Imagery In Daphne Du Maurier's The Birds

Imagine someone looking to their right, and being met with the sight of a beautiful meadow, flowers swaying from the soft breeze of the clear blue sky, the sun shining brightly in the distance. Said someone widens their eyes, and concentrates hard on their surroundings, to the point where it feels like they’re one with nature. Now suddenly, the scene changes, as the person is now, this time around, turning to their left, and seeing a dark, gloomy, night sky, dead plants and birds littered across the dirty path ahead. Would they feel any different? Similar to this figurative situation, the short story “The Birds”, by Daphne du Maurier perfectly captures how the use of imagery affects human emotions. Her descriptive language regarding the weather,

the sky, and the birds gives us a greater picture of what’s going on, while also toying with the reader’s feelings, as her writing makes the reader feel scared, but also leaves them at the edge of our seat. In “The Birds”, Daphne du Maurier utilizes imagery to intensify the mood of the story, making it overall much more terrifying, gloomy, and suspenseful, by using words to affect human emotions.
While you may not exactly realize it, a mere word, no matter how complex or how tiny, can greatly affect the mood of an entire story. In “The Birds”, du Maurier describes the scenery around Nat using an elaborate array of vocabulary near the beginning of the story, creating a generally tense mood before anything big has really happened yet. She states, “The east wind, like a razor, stripped the trees, and the leaves, crackling and dry, shivered and scattered with the wind’s blast… Black winter has descended in a single night" (du Maurier 55). Firstly, in this quote, black winter is meant to represent something more than just simply a cold winter. The color black is typically associated with death and darkness, creating a desolate and depressing mood by evoking feelings within the reader through words. This quote also could be considered foreshadowing, as it sets up a dark mood regarding death that will be found throughout the rest of the story. In addition to this, the description of the trees, leaves, and wind makes the reader imagine a very frigid and barren place. By describing the scenery around Nat in such a way, du Maurier makes the reader feel worried and anxious, as even if they’re not directly in the story, they’re able to imagine how it would feel like to be in such a bleak and grim place. Since this quote is found such early on in the story, du Maurier purposely uses imagery in this way to give the reader a glimpse of the mood that will shape what’s yet to come in the rest of the plot.
Typically, the night sky is described to be something beautiful. Many authors frequently romanticize it, describing the stars and the moon littering the sky in a fashion that makes it seem like they are absolutely extraordinary, which in all honesty, isn’t too far from the truth. Daphne du Maurier, on the other hand, uses her brief description of the (early) night sky to evoke the complete opposite feeling. I quote, "There had been no sun all day, and now, at barely three o'clock, a kind of darkness had already come, the sky sullen, heavy, colorless like salt" (du Maurier 62). To begin with, the sky usually does not set till 6 through 8, so having it set at only three o'clock gives the reader a feeling of uncertainty. Usually people tend to chill out a little more when it gets dark, even if it's not necessarily night yet, and certain others sometimes even tend to become sad, when night comes. In fact, a common disease, seasonal affective disorder, a mood disorder that makes people depressed during winter, is directly correlated with the lack of sunlight during winter times. By describing the sky like this, du Maurier makes the reader feel anxious, curious as to why the sky is setting so early, while also making the mood of the story feel just a touch sadder, and mysterious. As opposed to the usually beautiful description of the sky most authors write, Daphne du Maurier describes the sky in a gloomy fashion, impacting the reader's feelings.
Every good horror story has a plentiful amount of suspense throughout the plot that leaves the readers at the edge of their seat, and "The Birds" is no exception.

Du Maurier uses imagery to create a suspenseful mood, when she states, "Something black rose from behind them, like a smudge at first, then widening, becoming deeper, and the smudge became a cloud, and the cloud divided again into five other clouds... and they were not clouds at all; they were birds" (du Maurier 63). This line creates a suspenseful mood, as the readers, who previously thought the birds were clouds, begin to wonder what the creatures are doing. In addition, it also makes the readers a bit scared for Nat and Jill, since they now know the birds are there, leaving the reader feeling a bit worried if he was going to save her from the birds in time. In addition to the suspenseful mood this quote gives, as stated in paragraph two, the color black is typically associated with death and darkness. These three factors leaves us biting at our fingernails, as we anticipate what's going to happen

next.
In conclusion, the imagery Daphne du Maurier uses in "The Birds" greatly impacts the overall mood of the story.

Whether it be a description of the weather and the trees, the night sky, or the birds themselves, du Maurier manages to flip the story's mood in an instant, all with just a few, simple words. With imagery, the reader is able to imagine what the scenery of a story is like, and unknowingly, it can shape your emotions completely, making the reader feel happy one second, and sad the next. Even by just looking outside right now, it's clear to see that a dark, pitch black sky would make someone feel completely different than something more soothing, like a pink, pretty sunset. As once stated by Tracy Sabin, "Creating visual imagery is a state of mind. It involves the reproduction of what we see. But much more than that, it becomes an outlet to express feelings about what we experience." While in this quote it states that authors use imagery in a sort of diary like fashion, it is thew reader's job to put their words into picture and make their text create something actually meaningful. It is their obligation as readers to take these words of imagery and actually imagine. To picture. To understand. To

feel.