Eight Cousins

Birds were a symbol of female gender roles in 19th-century literature and art, a reflection of dominant society’s fascination with natural history. Rose is often described as a bird by her aunts, revealing their shifting view of her. When she first arrives, Aunt Plenty finds Rose to be hard to please and compares her to “one of those strange, outlandish birds you used to bring home from foreign parts” (52). When Rose describes her difficulty in navigating the different advice from her aunts, she envisions herself as a “stray chicken with six hens clucking over it at once” (39). As she transforms into a stronger, more motherly presence, the imagery shifts and Rose transforms from a child chick to a mother hen. She sends the boys away from the ruckus they create in Mac’s room “like an indignant little hen defending her brood” (174). In the final moments of the novel, Rose’s complete transformation and harmony with her family is demonstrated through the aural imagery of birds, which “twitter, chirp, and coo, as if all the birds of the air had come to join in the spring revel of the eight cousins” (391). This evolving comparison of Rose to birds suggests that Rose is developing into her natural, maternal state.

Another notable image of birds in the novel is the repetition of the idiom “early bird,” which is Uncle Alec’s favorite quote. Uncle Alec encourages Rose to prepare herself for her future by pre-emptively learning to be self-sufficient and capable of managing her affairs. She adopts the practice of being a metaphorical “early bird,” another benefit of Uncle Alec’s foresight and guidance that he passes onto young Rose. When she performs an “early bird” getting a worm for Uncle Alec at her birthday charades party, she does it for his “especial benefit,” displaying her fondness for him and how much she is learning from his teachings.