Canary as a Symbol of Sisterhood in Trifles: a Play in One Act by Susan Glaspell - Book Report/Review Example

The missing canary is likened to Minnie Wright: “come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself – really sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and fluttery. How—she – did – change.” (page 22, line 8) This comment by Mrs. Hale creates a bond of sympathy between Minnie and the two visiting women because they all see how she was imprisoned in this homely little kitchen like a bird in a cage. When the bird is found dead, the women put two and two together, and realize that Mr.

Wright must have killed it. The canary, just like Mrs. Peters’ childhood kitten, was symbolic of Minnie’s womanly nature, and its death evidence of the way this was snuffed out by her violent husband. Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale conceal the evidence of the bird’s broken body, and in so doing protect Minnie from facing certain imprisonment and death as a murderess. The canary, therefore, symbolizes the sisterhood of the three women. They identify with its suffering and take the murder to be a fitting response to its death, thus cementing a bond of sisterhood with Minnie Wright, in spite of the likelihood that was she who murdered her husband.