Minnie Wright as the Invisible Protagonist - Assignment Example

The play has critical symbols, the cage, the bird, and the knot. The cage symbolizes the marriage that Minnie is trapped in. Her husband, John Wright, controls what she can and cannot have or experience, which is why he killed Minnie’s bird. The bird is Minnie. She used to sing like a bird. She also used to be free and have friends. After being married, John puts her in her rightful place as a woman- a place of constant submission. When the bird dies, her spirit dies too. Finally, at the end, when Mrs. Hale tells the County Attorney that Minnie was going to “knot” the quilt, she refers to both the rope that Minnie put around her husband’s neck and the silence that Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale will preserve on their knowledge about the bird that reveals Minnie’s state of mind and potential motive.

The play is saying that justice does not always come through men’s ways of investigation. These women became the jury for Minnie. They served as the police investigator and judge, and they knew that John deserves to die because he killed Minnie first. Their brand of justice may not be legal, but they followed what they thought was fair to women who live in a world where men control and where women are invisible.