The Canary  

Minnie’s strangled canary symbolizes how Minnie herself has been stifled by her husband, John Wright. Like the canary, Minnie Foster was a vibrant young woman before she married. She wore nice clothing and sang beautifully in the choir. Mrs. Hale explicitly compares the young Minnie to a bird, “real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery.” Minnie’s marriage to the cold, cheerless John Wright traps her in a sort of cage, relegating her to a state of captivity. She remains isolated at home, cut off from the company of other women, and under the total control of her husband. However, John Wright’s literal strangulation of the bird symbolizes that he is not satisfied with merely confining and controlling Minnie. He killed the canary because he couldn’t stand “a thing that sang,” just like he could not stand Minnie’s singing. Luckily, Minnie does not suffer the canary’s fate. Instead, she strangles John Wright, poetically avenging the abuse she has suffered at his hands.  

The Quilt 

Minnie’s unfinished quilt symbolizes how unseen and unvalued she and other women are in a male-dominated society. A quilt is an object designed to provide warmth and comfort, which are in short supply in the Wright home. Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters admire the bright colors and the welcoming log cabin pattern of Minnie’s quilt, which speaks to Minnie’s skill as a homemaker. They also recognize the badly stitched section as a sign of a sudden change in Minnie’s state of mind. However, the men turn the quilt into a running joke, repeatedly mocking the women for wondering if Minnie planned to “quilt it or knot it.” For the men, the quilt is simply a feminine trifle to be ridiculed. Like all things feminine, the men consider the quilt harmless, never suspecting that it might contain the evidence they seek. Ironically, the play concludes with the women explaining that Minnie planned to “knot” the quilt, a dark allusion to her knotting of the rope around John Wright’s neck. But the irony is lost on the men, who fail to see the significance of the quilt.  

The Exploded Preserves 

Minnie’s jars of fruit preserves, most of which freeze and explode in the cold, symbolize the extreme conditions that push Minnie to her breaking point. Like the fruit, Minnie has been sealed in the jar of a restrictive marriage and locked away in the kitchen. The freezing temperatures that cause the jars to explode represent John Wright’s emotional coldness toward Minnie, which causes the marriage to rupture and leaves behind a mysterious mess (the murder) for others to discover.  

Like all of the play’s symbols, the men fail to see the significance of the preserves. The County Attorney reacts with disgust when he discovers the sticky mess, and the Sheriff mocks Minnie’s concern for her preserves when she is being held for murder. In response, Mr. Hale mansplains that women are “used to worrying over trifles,” and the County Attorney speculates that Minnie will have something “more serious than preserves to worry about” after the investigation. On the other hand, the women understand and appreciate the hard work that Minnie invested in canning her fruit during the hot weather of the previous summer. They speculate that Minnie will feel terrible if she finds out that all her hard work went to waste, and they contemplate not telling her. Interestingly, a single jar has not exploded, perhaps suggesting that there remains a slim measure of hope for Minnie.