The Last Rung on the Ladder

Birds are a motif throughout the text. The most notable example is that Katrina swan dives, first into the haymow, and then when she dies by suicide. Swans are graceful and elegant animals, and Larry is struck by Katrina’s grace and fearlessness as she dives into the hay. At the end of the story, the swan dive takes on a different meaning, representing Katrina’s despair and Loss of Childhood Innocence. The fact that she chose to swan dive off the building shows how determined she is to end her life but also reaches back to the last moment of her childhood in which she felt happy. Her final letter states that she wished she would have died that day in the barn, and in this way, her death by suicide is a symbolic reenactment of that event.

There are also swallows living in the loft of the barn, and their “mysterious chuckling, cooing sounds” contribute to the peaceful atmosphere of the barn (296). When Katrina dives into the haymow, Larry describes her as “a bright swallow with golden plumage such as Nebraska had never seen since” (299). Yet the swallows represent danger as well; Larry describes a time when he had been walking across the beam and a swallow flying close to his head nearly caused him to lose his balance. This acts as a reminder that Larry and Katrina, unlike the birds that nest in the rafters, cannot fly. Similarly, when Larry visits Katrina after the accident, a catbird sits on a tree outside her window, in contrast to Katrina, who is confined to her bed because of her broken ankle.