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Similarities Between Lady Bird And The Virgin Suicides

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In popular coming of age films about young girls, the films usually depict young girls experiencing their first significant romantic relationships with boys. For example, Lady Bird and The Virgin Suicides narrate their female protagonists going on dates, going to school dances, and experiencing romantic attraction to boys their age, which inherently causes the audience to become conscious of the films’ commentary on the male gaze— both of which are vastly different from one another. This difference is largely due to the female protagonists’ parents responding to the development of their daughters’ romantic lives differently. In The Virgin Suicides, the girls’ parents are extremely strict and conservative, causing the girls’ urge to rebel against …show more content…

Throughout both relationships, Lady Bird maintains her headstrong, outspoken, and overall unique personality regardless of the boys’ response to it. She is able to live this way because her parents enforce this independent lifestyle. Lady Bird mirrors her mother’s blunt, fierce, and outspoken lifestyle, and her parents establish trust in their relationship with their daughter, as they allow her to go on dates, multiple school dances, and even spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend and friends. By trusting Lady Bird to make her own decisions, Lady Bird then trusts herself and her instincts. At 23:10, Lady Bird and Danny are laying on the grass, stargazing. Lady Bird brings up her mom, to which Danny comments on how “hard” Marion is on her. Lady Bird quickly snaps in defense of her mother, saying that she acts that way out of love and care for her. Later on in the scene, the couple is trying to name a star they have picked together. Danny suggests the name “Claude,” to which Lady Bird laughs in response and says that that name is pretentious. Rather than agreeing with everything Danny says in order to get him to like her, Lady Bird speaks her mind even if it goes against the beliefs of her male love interest. Because her parents established an independent environment at home, Lady Bird is …show more content…

Because Lady Bird had independent, self-made parents who allowed her to have romantic experiences in high school, she was able to prioritize her own needs and wants throughout the film, which guided her to obtaining closure with her friends, family and self by the end. Contraringly, the hypersexualization of the Lisbon sisters stems from the conservative environment created by their parents, leading them to put themselves in harmful situations in order to feel a sense of control in life, which ultimately leads to their collective suicide. The female coming of age narrative almost always connects to discovering what the male perspective means to each young girl, but does not always mean that the male perspective has to be at the center of it. Wanting to ensure young girls' safety from the male gaze is not enough to ensure that safety— how parents present their values are just as critical, if not more, than the actual values

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The other pet that was dealt with was the bird. The woman sets it free out of the window the same night that she kills the chicken and the dog and gives the cat away. The issue is that the bird is heavily reluctant to leave. “The bird [steps] cautiously onto her hand… She opened the window and set the bird out on the ledge…closed his eyes…the bird was outside on the other side of the glass.

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A prominent piece of evidence that was found in the house was a broken bird cage and the question lies within what her personal interpretation of this object was. With a solemn tone, Martha replied, “I believe Minnie’s husband ripped the cage door open when in a rage and snapped the bird’s neck, so she did the same to him.” It is hard to believe that one’s emotions could so greatly influence their actions but in this case, it seems as if the Wright’s were involved in an unhappy, abusive marriage. To connect back to the bird queries, I also asked Mrs. Hale what she did with the deceased creature that Minnie Wright held so dearly. Martha without hesitation mentioned that she “grabbed it without a second thought” and that she wishes to bury it because Minnie would have wanted that.

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After discovering the cage, the women find a dead bird hidden in Minnie’s closet. Minnie had placed the bird in a small box after it had been presumably strangled by her now deceased husband, Mr. John Wright. With this information the two ladies make an inference that something happened to the bird—something that was not supposed to happen. Just after discovering the cage, the two women put themselves in Minnie’s place. At one point Mrs. Peters states, “‘It would be lonesome for me—sitting here alone’” (210).

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The scene begins to unfolds in their minds. Mr. Wright yanking open the cage door, taking out the bird, and breaking its fragile neck was enough to make Mrs. Wright lash out, and in a heat of passion, kill her husband. As the trifles collect,  the women worry that the men will see their findings, and have what they need to prove Mrs. Wright guilty. Though the men believe her to be the murderer, the women are trying their best to hide the evidence that will prove it.

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Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters contemplate this disturbing discovery, and they wonder who else could be capable of this act of violence. They know Mrs. Wright surely did not do it, as she cared for the bird greatly, she even “used to sing real pretty herself” and the women have already concluded “she would’ve liked a bird.” That leaves Mr. Wright, and due to the fact that he broke the birdcage, it is only reasonable that he killed the bird as well. This realization that the women make leads them to what the men have been searching for all day, a motive. Mr. Wright likes the quiet, so he killed the singing canary which happens to be the only thing bringing happiness to Mrs. Wright.

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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.

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The bird is Mrs. Wright. It was locked up in a cage as was Mrs. Wright when her husband was alive. He wasn’t a very “cheerful” man, therefore, people didn’t come to visit them. Over the twenty year time period of their marriage she became lonely, which resulted in her buying a bird and the drastic change in personality. The broken door to the cage represents Mrs. Wright’s freedom from her husband.

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Edna has become like this bird; her heart is broken and her soul is discouraged as she realizes she will never fully discover love and life. The bird’s failure to fly symbolizes Edna’s suicide because both of them are on a solitary flight to

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By placing the bird so high up, yet incredibly close to the family, it can be taken as a warning. The bird only appears in this single line throughout the excerpt, acting as an observer but also as a predator waiting for a chance to strike, providing an unsettling truth to death being out of our control. Though many efforts may be made to create a sanctuary, there are things out of one's control and when power is exercised, there will be forces fighting back. The opening sections of the novel A Bird in the House demonstrate this clearly by how Margarets Laurence's’ use of literary devices can be interpreted.

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Wright killed the canary and is also motive for Mrs. Wright to seek revenge. The women conclude that Mrs. Wright’s bird was her prized possession, the bird even reminds the women of Mrs. Wright, “‘She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself. Real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery. How—she—did—change.’”

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The free bird has the freedom to be exposed new experience and to see the beauty of life. These are all experiences that a caged bird will never experience. It has been free its whole life it , so it doesn't know the struggles of being

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