Alfred hitchcock the birds6/1/2023 ![]() Trigg tries to rationalize and does not seem to fully believe the account. Nat relates the previous night’s events, which Mrs. Trigg remarks on the source of the sudden chill, wondering whether it came from Russia or, as an announcer claimed on the wireless (a radio receiver), the Arctic circle. Trigg, the farmer’s wife and Jim, the cowman. He tells his wife to keep the windows and doors shut, then he walks Jill to the school bus stop before going to the farm to make inquiries.Īt the farm, Nat converses with Mrs. Internally, Nat worries the birds will try another assault. Nat tries to calm his wife-whose name the narrator never reveals-by insisting that the birds’ behavior was a result of the weather, and he tells the children that the east wind made the birds act strangely. Nat’s family is safe, although Johnny has scratches on his face from the birds’ attempt to blind him. The land has altered “lack winter had descended in a single night” (65). Nat battles with the invaders, but he soon takes a defensive position, always focused on protecting his eyes, which seem to be the birds’ main target.Īt dawn, the birds retreat but leave dozens of their small fellows dead on the floor. In the third and worst attack, a whole flock invades the children’s room and attacks both of Nat’s children, Jill and Johnny. The assailants attack through the windows three times and in growing numbers, as if testing the vulnerabilities of the cottage and the humans who occupy it. ![]() It is on that night that Nat and his family experience a barrage of bird attacks. The farmer is right about the weather, for the hard winter arrives that night with the east wind, “cold and dry” (61). The narrator does not name the farmer that information, like much else in the story, becomes apparent as Nat progresses through the story’s events. The farmer for whom Nat works has also noticed it, but he ascribes the birds’ strange behavior to an imminent change in weather: “It will be a hard winter” (61). Nat notices that the birds are more restless than usual that autumn, and more numerous: “Always, in autumn, they followed the plough, but not in great flocks like these, nor with such clamour” (60-61). Restlessness drove them to the skies again (59). Great flocks of them came to the peninsula, restless, uneasy, spending themselves in motion now wheeling, circling in the sky, now settling to feed on the rich, new-turned soil but even when they fed, it was as though they did so without hunger, without desire. In autumn those that had not migrated overseas but remained to pass the winter were caught up in the same driving urge, but because migration was denied them, followed a pattern of their own. Nat enjoys birdwatching during his lunch breaks, especially in autumn: The narrator introduces the primary protagonist, Nat, and his situation in life. “The Birds” begins with the unnatural event of the wind changing overnight on the third of December, abruptly bringing winter. This guide cites the story as it is printed in the New York Review of Books’ 2008 collection of nine stories by du Maurier, Don’t Look Now: Stories. The effect of du Maurier’s narrative choices-the subjective point of view, the ambiguity of the characters and surroundings-is an unsettling experience that lays the foundation for the outlandish horror that is “The Birds.” ![]() Readers must therefore gather clues from Nat’s memories and opinions to understand his life, while also following Nat’s activities and observations as the plot unfolds in real time. Details about Nat, his community, and his history emerge only as Nat thinks about them. The third-person omniscient narrator does not explain the nature of Nat’s disability or exactly when he got it, nor does the narrator immediately identify Nat’s location or the names of Nat’s family members. In “The Birds,” this character is Nat Hocken, for whom there is little exposition: He has a “war-time disability” that qualifies him to receive a pension he “did not work full-time at the farm” and, “lthough he was married with children, his was a solitary disposition he liked best to work alone” (59). Additionally, descriptions of the birds’ attacks may be unsettling for some readers.ĭu Maurier was a 20th-century British author whose novels and short stories often explore complicated themes through the lens of a single character’s personal experience (a technique showcased most famously in her 1938 novel Rebecca, which was also adapted into a film by Hitchcock). Content Warning: This short story takes place after World War II and depicts the effects of war on the central character.
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