Final answer:
In literature, the play 'Trifles,' Gilman's 'The Yellow Wallpaper,' and Dunbar's 'Sympathy' use symbols such as a bird cage, wallpaper, and a caged bird to illustrate themes of confinement and the quest for freedom, representing the social conditions and individual experiences of women and the oppressed.
Step-by-step explanation:
The play Trifles by Susan Glaspell features a bird cage as a crucial metaphor, paralleled in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper and Paul Laurence Dunbar's poem Sympathy.
These literary works collectively depict the theme of confinement and the struggle for freedom within the context of individual experiences, particularly focusing on the plights faced by women and the oppressed.
In Trifles, the bird cage represents Minnie Wright's domestic entrapment by her husband, which is symbolically comparable to the narrator's imprisonment within the nursery of the oppressive house described in The Yellow Wallpaper and the caged bird beating its wings against the bars in Sympathy.
In The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman presents a harrowing depiction of a woman's descent into madness, exacerbated by the patriarchal oppression of her husband and the confinement within her room, akin to Minnie Wright's situation.
The wallpaper becomes a symbol of the protagonist's entrapment, her desperate need to escape from domestic boundaries, and her attempt to assert autonomy contrary to the stringent limitations of 19th-century society.
Similarly, Sympathy expresses the longing for freedom through the metaphor of a caged bird, wherein the bird's relentless fluttering against its cage resonates with the plights of Minnie Wright and Gilman's protagonist. The desire to break free from societal constraints is a common thread weaving through these texts.