The House We Grew Up In

The Bird family home symbolizes the family’s trauma, and its disarray and stifling atmosphere represent the family’s inability to move on from tragedy. Lorelei cultivates this cluttered home environment as a coping mechanism for her childhood trauma, but this environment makes her family members feel trapped, and they long to escape. Lorelei is the only one happy to stay where she is. She can’t understand the appeal of going abroad, and when Colin mentions spending Easter in Greece, it sends her into a spiral of despair. She wants to keep her children trapped in their childhoods, as shown by her insistence on keeping a craft box even though their interests have changed. The house’s claustrophobic aspect is clear in Meg’s descriptions of it: “She saw herself squeezing through smaller and smaller apertures, into deeper and deeper corners of the house until she was squashed into a ball and unable to turn around” (26). In trying to preserve good memories and protect herself, Lorelei inadvertently cut herself off from the rest of the world, an example of how coping mechanisms can backfire and render one more isolated.