Tell-Tale Titles of Margaret Laurence’s "a Bird in the House"

Margaret Laurence’s A Bird in the House is a collection of short stories that is rich in symbols and similes. Descriptions like “claw hand”, “flyaway manner” and “hair bound grotesquely like white-fingered wings” are found abundantly in the writer’s novel. The Oxford English Dictionary defines symbols as, “something that stands for, represents, or denotes something else (not by exact resemblance, but by vague suggestion, or by some accidental or conventional relation)” (reference). Yet, there is nothing coincidental about Margaret Laurence’s diction and her usage of symbols in “A Bird in the House” and “The Mask of the Bear”. These revealing titles effectively foreshadow the plot and character conflicts that occur in their stories.

Birds are a class of vertebrates that live in nature. Most of them are characterized by an ability to fly, free to roam the sky. They are not meant to live in captivity. Therefore, the short story entitled “A Bird in the House” suggests a theme of entrapment and a struggle for freedom, a topic that resonates throughout the novel. Vanessa is one character who experiences a sense of confinement in the story. Her family lives with her grandmother MacLeod, a tyrannical woman who loves order, and who wants to continue living like she did in the past, before the Depression, with a housekeeper to cook and clean, and to be able to make frequent purchases of table-cloths and handkerchiefs of Irish linen. Vanessa’s father, Ewen, explains that, “the house is still the same, so she thinks other things should be too” (55). Vanessa experiences a physical confinement in the MacLeod house, being forbidden to enter those rooms that contained valuables objects such as her grandmother’s bedroom and the living room which she calls, “another alien territory where I had to tread warily” (47). This physical confinement led to an emotional detachment. As an adult reflecting on her time growing up, Vanessa says that “the MacLeod house never seemed like home to me” (46). Moreover, Vanessa experienced some emotional confinement in the Connor house as her grandfather Connor was a domineering man who did not approve of many types of people so Vanessa grew up without the interaction with many people outside her immediate family. To combat these forms of entrapment, Vanessa would write stories about pioneers, and love and death, as an escape.

Another person who experiences emotional confinement is Ewen. Guilt-ridden by feelings of responsibility for his brother’s death in the war, Ewen came back to Manawaka and Beth, his wife, tells Edna, his sister-in-law, that, “it was only after the war that he decided to come back and study medicine,” (59) probably to take Rod’s place in the family’s practice, forsaking his own ambitions. Ewen says, “I was never very intellectual … Rod was always brighter than I, in school … As a kid, all I ever wanted to do was go into the merchant marine” (54-55). Moreover, because of his guilt, Ewen hardly disagrees with his mother and whenever he upsets her, he quickly apologizes. Ewen hints that the time when he was at war was a time when he was free. He says “It was king of interesting to see a few other places for a change” (91). Ultimately, Ewen’s guilt gives way to his mother’s request to name his second child, Roderick.