Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House
Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House differentiates itself from the four other novels that make up the 'Manawaka series' that has helped establish her as an icon of Canadian literature. It does not present a single story; instead, it is a compilation of eight well-crafted short stories (written between the years 1962 and 1970) that intertwine and combine into a single narrative, working as a whole without losing the essential independence of the parts.
It tells - at least on a surface level - of the childhood of a young girl named Vanessa MacLeod , and of her trials and tribulations in the small Manitoban town of Manawaka. The narrative style of the stories is important, since it is through Vanessa's own eyes that we learn of her family and life - yet the eyes belong to an older, wiser Vanessa, remembering her own childhood from a future point years later. Laurence handles the narrative style quite cleverly; the experiences of the child-Vanessa are portrayed with all the innocence and naïvety and shock that first accompanied them, yet are also tainted and clarified by the wisdom of the older-Vanessa. "... the narrator [becomes] Vanessa, the woman, who takes on the voice and attributes of the child she was and, at the same time, remains her present self, far older and wiser in compassion and understanding."1
It is the perspective of the older and wiser Vanessa that allows the reader to pick up on the important ideas, images, and themes that the author is trying to convey to us. A Bird in the House is far more than semi-autobiographical, is far more than the simple story of a young girl growing up in the prairies during the great Depression: it is a work of...
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...e. The tightness of Laurence's weaving is remarkable: the symbols, the characters, and the characters are drawn together into a cohesive whole. "... the characters reflect the book's central metaphor and are thus symbolically interconnected [...] the stories chart how they are all caught up in parallel captivities and engaged in divergent flights." (Davidson 99) They are, indeed, all drawn together by the bird in the house.
Works Cited
1. qtd. in Davidson, Arnold E. "Cages and Escapes in Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House." University of Windsor Review 16 (1981): 95.
2.Margaret Laurence, A Bird in the House (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Inc., 1970), 43.
All further references are to this edition and are included in my text.
3. Jon Kertzer, "That House in Manawaka": Margaret Laurence's A Bird in the House (Toronto: ECW Press, 1992), 57.
In “A Caged Bird”, it is made clear that this bird has never experienced the freedom of flying with the other species or perching atop the highest building. All it has ever known is the cage in which is has been kept and fed plentifully, yet not punctually, and nurtured with the love of an owner and proper care.
Mary Oliver’s unique responses to the owls illustrate the complexity of nature by displaying its two sides. Mary Oliver at first enjoys owls and all they have to offer, yet she later emphasizes her fear of a similar animal. The visual imagery she uses in her descriptions
An imposing character in A Bird in the House, Grandfather Timothy Connor’s power over his household is also a sign of his weakness. The house that he built is “part dwelling place and part massive monument” (Margaret Laurence 3). Grandfather Connor, a pioneer in Manawaka, is a monument himself and is often associated with his architectural feat. The title of Margaret Laurence’s novel is A Bird in the House; Grandfather Connor is the house that both shelters and entraps the people – especially the women – in his life with his actions. With a stranglehold on his household, Grandfather seems to fit into the traditional male role as the authoritarian but is plagued by guilt and loneliness. He uses his anger as a shield and a mask; he “demands strength because he is afraid of weakness” (Jon Kertzer 43). Early in his marriage, Grandfather Connor had an affair with a girl in Winnipeg but his wife Agnes “never told him she’d considered leaving him” (Laurence 85). This places Agnes in a position of higher power: she is virtuous, and Timothy knows that she may be too good for him. As Uncle Terence remarks: “Another person’s virtues could be an awful weight to tote around. We all loved her. Whoever loved him?” (86). Because his family loves Agnes and will happily obey her, Timothy attempts to reassert his power by being strict and demanding.
"In a little four-room house around the corner. It looks so cozy, so inviting and restful."(79) With this description Chopin introduces the reader to Edna’s new residence, which is affectionately known as the pigeon house. The pigeon house provides Edna with the comfort and security that her old house lacked. The tranquility that the pigeon house grants to Edna allows her to experience a freedom that she has never felt before.
The tile of the poem “Bird” is simple and leads the reader smoothly into the body of the poem, which is contained in a single stanza of twenty lines. Laux immediately begins to describe a red-breasted bird trying to break into her home. She writes, “She tests a low branch, violet blossoms/swaying beside her” and it is interesting to note that Laux refers to the bird as being female (Laux 212). This is the first clue that the bird is a symbol for someone, or a group of people (women). The use of a bird in poetry often signifies freedom, and Laux’s use of the female bird implies female freedom and independence. She follows with an interesting image of the bird’s “beak and breast/held back, claws raking at the pan” and this conjures a mental picture of a bird who is flying not head first into a window, but almost holding herself back even as she flies forward (Laux 212). This makes the bird seem stubborn, and follows with the theme of the independent female.
Sarah Orne Jewett's "A White Heron" is a brilliant story of an inquisitive young girl named Sylvia. Jewett's narrative describes Sylvia's experiences within the mystical and inviting woods of New England. I think a central theme in "A White Heron" is the dramatization of the clash between two competing sets of values in late nineteenth-century America: industrial and rural. Sylvia is the main character of the story. We can follow her through the story to help us see many industrial and rural differences. Inevitably, I believe that we are encouraged to favor Sylvia's rural environment and values over the industrial ones.
Since its first appearance in the 1886 collection A White Heron and Other Stories, the short story A White Heron has become the most favorite and often anthologized of Sarah Orne Jewett. Like most of this regionalist writer's works, A White Heron was inspired by the people and landscapes in rural New England, where, as a little girl, she often accompanied her doctor father on his visiting patients. The story is about a nine-year-old girl who falls in love with a bird hunter but does not tell him the white heron's place because her love of nature is much greater. In this story, the author presents a conflict between femininity and masculinity by juxtaposing Sylvia, who has a peaceful life in country, to a hunter from town, which implies her discontent with the modernization?s threat to the nature. Unlike female and male, which can describe animals, femininity and masculinity are personal and human.
... the novel. Ranging from clothes, to birds, to the “pigeon house”, each symbol and setting provides the reader with insight into Edna’s personality, thoughts, and awakening.
In A Bird in the House, Margaret Laurence is able to incorporate many themes and motifs into her stories such as, war, tragedy, religion, and faith. Another theme that is also shown throughout the book is identity, both national and individual identity. National identity is defined as “ a sense of a nation as a cohesive whole, as represented by distinctive traditions, culture, etc.”, while individual identity is what makes a person unique, it is what a person believes, thinks and feels. Sometimes in life identity gets mixed up and can become a confusing aspect of life. People are a product of their environment, which is a factor in shaping identity. The protagonist in the book, Vanessa MacLeod, witnesses and experiences both types of identity. She sees the influence of the Canadian national identity in her Grandfather Connor, Scottish heritage in her Grandmother MacLeod, Irish heritage in her Uncle Dan, which ultimately influence Vanessa’s personal identity.
Margaret Laurence 's novel A Bird in the House is a collection of independent and intertwined short stories written from Vanessa MacLeod 's point of view. As an adult looking back on her childhood, the protagonist examines how she, and essentially everyone in her life, experiences a sense of entrapment and a need to escape. Because the author begins and concludes the novel with the Brick House, the major theme of escape is shown to have developed in Vanessa as she matures through childhood and adolescence and becomes an adult.
Porter, Katherine. “The Jilting of Granny Weatherall.” Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, Drama, and Writing. Ed. X.J. Kennedy and Dana Gioia. 11th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 79-86. Print.
The images related to birds are the major symbolic images in the narrative from the very beginning of the novel:
The basis of criminal justice in the United States is one founded on both the rights of the individual and the democratic order of the people. Evinced through the myriad forms whereby liberty and equity marry into the mores of society to form the ethos of a people. However, these two systems of justice are rife with conflicts too. With the challenges of determining prevailing worth in public order and individual rights coming down to the best service of justice for society. Bearing a perpetual eye to their manifestations by the truth of how "the trade-off between freedom and security, so often proposed so seductively, very often leads to the loss of both" (Hitchens, 2003, para. 5).
But in this story, it embodies a theme of entrapment which was also experienced by Vanessa’s father, as mentioned above. The bird that was trapped in her window represents the trapped environment that only lead to an aimless movement. Our bodies do numerous things that we do not understand. We wonder why our body is in a certain condition, perhaps we express negativity, depression without even know it is a good idea.
The birdcage represents how Mrs. Wright was trapped in her marriage, and could not escape it. The birdcage door is broken which represents her broken marriage to Mr. Wright. It also represents Mrs. Wright escaping her marriage from Mr. Wright. When the door is open it allows Mrs. Wright to became a free woman. At one point in time the cage door use to have a lock that locked the bird inside the cage. This represents how Mr. Wright kept Mrs. Wright locked up from society. Mr. Wright knew that by keeping Mrs. Wright locked up, she would never be able to tell anyone how he really acted. Mr. Wright was very cruel to his wife.