. The two ladies also find that the cage?s door hinge is pulled apart. The ladies conclude that someone had ?been rough with it.? The cage in the play suggests many things. A cage signifies imprisonment and captivity. This easily fits within the play and represents the confinement

Birds are a common sight in most places people tend to be. These winged creatures are seen in bustling places like the pigeons that are in urban and suburban areas, the woodpeckers in rural regions, the crows on farms, and even in cages within buildings. In fact, these elegant creatures are so common a sight in society that they are often overlooked and underappreciated. This is similar to how women were and sometimes still are treated within society; they are given little appreciation when they are present and doing as they are told, but when they do not do as they are told they become a problem. This parallel that can be drawn between women and birds is used throughout Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening, in which its main character Edna Pontellier is often likened to and symbolized by a bird. Throughout the novel, the bird acts as a theme and symbol of both Edna and women in general.

Birds are a personal symbol for Turtle’s development. Throughout the novel, birds are tied to Turtle and major events in her life. Turtle makes her first sound when the car stops suddenly to avoid a family of quail. “I slammed on the brakes and we all pitched forward… ‘I think that sound was a laugh’...In the road up ahead there was a quail, the type that has one big feather spronging out the front of its head like a forties-model ladies' hat. We could just make out that she was dithering back and forth in the road, and then we gradually could see that there were a couple dozen babies running around her every which way” (Kingsolver 106-107). Turtle and Taylor have become comfortable as a family and Turtle has recovered from her previous trauma to the point that she makes audible noises and expresses herself. Just as the family of Taylor and Turtle has brought joy to the lives of Lou Ann, Mattie, Esperanza and Estevan, this disruptive family of birds bring joy and laughter to Taylor and Turtle. When Taylor takes Turtle to the doctor and learns the extent of Turtle’s abuse, she sees a bird that has made its nest inside a cactus. “I looked through the bones to the garden on the other side. There was a cactus with bushy arms and a coat of yellow spines as thick as fur. A bird had built her nest in it. In and out she flew among the horrible spiny branches, never once hesitating. You just couldn't imagine how she'd made a home in there” (Kingsolver 137-138). Just as the bird has

Writing, as described by E.L. Doctorow, is an exploration. In her novel, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott explores the writing process, providing her insight on stylistic, theoretical, and instructional points. These points are essential in the composure of a book and are prevalent in many literary works such as Tim O’Brien’s The Things they Carried. In his book, O’Brien relives his time on the frontlines of the Vietnam War, telling fictional stories of life before, during, and post war. The novels are tied together with O’Brien’s use of character development, dialogue, and design setting strategies as discussed in Bird by Bird.

“Our mouths opened and shut and we froze where we sat. I suppose we could have honked and waved and it wouldn’t have raised any more pandemonium than this poor mother already had to deal with but instead we held perfectly still. Even Turtle, after a long minute or two the quail got her family herded off the road into some scraggly bushes” (96). The birds are significant symbolism in this book. They often appear in the book to symbolize Turtle; Kingsolver did this to show Turtle is a strong survival instinct child. First, when Taylor took Turtle to doctor and discovered that she has been abused and raped. As she makes this discovery, she sees a bird nest on a cactus. This shows that Turtle, in spite of her surroundings she keep persists. Also, when Turtle met the robber, a sparrow got caught in Lou Ann’s house, the bird getting scared shows the Turtle’s confusion and fright. But sparrow survives and leaves the house; this shows that even though Turtle is going through confusion she will survive. Finally, the quote shows the moment when Lou Ann and Taylor found a family of birds on the road. This quote symbolizes how Turtle is satisfied with her small family, feel safe, and she is happy.

Although a lot of the story is pretty straight forward, she does use literary devices to help the reader understand the life of Birdie a little better. For example, in the end of the story she describes the vision of herself on the swing set outside of the hospital in saying, “Each time, the girl went fuzzy like an image on the television set with poor reception.” This simile allows the reader to really see what she saw or felt because we all can picture that type of image. Another time she uses a simile saying, “The swing is swaying gently, as if someone had just been on it.” These subtle literary devices help the reader to understand little things about the story in order for them to see the situation Birdie is in. However, there are not as many metaphors or a huge amount of other literary

Probably the most notable use of birds occurs when after ten years, Sula returns to the Bottom accompanied by a “plague of robins”(89). The word plague indicates that the birds represent a wave of sickness that Sula brings alongside her. The citizens of the Bottom recognize the birds as a sign of evil, but choose to accept its wickedness rather than try to rid of the robins. “But they let it run it’s course, fulfill itself, and never invented ways to either alter it, to annihilate it or to prevent its happening again. So also were they with people” (90). Here, Morrison is comparing the townspeople’s feelings both towards the evilness of the robins and towards the evilness of Sula. They welcome Sula’s return to the Bottom the same way they they welcome the birds. Sula’s personal experiences with wickedness are also acknowledged through the robins as Sula

At the end of the story, the husband has died. This could be seen as the womans “freedom”. Linda Wagner-Martin writes “She wins back her language, and vanquishes her husband--who has neither speech nor action by the end of the story. He lies as if dead in the path of her highly functional movement, and she simply crawls over him. The wallpaper has replaced the writing paper that he would have taken from her, and she has in some ways won back her right to speech and control.” The theme of the writing is the role of women in this time period and their dependence on men but at the end of her writing she has taken control.

Although she may be considered insane at the end of the story, I believe the narrator's freedom is a development of the sense of self-identity and a chance for her to begin to recreate a life of her own.

This symbol was firstly shown used through Jake the crow. Jake was a very close friend of Brooks. He had taken care of Jake ever since he had found it with an injured wing and nursed it back to health. Jake was used as a symbol in the film to highlight the theme of hope, as Jake was found by Brooks with an injured wing after it had fallen out of its nest. Jake shows that hope was still present even in the darkest of times in life. Later on in the film, we see that Brooks was released from prison because of parole. This lead to Brooks releasing Jake before leaving prison and represents Brooks letting go of any hope he has of surviving life in the outside world. He symbolically looks for Jake while feeding the birds in the park, thinking he just might show up and say hello. Sadly, he neither finds Jake nor hope outside of prison. Brooks could not cope with the world outside of prison as he was institutionalised and results in him committing suicide. Another instance of birds being used as a symbol was after Andy escaped Shawshank prison. Red symbolizes Andy as being a caged bird in prison when he says, “Sometimes it makes me sad, though… Andy being gone. I have to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. But still, the place you live in is that much

The broken birdcage can also be seen as a symbolic item within the story. The birdcage represents how women were oppressed, or “caged in” by men during this time in history. The bird, which symbolizes Mrs. Wright in the story, is not mentioned by the men when they notice the birdcage. This is because Glaspell wanted to emphasize that most men during this time were focused on what women were limited to doing, not who they were as a person. As the men overlook yet another important detail, the women realize that the door to the birdcage is broken. This symbolizes Mrs. Wright breaking away from the chains of oppression put on her by her husband.

The life one treasures and takes for granted today can be so easily erased in the blink of an eye and gone tomorrow. Therefore, not only is it important to cherish how one lives for today and now, but it’s also important to how one can overcome the misfortunes and hardships they may suffer; tragedy can make a person or break a person. Mary Rowlandson’s experience during her eleven weeks of captivity as documented in “A Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson” is a perfect answer to the above argument. The eleven weeks she experienced as a prisoner of her Indian captors proves to be a pivotal occasion in her life, which changes her feelings, lifestyle, and attitude as well towards her abductors. By the end of her horrifying experience, she rises more profoundly grounded in every way: mentally, physically, and spiritually with a new outlook on life, closer to God, and a newfound opinion of the Indians.