The Birds

Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1952

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Summary

Background

Story Analysis

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

Birds

The birds themselves are layered symbols that highlight multiple themes. In Nat’s mind, the birds clearly symbolize the German bombers from World War II, which gives him an advantage. Nat sees how the birds organize themselves into clearly defined ranks with specific targets, just like the Luftwaffe; his wartime memories help him predict the birds’ tactics, and he knows how to prepare for an air-raid (only his cottage will be hit by hordes of birds rather than bombs). This symbolism connects the birds to the theme of memory—and memory is what saves Nat and his family.

The fact that the birds can symbolize trained bomber pilots exposes how unnatural their actions are. Birds imitating humans for destructive purposes is exactly the kind of bizarre aberration that supports the theme of The Uncanny Natural World. In this way, the birds—especially the “suicide” birds, “the death-and-glory boys” (93)—symbolize Nature as an angry entity that is willing to break its own rules and destroy itself in its war with humans.

The birds also symbolize elements of the Cold War. The birds become violent when the east wind blows, which parallels the KGB’s influence over the British citizens they recruit. The locals want to blame the Russians for the birds’ aggression, and the birds’ inscrutable behavior throughout the country excites paranoia in the British population, just as the Cold War’s subterfuge made the British paranoid about their neighbors being poisoned with communism.

East Wind

The east wind holds significance in literary history as a vengeful, destructive force. In Classical mythology, the east wind is associated with troubling storms, while the Old Testament more than once features this wind as a harbinger of divine wrath. In du Maurier’s piece, the wind’s easterly nature symbolically alludes to Russia, which lies east of Great Britain and poses a military threat. More immediately, however, the east wind is a motif that first initiates the birds’ war, then becomes a seemingly supernatural presence, playing into the theme of nature acting strangely.

The east wind brings the hard winter overnight, waking Nat so that he lies awake, feeling uneasy. That is when the birds first attack. Nat’s suspicions—that this wind and the cold it created are not normal—grow when he tries to bury the bodies of the small birds: “The ground was too hard to dig. It was frozen solid, yet no snow had fallen, nothing had happened in the past hours but the coming of the east wind. It was unnatural, queer” (69). Nat then goes to the beach to bury the birds in the sand:

When he reached the beach below the headland he could scarcely stand, the force of the east wind was so strong. […] He crunched his way over the shingle to the softer sand and then, his back to the wind, ground a pit in the sand with his heel. He meant to drop the birds into it, but as he opened up the sack the force of the wind carried them away from him along the beach, tossed like feathers, spread and scattered, the bodies of fifty frozen birds. There was something ugly in the sight. He did not like it. The dead birds were swept away from him by the wind (69-70).

It seems as if the east wind, in carrying the birds away from their intended grave, is trying to reanimate the dead bodies. The macabre display signifies an otherworldly quality to the east wind. It also further highlights the theme of The Uncanny Natural World with the Gothic disruption of normal life by the unknown, for there is little that is not disruptive about the illusion that dead birds are flying again.

Windows

Windows are the most vulnerable targets in houses, a fact that the birds deduce during their first attack on the cottage. The birds plan to access humans’ homes through fragile windows; once they are inside, the humans will be helpless. Therefore, the motif of windows illustrates who is prepared and who is not—who will survive and who will not.

Nat’s focus on boarding windows and fortifying the cottage connects to the theme of memory. It’s not simply Nat’s memory of the Blitz that guides him, it is also his more recent memory of fighting off the birds in the children’s bedroom. He combines the lessons from both experiences: During the Blitz, it was important to place boards in the windows so that the bombers wouldn’t see light coming from the house, thus making an easy target; during the birds’ recent invasion, Nat sees a parallel to the windows’ vulnerability during the war. To make his house a fortress, he boards up the windows.

The motif of boarded windows becomes a sign of preparedness, and a lack of boarding foreshadows death for those who are not prepared. The Triggs’ house does not have boarded windows, despite Nat’s warning, so the fate of the Triggs is sealed.