Clipped wings

         Something that really intrigued me when reading Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys was the image of the burning parrot falling from the roof and the metaphors it portrays. The first time I read that scene in the book, without contemplating the meaning behind it, I found it somewhat gruesome and felt awful for the parrot. It had lived in a cage all it's life, and had it's wings clipped so it didn't have any freedom. When it's life was put in danger, it wasn't able to free itself and instead died a horrible and painful death.
          The parrot embodies Antoinette in many ways. They both are confined for most of their lives, for example. The parrot is caged and has it's wings clipped. Antoinette is confined by her lack of identification with any social group, so she is forced to be alone for a lot of her childhood. After Coulibri burns, she is confined to the convent which she never leaves until her stepfather comes to get her. Once out of the convent, she marries Rochester and is confined by that marriage to live with her husband and how he wants to live. They move to England and she's confined in the attic which is the last place she lives.
          At the end of the novel Antoinette is sick of being confined, and sick of having to live for everyone else and unable to live for herself. She doesn't want to be a parrot for anyone, being cooped up in the attic and only supposed to tell people what she'd been told to say, much like a parrot only repeats back what the people around it say. She ends this by throwing herself off the roof of the house and taking her own life. This is similar to how the parrot is on fire with clipped wings, unable to fly, and in a lot of pain. Instead of going on like this for as long as it could, it threw itself off of the top of Coulibri and died. Antoinette is also unable to fly in a way, since she inhibited by perhaps some mental or emotional blocks that restrain her from coherently saying or doing what she's trying to accomplish, and/or the people around her not trying to understand her or give her a chance to fly.