64 pages • 2 hours read
Joyce MaynardThe Bird Hotel
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Literary Devices
Allusion
An allusion, a reference to an entity existing outside a literary text, gains its power by the imagery or emotion associated with its reference. The allusion to La Llorona extends throughout the novel and depends, for fullest understanding, on the reader’s knowledge of this myth found throughout Latin America and in some parts of the United States.
In most versions, La Llorona began as a woman named Maria. Enraged at her husband’s infidelity, Maria drowned her sons in retaliation, but immediately regretted the act and now wanders in search of them, crying out for her sons. (The theme of a mother killing her children to punish an unfaithful husband also appears in the legend of Medea, a myth of ancient Greece; both Euripides and Seneca made her the subject of popular plays.) Encounters with La Llorona are said to presage death or loss; if she is not trying to steal another mother’s children, she may try to murder a man in revenge. In most cases, she is feared as a malignant spirit and used as a warning, though in the novel Summer of the Mariposas by Guadalupe Garcia McCall (2012), La Llorona gets a more sympathetic portrayal.
The associations of La Llorona with continued anguish provide an eloquent parallel for Irene’s grief when she first arrives at the hotel, but over the years, as she heals and rebuilds, Irene finds the hotel a nourishing place, a new association she honors by renaming it the Bird Hotel, laying associations with weeping to rest.
An allusion to Love in the Time of Cholera, a novel by Gabriel García Marquez, gains power in the last section of the novel as Marquez’s book becomes associated with Tom Martinez and the love affair Irene has with him. That book’s themes about fidelity in love offer a parallel to Tom’s steadfast love for Irene, just as the magical realism traditions of the novel inflect the magical elements, like the baby-making herb, that Maynard has woven into her own work. An allusion to a poem by William Butler Yeats, “The Lake Isle Of Innisfree,” which Jerome recites to Irene, also gains meaning for Irene as it helps her articulate the deep emotional connection she feels to this area and the way the natural beauty has helped her heal.
Anecdote and Allegory
Woven among Irene’s experiences in La Esperanza are other anecdotes, brief stories retelling the lives of someone else she meets. Sometimes, the background of a new character is described in a sentence, but in other cases, Maynard summarizes their life story. These anecdotes often resonate with or provide perspective on the novel’s themes; Leila and Amalia’s stories, for example, both furnish narratives of women seeking refuge that parallel Irene’s situation; Jun Lan is another example of a woman overcoming challenges to obtain what she wants: family and connection. In a way, these stories-within-a-story can be read as allegories for the protagonist’s experience, amplifying the novel’s central themes. Tom’s story ultimately becomes a narrative of reconciliation when he reconciles with Diana and lays to rest his bitterness over his father’s death. Even the story of Herman, briefly Elmer’s rival for Mirabel’s reflections, is a story of transformation and finding purpose as Herman dedicates his life to becoming a priest. The anecdote can furnish information necessary to the plot, as when Diana tells Irene the story of her life over the past thirty years, but that story, too, is an allegory of seeking, the impetus that propels so many people to La Esperanza.
Foreshadowing
Maynard uses the device of foreshadowing—hinting at events to come through image or suggestion—to provide coherence to her novel and unite several of the broader symbolic moves. The conures, for instance, foreshadow Irene’s life in La Esperanza, though when introduced they are simply exotic novelties, a Central American bird displaced to San Francisco. Later, the conure serves as the impetus that sends Irene south when she is grieving, and Jerome the ornithologist’s reference to them becomes a callback and echo to Irene’s own life.
Another image that provides foreshadowing is the tapestry in Leila’s hotel, which depicts a variety of natural disasters. At least two of these disasters—the flooding and the eruption of the volcano—occur in the course of the novel, as if the tapestry is a warning of what is to come. The presence of this tapestry of doom in Leila’s lovely hotel is a manifestation of Leila’s saying, that every paradise has its serpents, just as a place of natural beauty might have its dangers, too.
