Symbolism in Freeman's "A New England Nun"

In Mary E. Wilkins Freeman’s “A New England Nun,” Louisa Ellis is engaged to marry Joe Dagget, her fiancé. Dagget has been away making his fortune so that he can marry Louisa upon his return. She has been waiting for him for 14 years. Her family dies during Dagget’s absence, leaving her alone, except for a canary and an old dog. Louisa embraces her seclusion. She becomes set in her ways. Her life is as solitary and unadorned as that of a nun living in a monastery. 

Ironically, Louisa’s independence is tied to her conservative lifestyle of routine; however, when Dagget returns, she is upset by the idea of change. We learn that “Louisa had almost the enthusiasm of an artist over the mere order and cleanliness of her solitary house” (361). It could be argued that Louisa’s peculiar independence is connected to her very domesticity. Significantly, her domestic life is not connected to either a man or to marriage, but to housework. 

Louisa’s life is symbolized by two domesticated animals: a caged yellow canary and an old yellow dog named Caesar. Dagget’s return threatens the established order of the house, and the yellow canary reacts to his presence in the same way that Louisa does: “He seemed to fill up the whole room. A little yellow canary that had been asleep in his green cage at the south window woke up and fluttered wildly, beating his little yellow wings against the wires.” Louisa, who was removing her aprons, reacted before the bird, and it is unclear whether the canary was responding to her or to Dagget: “She had barely folded the pink and white one with methodical haste and laid it in a table-drawer when the door opened and Dagget entered” (357). Like the yellow canary, Louisa is caged by her monistic lifestyle, and she is flustered by the disorder introduced by the presence of a man. 

The narrator refers to Caesar as “a veritable hermit of a dog” (361). Caesar’s life is passed chained near his secluded hut; much like Louisa is caged or chained to her solitary life. It is significant that the old dog has lived that way for 14 years, the same length of time that Louisa has lived alone. It may also be significant that Caesar and the canary were yellow. Does this symbolize cowardice? Notice, too, that the animals in the story are, like Louisa, domesticated. The uncomplicated lives of the yellow canary and Caesar would seem to mirror Louisa’s own existence of domestic tranquility.