61 pages • 2 hours read
Margaret LaurenceA Bird in the House
Fiction | Short Story Collection | Adult | Published in 1974A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Beta“The Loons”Chapter Summaries & Analyses
“The Loons” Summary
Vanessa describes the Tonnerre family’s modest shack along the Wachakwa River, south of Manawaka. Originally built with poplar and mud by Jules Tonnerre, a wounded veteran of the 1885 Battle of Batoche, the cabin is intended as a temporary winter shelter but remains the family’s home into the 1930s. Over the years, the Tonnerres, of French and Cree descent, have expanded the structure and continue speaking a blend of both languages.
The Tonnerres—including Jules and his son, Lazarus—are known in the community for getting into drunken brawls on Main Street, often ending up in jail overnight.
Piquette Tonnerre, Lazarus’s daughter, is older than Vanessa and struggles academically due to frequent absences from school, compounded by severe tuberculosis that requires hospitalization under the care of Vanessa’s father, Ewen. Vanessa initially finds Piquette embarrassing because of her limp and unkempt appearance, and she pays her little attention.
When Vanessa is 11, Ewen suggests they bring 13-year-old Piquette to Diamond Lake for the summer to relieve her from the household chores that exacerbate her condition. Beth expresses concerns about contagion and lice, which leads to a sharp response from Ewen. Grandmother MacLeod refuses to go if Piquette joins. Beth is pleased by this and agrees, stipulating that Piquette must behave.
Vanessa excitedly explores the cottage at the lake, calling it her “kingdom.” It is only after settling in that she notices Piquette sitting alone. When Vanessa invites her to play, Piquette curtly refuses, stating she isn’t a child. This response sparks Vanessa’s interest, particularly as she realizes Piquette’s strong Indigenous heritage connects her to historical figures and events Vanessa has read about, such as Big Bear and the Battle of Batoche. Fascinated, Vanessa sees Piquette as a potential link to the forest lore she has read about in the works of Pauline Johnson, a Canadian mixed-race author. She attempts to engage Piquette about her knowledge of the natural world, but Piquette rebuffs her each time.
Later, Vanessa mentions a plan to listen to the loons by the water, noting that their presence might soon diminish with increasing cottage development. Piquette dismisses this, too.
Vanessa and her father visit the water’s edge that night to listen to the loons, a moment older Vanessa recognizes as their last time together on the dock. After this, Vanessa stops trying to befriend Piquette. When her best friend Mavis arrives, she spends the remainder of the summer with her instead.
That winter, Vanessa’s father dies of pneumonia. Amid her grief, Vanessa doesn’t immediately notice Piquette has stopped attending school. Four years later, while out with Mavis, Vanessa encounters a transformed Piquette, now outgoing and stylish, laughing with a group of boys. Piquette approaches Vanessa more friendly than ever, sharing that she has traveled across the provinces and is visiting for the summer. She reveals plans to get married and expresses gratitude to Vanessa’s father, Ewen, acknowledging him as the only person in Manawaka who ever genuinely helped her. Vanessa perceives a newfound hope in Piquette’s eyes.
Three years on, when Vanessa is 18 and home from university, her mother informs her of Piquette’s death. Beth explains that after her husband’s separation or departure, Piquette returned to the Tonnerre shack to care for her brothers, children, and father. She had taken to drinking and fighting on Main Street, like her father before her. A fire started by the woodstove while she was intoxicated, killing her and her children while the men were away. Vanessa struggles to erase the image of Piquette’s hopeful eyes from her mind.
Later, Vanessa visits Diamond Lake with Mavis’s family. Since Ewen’s death, the MacLeod cottage has been sold, and Vanessa refuses to look at it. One evening, she ventures to the shore alone. The old pier built by her father has been replaced by a government structure, and the lake is now named Lake Wapakata. Listening to the loons, she realizes they are gone, reflecting on the possibility that Piquette might have been the last to hear them truly.
“The Loons” Analysis
This section of A Bird in the House explores the themes of The Tyranny of Life and The Role of Trauma in Behavior and Relationships. Vanessa’s observations of Piquette Tonnerre, who represents the harsh realities of a society that marginalizes based on race and class, are a key focus. Piquette’s struggles are not of her own making; her greatest challenge is simply her existence in a community that does not accept her, much like the loons displaced by people’s encroachment into their natural habitat. Piquette’s resilience in the face of adversity—enduring hardship and loss without self-pity—teaches Vanessa about survival and endurance.
Vanessa’s initial perception of Piquette is filtered through the eyes of an 11-year-old, steeped in a naive romanticism about Indigenous people. She imagines Piquette as “a daughter of the forest, a kind of junior prophetess of the wilds” (118), drawing on stereotypical and romanticized notions of Indigenous identity. This view is further reflected in her reference to the poem The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, where she whimsically speculates about Piquette’s knowledge of nature: “[W]here the whippoorwill made her next, how the coyote reared her young, or whatever it was that it said in Hiawatha” (118). The poem, which simplifies and homogenizes Indigenous American cultures and histories into a palatable narrative for non-Indigenous audiences, mirrors Vanessa’s own misconceptions about Piquette. Longfellow’s work, while widely celebrated, is a product of its time, presenting an ethnocentric view that promotes a sanitized narrative of Indigenous conversion to Christianity. It repurposes genuine Indigenous legends by replacing diverse characters with the single protagonist, Hiawatha, effectively stripping away the authentic voices and complexities of the original stories. Similarly, Vanessa’s view of Piquette strips her of her personhood, reducing her to a romantic fantasy.
A moment of vulnerability breaks through Piquette’s usual defiance, affecting Vanessa. She describes her as “unguarded and unmasked, and in her eyes there was a terrifying hope” (124). This brief glimpse into Piquette’s true emotions confronts Vanessa with a reality she finds unsettling, especially when juxtaposed with the knowledge of Piquette’s eventual tragic fate. Vanessa’s subsequent desire to forget this moment—“I wished I could put from my memory the look that I had seen once in Piquette’s eyes” (126)—highlights her initial struggle to confront uncomfortable truths directly.
Ewen’s observation by the dock reflects the broader societal tendency to romanticize or pay attention to certain elements while neglecting others: “You could say the same, of course, about sparrows, or chipmunks, but somehow it only strikes you that way with the loons” (121). Ewen’s words suggest that, like the loons, which are noticed for their distinctive calls, the plight of marginalized groups like Indigenous peoples can be overlooked unless it directly impacts or is made visible to the wider society.
Vanessa’s realization about Piquette’s connection to the loons—“Piquette might have been the only one, after all, who had heard the crying of the loons” (127)—marks a crucial point in her emotional and intellectual development. This memory of her younger self grappling with new awareness introduces a layer of meta-reflection, where older Vanessa processes her past insights into social injustices. Through this reflection, Vanessa not only comes to terms with her past naiveties but also gains a deeper understanding of the systemic injustices that affect individuals like Piquette. She sees Piquette not just as a figure of curiosity or pity, but as someone embodying the resilience required to navigate a society that frequently overlooks or undervalues her struggles.
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