"The Birds" by Daphne du Maurier
So I've finished “The Birds” in The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier and here's my overall review:
I’ve never seen the movie version of this story, but I was familiar with the premise that birds attack and no one knows why. I really like the way she amps up the dread by starting with small songbirds on the first night, and then adding in the ominous gulls hovering on the coastline, then adding the corvid birds which are generally more aggressive. Then just an almost throw away thought about actual raptors. The threat from the sky is real, and difficult to defend against. She ended it exactly how I would have with them facing the impending 3rd wave.
I like how we just get the perspective of the one man who is trying to protect his young family in so many ways, and is more successful at it than his neighbors, who wanted to meet the threat head-on. It’s interesting to me to compare this public emergency with the recent pandemic, the things they feel they will need to withstand a siege/lockdown and how the adult characters of this story assume that the government agencies and military will organize a solution to the sudden scientific problem, but that quickly goes literally radio silent.
I’ve always found birds to be a bit creepy and foreign in a way that other animals are not. They just have those cold staring eyes, quirky ways and sharp beaks. A friend of mine, who loves birds, has had pet ones and they always seemed so squawky and angry to me, so it doesn’t seem at all unreasonable that they would one day decide to up and eat us all.
Nat’s attention to detail (and perhaps a smidge of paranoia) keeps him and his family alive during the attacks. He’s someone who spends time paying attention to his surroundings, which is rarer nowadays in my opinion. Published in 1952, I can’t seem to find if this is the short date or just the collection it came in’s date, The Birds is probably a story born out of the aftermath of WWII. I’m not British, but I can imagine that the birds are meant to represent the fear of bombers invading England during the war. While to average person, the attacks probably felt like they were random, but to those in the know, invasions are planned and have rhythm. Nat had a trained eye for birds, which to me runs similarly to a soldier’s eye for war.
There are lots of motifs in the story:
Birds: Bomb raids, nature versus humankind.
Guns: His neighbor jokes that the birds will be no big deal and that there will be a gull breakfast —> I see this a bit as humankind resorting to violence to solve problems. It usually makes it worse. It could be seen as throwing money at a problem too.
Fire: Nat keeps a fire going to keep the house safe from birds coming down the chimney. I saw this as keeping hope alive. Despair threatens all. When the birds attack the upper rooms, Nat is thankful that his wife and children are in the kitchen and cannot hear it. He also encourages chocolate which to me chocolate and Fire have similar metaphoric symbolism.
Something big that I saw was Nat’s transference of trust. He went from trusting governmental authority to realizing that one must place faith in oneself first and foremost. The wireless/radio is our connection but when it goes dark, so does their external trust.