Dorothy Trevor Townsend (Symbol of women suffrage)
Dorothy symbolizes the problems women are going through in society. The entire history of women explains how women are underprivileged. Society is dominated by men who treat women as objects or properties. To end this suffering, Dorothy leads an uprising involving men who decide to starve to death to pass across their message. The narrator says, "Mum starved for suffrage, grandmother claiming that it was just like a mum to take cause too far. Mum said she had no choice. Besides, she said, starving made the world brighter, took away the dull edges, the disappointment."
The lilies (symbol of hope)
Dorothy Trevor Townsend is in her hospital bed, and she has not eaten for days because she is starving for a better course. However, Townsend is saying that she is blessed with the smell of the lilies. The lilies symbolize the hope that after starving for days, at least her sacrifice is not in vain because it will bring salvation and freedom to all women. The author writes, 'Someone had sent greenhouse lilies, suffrage white, to their favorite cause celebre, lilies now stuffed in a hospital pot intended for urine or bile. She said she had never known them to have that smell. This had blessed her; she said, the smell of lilies."
The bird in its cage
The bird that is sitting still in the cage emblems Thomas's talent for playing the piano. Everybody present ion the funeral sat still listening to Thomas like a bird relaxing in its cage. The author writes, “Even the bird in its cage, a canary kept to sound the alarm, sat all still and silent when my brother played the piano.”
Holy Water
The holy water is symbolically used to represent sacredness. As Thomas is playing the piano during his mother's funeral, mourners gather and touch him as the holy water. The author writes, “So it was around the beautiful Thomas that the mourners gathered, touching him, the top of his head, patting his arm, his shoulder as if he were holy water.”
Madame (Symbolizes new beginning)
Throughout the story, the narrator tells her story, and she was advised by her mother to move to the far north, where she will find her success. The author writes, "So I arrived at Madame Lane’s as any ordinary girl would, lugging my suitcase up the wide stone steps – a tackle box my grandmother Alexandra bought secondhand on King's Road, saying I was joining the horsey set, and it was a good thing, too-money there and mine nearly gone."
