When Nat went outside he saw that thousands of gulls had risen and were trying their strength against the wind. Nat realized that they were getting stronger, all the time that they were rising and circling. He knew that they were preparing for attacking and felt that someone should know what was happening. When he got to the phone booth he didn’t know whom to ring. So he tried the exchange. A bored voice answered; someone who could not care less and just wanted to get home after a tedious day at work. After putting the phone down, Nat knew he had to pick up Jill before it was too late. As a form of defense he takes a hoe with him. Here, Du Maurier once again puts emphasis on how helpless humans really are. A hoe is useless against a sky full of birds on a mission. I think that Nat actually knew this himself but for reassurance he took it. When Jill gets off the bus she wants to play with the other children but Nat tells them all to go home to their parents but he doubted that they would listen. On the way home he meets Farmer Trigg and asks him to drop Jill off at home as she is getting very frightened of the birds. There was barely enough room for her amongst the petrol cans. He asks Mr. Trigg if he has boarded his windows but Mr. Trigg replied that he thought that it was all a lot of nonsense. At this point of the story Nat realizes that everything that everyone had ever taken granted for, such as playing would never be able to be done again. On the way home after sending Jill with Mr. Trigg, Nat gets attacked by the gulls. The hoe is completely useless against this amount of birds. They were diving at him with not a thought for themselves; they were on a suicide mission. Trying to protect his head with his arms, he ran for the cottage. He arrived at his door banging on it, fearing for his life. All at once, the rest of the gulls retreated to the skies and there was one bird left. It was the gannet that had been following Nat all the way home. It poised for the dive. Nat screamed for his wife to let him in. It all happened at once: Nat’s wife opened the door, he threw himself in and at that instant Nat heard the suicidal gannet crash against the door. Nature is a much stronger race than humans; it has no feeling at all. Take for example the birds. They do not care that they are killing themselves as long as they know that they are hurting humans in some way or another. After narrowly escaping death, Nat goes around the house to make sure that he has properly boarded the windows. Outside the birds were trying their best to enter the house: scraping and tapping away.
Nat was frantic to protect his family and decided that he could not take the risk of sleeping in the upstairs bedrooms, as the chimney boards could give way at any time. He makes the whole family sleep in the kitchen where the fire would protect them just in case the birds did find a way through the chimney. This story was written in the 1950’s, which is not long after the Second World War and Nat turns the kitchen into an air raid shelter. The war was another major disaster and the seriousness can be felt because that is what it is being compared to. There was enough food to hold them out for a couple of days and there was coal for the fire. The BBC declared a National Emergency and stopped broadcasting for the night. Nat tries his utmost to put his family at ease because they are sensing that the situation is very grave. After supper they heard planes and Nat’s wife and children get their hopes up. Nat does not, because he knows that this venture was suicidal but he does not mention this to his family. A plane could not cope with a sky full of birds that flung themselves against anything. He was right, the planes crashed and no doubt the pilots inside died. At this point Nat felt isolation but he did not let his wife and children know. He realizes that from now on they were on their own; there was no one else to seek advice from ever again.
The noise of the bird’s dies down and Nat discovers that the birds attack with the flood tide. The lull helps heighten the feeling of isolation. Nat goes outside and looks around him, all he can see are dead birds; they were everywhere. Du Maurier shows us the devastation caused by the birds. There were birds that had broken necks, broken bodies etc. This showed the implacability of nature and the blind hate that it has. They were only too happy to kill themselves to kill humans. Nat stacked the dead bodies up against the cracked windowpanes for added protection, ready for the next attack. The birds started to attack again and this time they found a way down the chimney. As the fire was dying out Nat had to throw paraffin on to the fire to keep the birds from coming down. Nat tried to lighten up the situation by cheering up his children with jokes about the birds. When Nat goes upstairs to check on the bedrooms he realizes that the birds have gotten into one of the bedrooms. He gets furniture from the other bedroom and stacked it at the top of the stairs.
They listened for the news bulletin that was going to give them instructions on what to do. It never came on and we can, at that moment, sense the graveness of the situation. That marked the end of the BBC and Nat and his wife know it too now. Nat knew that they were completely on their own. Their supplies were running out and so Nat goes to the farm with his family. The birds had gone now and were waiting on the tide again. When they got to the farm, Nat knew what he would find and so would not let his family go with him into the Triggs’ house. He goes into the house to find Mr. and Mrs. Trigg dead on the floor and he stocks up on all the supplies he can find.
Nat climbs on to a bank and looks around him. He could see no life what so ever, only the well-fed birds resting could be seen. Nat is very angry at the authorities; everything that they did lacked efficiency and organization. Nat, his wife and kids are the last people in Cornwall and the Triggs represent all people. Whilst boarding the chimney Nat spots something moving out at sea and he thinks to himself that it is the navy. He feels immense hope and says that one can always rely on the navy. He was deceived for a moment. It was not the navy coming to rescue everyone, it was the birds out at sea, watching and waiting. The tide had turned, and it was time to barricade themselves inside again because the birds would start up again soon. His wife informs him that there are no foreign stations either and so the scale of this disaster is expansive. The same thing was happening all over the world. Things have gotten so bad that Nat has no hope at all of anything being better ever again. He smokes his last cigarette and watches the packet burn on the fire.
Du Maurier leaves an open ending to let her reader ponder about Nat and his family. The reason why she does this I think is because there is no hope at all for Nat and this is how it made sense to leave the story. Personally I prefer closed endings because the reader has the satisfaction of knowing exactly what happened but in this case I am not so sure. I think it is a very good place to stop at somewhere where the reader can use their imagination to realize what will actually happen in future.
The Birds is a very convincing story by Du Maurier. She convinces her readers that birds can cause world destruction. The line between reality and illusions is very fine in this story because whilst reading it, the audience cannot pin point the exact moment when the illusion of the birds being the dominant beings, became a reality. She uses details to describe every moment of what Nat is going through. This is why we cant tell where reality stops and the fantasy begins. Du Maurier uses certain techniques to build up suspense etc. I will be studying these techniques and stating how each is used. There are certain ideas and themes running throughout the story that contribute towards making it a convincing story. Du Maurier is trying to explore these themes and ideas and uses certain techniques to do so. She uses visual, aural and emotional details and creates an atmosphere that lets us feel what Nat is feeling. Du Maurier’s style and her use of language are just as important as the way she structures her story.
The first passage that I am studying begins with ‘he seized a blanket from the nearest bed’ and ends with ‘so the birds should follow him.’ It is the night of the first attack in the children’s bedroom and Nat is trying to fight the birds. Du Maurier is trying to cause fear in this passage as she shows how vicious the birds are. She tried to tell us how relentless they are because although they are getting hit by the blanket that Nat has, they keep coming for him; again and again. Imagery in the form of a similie is used in this passage. ‘The little stabbing beaks sharp as a pointed fork.’ Everyone knows what a fork looks like but not everyone is familiar with a bird’s beak and so it makes sense to compare it with an every day object. The situation becomes more realistic because we know how much pain a fork can cause. Du Maurier explains that Nat uses the blanket as a weapon but this is hard to imagine because normally we associate blankets with warmth and security. ‘Using it as a weapon flung it to right and left about him.’ This makes me realize how desperate Nat is. He does not have any other form of defense and so has to resort to a blanket. Against beaks that are as sharp as forks a blanket cannot do very much damage. This is another example to show human helplessness, what could a blanket do against fifty birds? I feel sorry for Nat here because no suitable weapon is available for him to use and he has to make do with a blanket. All the while he is trying to kill the birds they are hurting him and making him weaker.
The second sentence of this passage is a long one and is broken down by commas. Each moment that Nat is going through, we are also going through it with him. ‘He felt the thud of bodies, heard the fluttering of wings.’ Onomatopoeia is used in the first part of this sentence. The word ‘thud’ imitates its own meaning so we can actually hear the bodies falling onto the floor in the darkness. Thud is a loud and heavy noise and so is perfect to use in this sentence. The same happens with the word ‘fluttering.’ We are all reminded of what a bird’s wings sound like. This sentence sounds better as a long one than it would if it was a short one. It speeds up your reading pace because everything that is happening is all written in one sentence and so the person reading it wants to know what is happening next. ‘He felt the thud of bodies, the fluttering of wings, but they were not yet defeated, for again and again they returned to the assault, jabbing his hands, his head…’ She uses repetition to emphasize the fact that the birds did not just attack Nat once but they kept on going. As long as they were able to, they would keep attacking him. By giving details she is making the story all the more convincing because in your mind you can actually see each moment happen.
Du Maurier uses alliteration in the second to last sentence of this passage. ‘In greater darkness beat at the birds with his bare hands.’ ‘B’ is a hard sound and putting these three words together she is trying to get us to see what is happening. She puts emphasis on the words ‘beat,’ ‘birds,’ and ‘bare.’ Nat is trying to hit the birds as hard as he can to kill each one but the fact that he is doing it with his bare hands makes me feel sympathetic towards him. She also uses assonance to emphasize the sharpness of the bird’s beaks, ‘stabbing beaks sharp.’ The effect of this is that the images are all the more convincing.
There are no short sentences in this passage because generally they would speed up the pace of reading. Du Maurier uses long sentences and although they normally slow a reader down, in this case I feel that they do not. Along with the long sentences there are very detailed descriptions of what is happening. If the sentences were written as short ones I feel that they would not have the same affect as this. Du Maurier’s talent for picking out what method should be used for doing each different thing is very good. Each sentence contains too much detail for a reader to slow down; there is too much suspense and they hastily read on in an attempt to find out what happens to Nat quicker. The atmosphere is intense and fearful because the reader feels that they are on the edge of their seat in anticipation for what Nat is going through.
The next passage that I will be looking begins with ‘the smaller birds were’ and ends with ‘watched it burn.’ This passage is at the very end of the story. The mood of this passage is very depressing because the reader and Nat himself know that there is no hope whatsoever. Things will never ever get better again and the end of mankind is very near. The audience is very sad and fearful for Nat and his family. Du Maurier creates this atmosphere by first describing how the birds are attacking and secondly saying which birds are attacking which part of the house. ‘The smaller birds were at the window now…the hawks ignored the windows. They concentrated their attack upon the door.’ This is very alarming. Du Maurier is showing us at this moment how birds were thinking. The hawks which are much stronger, do not even bother wasting their energy on the windows. They let the smaller and much weaker birds do that while they use their much-conserved energy on breaking the door down. From these two sentences one does get the impression that this whole attack on humans has been planned. Another question that has been on everyone’s lips is the fact that why the birds hate the humans so much as to want to wipe them out completely.
Du Maurier uses small details that visually describe the birds and make the images vivid in our minds. ‘Little brains…stabbing beaks…piercing eyes…’ Each one of these details helps us to understand the birds a bit better. She also uses aural details so we can attempt to hear what is happening in the room with Nat. ‘Tap-tapping…soft brush of their wings…tearing sound of splintering wood.’ With each of these descriptions, Du Maurier achieves her purpose of causing the imagination to work. She uses onomatopoeia to describe how the birds were attacking Nat’s cottage, ‘tap-tapping.’ This is a good effect because the word imitates its own meaning and so makes it all the more realistic. Onomatopoeia is also used when describing how the birds were splitting the wood with their beaks, ‘the tearing sound of splintering wood.’ This aural image is so vivid; one can only imagine how Nat is feeling. By listening to the sound of something breaking down your defense and knowing that one day soon that something will get to you too, its causes a lot of fear in the reader.
Another worrying thought for Nat, is the way Du Maurier expresses the way in which the birds were working, ‘the instinct to destroy mankind with all the deft precision of machines.’ The reason why machines were built in the first place was to improve efficiency and to decrease the number of mistakes that humans make. Obviously it depends what type of machine is in question but around the time that Du Maurier wrote this story, machines were made to save time. By using this metaphor, the efficiency and precision of the birds is compared to that of machines. Mankind has no chance against machines at all, Du Maurier uses this comparison to show how quickly and sharply the birds were working.
There are a few examples of alliteration that are used, ‘many million years of memory’ and ‘ brains behind the stabbing beaks.’ These two sentences explore the themes behind the story of the birds. These themes are about how implacable nature is and the destruction of mankind.
Middle length and long sentences are used here. The middle length sentences are used to quicken the pace and are used at the beginning of this passage. This is so to create suspense and to interest the reader into reading further because they are anxious to see what happens to Nat. The longer ones are those that describe the attacking that the birds are doing. These appear towards the end of the passage when the pace has slowed considerably. Nat is sitting by the fire smoking his last cigarette, and realizes that he forgot to get some from the farm when they went for supplies. ‘He reached for a cigarette…threw the empty packet on the fire, and watched it burn.’ The empty packet symbolizes what used to be the human race. The packet burning on the fire represents mankind; the whole of civilization as we know it is burning and will eventually die out in a matter of days. Du Maurier makes a comparison of the simple cigarette packet to humanity and she does this well. It did not take long to burn it up humanity and this makes the reader feel very sad and even more depressed when they get to the end. Nat, as well as the audience, know that there is absolutely no hope and the end is very near.
I feel that this story was well thought out and a very well written piece by Daphne Du Maurier. Her purposes were to cause fear, to make a greater awareness of how birds think and understand the world around them, to make the whole story convincing and realistic, to cause her readers imagination to run wild and to illustrate the themes that were running through the story. I think that she has achieved all of these because of the means that were used. Each purpose was illustrated with different means and in this Du Maurier was very successful. The way in which she achieved her purposes were by carefully selecting her language and her choice of word patterns to bring our attention to important parts were very effective. By using aural and visual images, she broadens our understanding of what is happening. Throughout the story, there have been themes that have been exemplified undoubtedly well. One of the main themes, was the war between man and nature. Du Maurier shows us how easy it was for civilization to collapse. She does this so well that the audience is fearful for Nat and his family because his situation is getting from bad to worse. When I studied the different techniques and styles that Du Maurier used, I can see what actually makes this an enjoyable and highly entertaining read. Humans like to think that they are the masters of the universe but this illusion is one that Du Maurier shattered so brilliantly in ‘The Birds.’
