Canaries Sometimes Sing

Over the course of their marriage, Geoffrey Lymes has become increasingly exasperated by the shallowness and superficiality of his wife Anne. He despairs of her ridiculous affectations, social-climbing aspirations and constant embarrassing attempts in company to show herself as an elegant, cultured sophisticate. He feels trapped in a relationship where, as he observes, a wife "does nothing to entitle her husband to divorce her, but a thousand things that entitle him to murder her".