Caging Melanie Daniels

Melanie's movement from independence to submission is a gradual process that occurs throughout the movie. The attic attack and the resulting escape sequence are merely the conclusion of a process that was set in motion long before. There is a difference in Melanie's gender role even between the first two scenes of the film. In the first scene, Melanie is wearing a masculine suit but after she is confronted by Mitch in the bird shop she changes to a much more feminine outfit for the rest of the film.

Melanie is also visually caged, and thus stripped of her masculine independence, several times throughout the course of the film. Most notably, Melanie progressively loses the independence associated with her car. At the beginning of the film, Melanie is free to drive her roadster and is at the height of her independence. However, after the first several bird attacks she no longer drives the car. First, during the schoolhouse attack, Melanie is forced into a station wagon. Despite the fact that she was a masterful driver before, Melanie is unable to operate the station wagon at all, symbolizing that she has lost some of her masculine powers. Then, after they retrieve Cathy from Annie's house, Mitch takes over the role of driver completely and cages Melanie within her own car by closing the convertible top. Finally, at the end of the film, when Melanie submits completely to Mitch, she is relegated to the backseat, where visibility is low and the only window available to her is the rear one, which serves as a reminder of the freedom she relinquished.

Melanie is caged in other ways as well. During the bird's attack on the town, Melanie escapes into a phone booth. The phone booth resembles a cage in that Melanie can see out and see everything that is going on but is not able to escape and interact with the outside world. The Brenner's house also serves as a cage towards the end of the film when it is completely boarded up. In this case, Melanie becomes completely isolated from the rest of the world. Unable to see out at all she has tread one step closer to total submission.

Melanie also makes decisions, herself, throughout the film that add to her being coded as a woman. In the scene in which she and Annie discuss their lives in Annie's living room, Melanie shows Annie the nightgown she bought at the general store. Annie reacts in disgust saying, "Uh, that's pretty. Where'd you get that? Brinkmeyer's?" Annie would never wear something like the nightgown Melanie presents. It is something that would much more likely be seen on the prudish and sexually inactive Lydia than the vivacious Annie. This is only the first step Melanie takes towards immersing herself in stereotypical gender roles. Melanie also becomes exponentially more maternal throughout the course of the film. At the beginning she shows very little affection for young Cathy, wanting to skip town as quickly as possible instead of attending the girl's birthday party, but as the film progresses she becomes increasingly more concerned for the girl's well-being. By the time Mitch and Melanie rescue Cathy from Annie's, Melanie has become very protective of Cathy and holds onto her as if her own life depended on it. Shockingly, Melanie's last words in the film are in regards to Cathy. In the attic attack scene, the last intelligible thing we hear Melanie say is something about getting Cathy out of the house. Melanie has become so maternal that she puts the value of Cathy's life even before her own.