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A Jury Of Her Peers Symbolism

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The Canary and The Heart A story contains much more than just the words presented on the page. There are deeper meanings, hidden facts and underlying messages. At the heart of this idea is symbolism. Symbolism, as defined by the Oxford English Dictionary, is the practice of representing things by symbols, or of giving a symbolic character to objects. In the short stories “A Jury of Her Peers” by Susan Glaspell and “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin symbolism is an essential component of the story. The beauty of symbolism is that items can represent much more than their literal meaning and it allows the reader to make connections between multiple texts. From these two stories the most prominent items that stand for something other than itself are the canary and the heart. It can be argued that both items symbolize love and freedom. In the story “A Jury of Her Peers”, the canary belongs to Mrs. Wright. It may seem like just a small yellow …show more content…

What if the endings were flipped? Suppose Mrs. Mallard didn’t die from heart complications but instead lived, only to murder her husband. What if Mrs. Wright, took her own life rather than her husband’s? The route taken to get to the ending was quite different, but the results were awfully similar. Based on the information in “The Story of an Hour”, Mrs. Mallard very well could have murdered her husband, to little surprise of the reader. No one would have been surprised to read that Mrs. Mallard later killed her husband had she not perished from her heart condition. After finding her freedom, and experiencing it for a short while, Mrs. Mallard may have the motivation to take back her new found independence. Then it would have been her house the neighbors, sheriff and county attorney would have been rummaging through. Conversely, had Mrs. Wright decided to relieve herself from her burdens by taking her own life, then it would be her who escaped and gained freedom through

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