A Bird in the House by Margaret Laurence is a collection of short stories rich in symbolism and similes. Descriptions such as "claw hand", "manner of flying" and "hair tied grotesquely like wings with white fingers" are found in abundance in the writer's novel. The Oxford English Dictionary defines symbols as "something which stands for, stands for, or denotes something else (not by exact resemblance, but by vague suggestion, or by accidental or conventional relation)" (reference). Yet there is nothing incidental about Margaret Laurence's diction and use of symbols in "A Bird in the House" and "The Bear's Mask." 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 the ability to fly, to freely roam the sky. They are not intended to live in captivity. Therefore, the short story titled “A Bird in the House” suggests the theme of trapping and the struggle for freedom, a subject that resonates throughout the novel. Vanessa is a character who experiences a feeling of confinement in the story. Her family lives with her grandmother MacLeod, a tyrannical woman who likes order, and who wants to continue living as she did in the past, before the Depression, with a maid to cook and clean, and to be able to do frequent table purchases. -Irish linen sheets and handkerchiefs. Vanessa's father, Ewen, explains that "the house is still the same, so she thinks other things should be too" (55). Vanessa experiences physical confinement in the MacLeod household, being barred from rooms containing valuables like her grandmother's bedroom and the living room which she calls "another foreign territory where I had to move forward with caution” (47). This physical confinement led to emotional detachment. As an adult reflecting on her childhood, Vanessa says that "the MacLeod house never felt like home to me" (46). Additionally, Vanessa experienced some emotional confinement in the Connor household, as her grandfather Connor was a domineering man who did not approve of many types of people. Vanessa therefore grew up without interacting with many people outside of her immediate family. To combat these forms of entrapment, Vanessa wrote stories about pioneers, about love and death, as a means of escape...