Use Of Suspense In Daphne Dumaurier's 'The Birds'

As the women start realizing what may have actually happened they decide to hide it from the men. This process adds an aspect of entertainment and the reader can interpret the information on their own through the symbolism of the bird and stitches. Scott Bonn states true crime “allows us to experience fear and horror in a controlled environment where the threat is exciting but not real” (2). Similarly in this short story, little by little the women put the pieces together, engaging the audience as they also start to formulate their own opinion on the motive for the murder. Because this story has no definite end, the reader is free to have their own ideas and not be stuck onto the facts of the actual case but think beyond just the truth.

Joan Didion’s essay “Los Angeles Notebook portrays the Santa Ana winds as being ominus, unseen, and foreboding, by having characters in the story view the winds as an omen of evil inhabitants. She also helps to convey this by changing her sentence length and structure to better suit the atmosphere for the effect the she wants her writings to take on the reader. From the start of her writing, Didion did something to make her story more interesting, that really need to be rooted out. She manipulated the sentence structure and changed their lengths to either make them more long and drawn out, or when she wanted to build tension, she would make the sentences increasingly choppy and short-worded. There are many instances

Audubon's approach toward describing the massive number of the pigeons mostly involved sensory details such as "meting flakes of snow", "buzz of wings", this allows the audience to have a visual picture inside of their mind of how many birds Audubon is seeing. On the other hand, Dillard used many figurative language in her writing, comparing the birds to "an unfurled oriflamme" an eye, or a million shook rugs, though more abstract, with clever metaphors and analogies, Dillard's writing still have the same effect on her audience. With two different methods, Audubon and Dillard described what they saw and successfully communicated with their audience.

For example, Irony. At the end of the book, one of the blind kids was crying and was pushing his hands in front of his face. Jonesy risked his life to save the blind child and ends up with a bullet submerged into the upper half of his body. Ambiguity is also used frequently throughout the novel. Through Birdy’s eyes, you can never tell the difference between friend and enemy.

Peters and Mrs. Hale are the ones who find clues to solving the murder. Glaspell foreshadows this outcome by having the county attorney say “‘…[n]o telling; you women might come upon a clue to the motive…’” (Glaspell). Once the men leave the women alone they begin putting together items to take to Mrs. Wright in jail and no one is concerned with what they are taking her because the men do not see anything from the domestic realm to be dangerous. While they are putting together items, Mrs. Peters stumbles upon a birdcage that has clearly been roughed up, and eventually they locate a deceased bird.

Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters contemplate this disturbing discovery, and they wonder who else could be capable of this act of violence. They know Mrs. Wright surely did not do it, as she cared for the bird greatly, she even “used to sing real pretty herself” and the women have already concluded “she would’ve liked a bird.” That leaves Mr. Wright, and due to the fact that he broke the birdcage, it is only reasonable that he killed the bird as well. This realization that the women make leads them to what the men have been searching for all day, a motive. Mr. Wright likes the quiet, so he killed the singing canary which happens to be the only thing bringing happiness to Mrs. Wright.

People who have the knowledge use the power received from it to keep the people without knowledge under their control. Society controls the characters, which allows the main

Vivid descriptions of the wind such as its’ “rattl[ing] the tops of garbage cans”, “dirt and dust and grime”, and “grit sting[ing] skins” create a sense of chaos that is common in the busy hustle of city life. The cold wind also “violent[ly] assault[s]” the residents of the city, allowing the reader to envision the truly excruciating and harrowing journey people in the urban setting must make regularly. Additionally, asyndeton is utilized masterfully throughout the passage to demonstrate the disarray caused by the wind. The wind finds “theater throwaways, announcements of dances and lodge meetings, the heavy waxed paper that loaves of bread had been wrapped in, the thinner waxed paper that enclosed sandwiches, old envelopes, newspapers.” This extensive list without the use of conjunctions speeds up the reading allowing a fast pace similar to the rapid attacks of the wind, enabling the reader to visualize the onslaught on the citizens.

Flannery O’Connor’s The King of the Birds is a narrative explaining the narrator’s obsession with different kinds of fowl over time. The reader follows the narrator from her first experience with a chicken, which caught the attention of reporters due to its ability to walk both backward and forward, to her collection of peahens and peacocks. At the mere age of five, the narrator’s chicken was featured in the news and from that moment she began to build her family of fowl. The expansive collection began with chickens, but soon the narrator found a breed of bird that was even more intriguing; peacocks.

The birds had been more restless than ever this fall of the year, the agitation more marked because the days were still. (52) This quote shows that there is something strange happening with the birds and hints towards something more later in the story. In one scene, Nat askes Mr. Trigg if he has boarded up his windows yet. He replied, saying that the birds were a bunch of nonsense and that he had nothing to worry about.

The ratio of birds to humans is approximately 300 to 7, so if humans were attacked by a mass of birds, there’s a very slim possibility of survival, if any possibility. This is the base of the plot of Daphne du Maurier’s short story, The Birds (1952), and Alfred Hitchcock’s movie adaptation of the same name, which came out in 1963. While there are similarities between them, such as the conflict and the theme, there are also differences, such as the characters and the setting. This essay will be covering the similarities and the differences between the short story and the film. There are a few similarities between the short story and the movie, like the conflict and the theme.

The scene begins to unfolds in their minds. Mr. Wright yanking open the cage door, taking out the bird, and breaking its fragile neck was enough to make Mrs. Wright lash out, and in a heat of passion, kill her husband. As the trifles collect,  the women worry that the men will see their findings, and have what they need to prove Mrs. Wright guilty. Though the men believe her to be the murderer, the women are trying their best to hide the evidence that will prove it.

Once the reader begins to question the lack of explanation surrounding the event, a suspenseful tone beings to grow. Due to the unexpected

Readers can understand the elements by reading what the narrator has to say about the blind man. He is always complaining about him before the blind man even gets to his house. The narrator in the beginning did not give the blind man a chance before he started judging him. In a world full of negative things, people should give each other a chance to get to know one

The reader quickly learns that Nat is very resourceful as he knows to go get food from the farm while it is daylight and the birds will not attack. Maurier uses characterization to not only describe Nat, but many other characters throughout the story. As you can see, foreshadowing, imagery, and characterization are just a few of the literary elements that give “The Birds” an intense story line. They help to create an exhilarating tale that keeps the reader engaged and wondering what will happen next. Maurier’s use of these components helped to make the short story into a hit American horror film in 1963.