What does this detail from the end of the recipe instructions mean?

Which sentence in this excerpt from leo tolstoy’s the death of ivan ilyich suggests that ivan ilyich and his wife couldn’t even agree on how to raise their children?

Read the passage. and thus they fought all the long day, and never stinted till the noble knights were laid to the cold earth. and ever they fought still till it was near night, and by then was there a hundred thousand laid dead upon the down. in the passage from morte d’arthur by sir thomas malory, what are the bolded words an example of?

What does the birdcage symbolize in trifles ?