Metaphors In Trifles
In Timmy Reeds short story, “Birds and Other Things We Placed in Our Hearts,” there is a significant amount of imagery and symbolism through the authors use of style, characterization, and theme. The profound use of symbolism in the authors style of writing greatly captures the use of imagery throughout the story. The beginning sentence of the story reads, “As our chests hollowed out, we filled them with birds” (Reed). This beginning sentence is simply stating that the hearts of humans have withered away, leaving them feeling empty, and to fill that emptiness they filled their cavity with birds.
Why do people write? Why is it that we share our thoughts, opinions, advises, stories and experiences through the written word, and why don’t we just transmit all of this by word of mouth? Aside from the purpose of saving information or knowledge on paper, we end up expressing our selves via written words more strongly and accurately than we do verbally. You can come to know people better through reading their work, this is because you cannot lie to that piece of paper in front of you and well why should you?
The women gather Mrs. Wright’s quilt to work on while incarcerated when they find something that frightens them. They find the bird, and its neck is broken. Mrs. Peters, obviously startled, says “Somebody – wrung – its – neck” (1087). The women are unsure what to do with the bird, but know they need to hide it from the men. This clue is more important than the others; it shows Mrs. Wright's breaking point.
The men of the group, much like John in “The Yellow Wallpaper,” consider themselves more capable than the women and refuse to consider Mrs. Wright as anything other than irrational. The men leave the women to their “trifles” on the first floor, where they discover a broken bird cage, and the bird’s body, broken, carefully wrapped in a small, decorative box. They realize that Mr. Wright had wrung the neck of his wife’s beloved bird and broken its cage. Mrs. Wright, once known for her cheerfulness and beautiful singing, she stopped singing when she encountered Mr. Wright. Just like he did with the bird, Mr. Wright choked the life out of his wife until, finally, Mrs. Wright literally choked the life out of her husband.
Wright it is easy to tell that she is not at all upset about her husband’s death. When being asked about the situation she “laughed and pleated her skirt” (4). Mrs. Wright is compared to a bird that is found later in the story. The bird was found in a pretty box with marks around its neck. Hale and Peters say that the death of her bird would have been her motive if she actually was her husband’s murderer, but the author utilizes the bird and its broken cage to be a comparison to Mrs. Wright’s life.
She then suggests to Mrs. Peters that she should take the unfinished quilt home to “’take up her mind.’” This leads them to search for Mrs. Wright’s patches and sewing accessories. They discover a “pretty box” and assume it is where she keeps her scissors (Glaspell 1417). This is when they discover a dead canary wrapped up in a piece of silk; it was the missing bird. Right away they notice the bird's neck
Throughout “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell a noticeable power struggle between the women and the men occurs. “A Jury of Her Peers” exposes the social injustices that women faced during the turn of the century. In the story Mrs. Wright lashes out against her husband as result of built up anger and societies social pressure. In the essays “from Silent Justice in a Different Key: Glaspell’s ‘Trifles’” by Suzy Clarkson Holstein and “from The Case of the Battered Wife: Susan Glaspell’s Trifles and ‘A Jury of Her Peers’” by Lillian Schanfield embody the theme of social injustices among women. The social gaps between men and women in “A Jury of Her Peers” and “Trifles” helped drive the plot and allowed a unique outcome to be achieved.
Kate Chopin’s novel, The Awakening opens with a scene of two birds, emphasizing that the motif of birds later within the novel will play an important part with setting the constant metaphor they bring. Throughout the whole novel the motif of birds is a metaphor for the Victorian women during that period -- caged birds serve as reminders of Edna’s entrapment and the entrapment of Victorian women in general. Edna makes many attempts to escape her cage (husband, children, and society), but her efforts only take her into other cages, such as the pigeon house. Edna views this new home as a sign of her independence, but the pigeon house represents her inability to remove herself from her former life, due to the move being just “two steps away” (122).
The women began to pity Mrs. Wright as they knew her before she married to Mr. Wright. The females felt pity, where the men just accessed the situation at hand. After the women examine the empty bird cage they remember the way that Mrs. Wright use to sing and compared her to her former self as Minnie Foster. “Trifles,” introduced the masculinity here from the Sheriff’s side instantly putting his instinct into saying that there was a murder that happened at the farmhouse, was caused by Mrs. Wright without any hesitation. He didn’t look into the sadness, or let the depressing home get to him as much as what his intentions and his well-being come into play before his
The Raven The famous line by shakespeare will last as long as time. “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. ”this line makes one think differently about a rose. Edgar allan Poe also makes us think differently about a simple thing like a Raven, by changing their perception of what a raven really is.
They play “Trifles” by Susan Glaspell was a drama set on symbolism. The main symbol of this play was a canary, the bird representing Mrs. Wright’s
The narrator is aghast when he realizes that the bird can speak. The narrator, both confused and amazed, starts showering the ebony bird with questions. His confusion only grows stronger when he realizes that the bird has only one reply for, Nevermore that he keeps on repeating. The poems major themes are death and sorrow and the nature of the
The short story “A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett expresses a dynamic character named Sylvia who loves to adventure the woods but is normally afraid of people. However, one day she meets a stranger who she connects with and starts to change how she feels towards people and the shyness of her personality. In the beginning, Jewett explains that Sylvia had came to live with her grandma on the farm to get away from the crowded manufacturing town. Mrs. Tilley tells that Sylvia is afraid of people.
Trifles, something of little importance, is the opposite of what the women are distraught about. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters find several items that were “women things”, such as an unfinished quilt and a bird in a box with its neck snapped. These items are key symbols, not only to the play, but to the motive of the murder. Mrs. Wright never revealed that her husband had done cruel things to her, but her husband was known to be harsh at times. Mrs. Hale brings up how Mrs. Wright lived before she married, “I heard she used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir.
The oppression is binding the bird to its cage while the bird hopes and prays that someone will hear him so that he can leave this maiming tyranny. In addition in “Caged Bird” the bird is singing with mighty voice that was conceived by the rage that the bird felt toward the oppression that was trapping it. The tune that the bird sings is described as, “The caged bird sings,/ with a fearful trill,/ of things unknown”(Angelou, 30-32). The bird is illustrating the anger that it felt, by fighting the tyranny that he is facing. The tyranny is holding him down and the rage that the bird feels from this pain is what the bird symbolizes.
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