The preference seems to be
for reading novels these days, and the short story comes a distant
second in the popularity stakes. A full length novel allows the reader
time to enter the writer’s universe and become fully
acquainted with the characters, and there will be twists and
turns which can keep him or her guessing until the end. The
short story, on the other hand, is generally a simpler affair, where a
single idea can be worked through to its logical conclusion. What the
reader loses in terms of involvement with the characters should be made
up for in other ways, which might be the dramatic impact of the ending,
or a sustained or heightened sense of mood or place. The one thing the
short story should not try to be is a miniature novel.
One way of getting round
some of the limitations of the short story, of course, is to write a
series of them about the same set of characters, such as Arthur
Conan-Doyle did with the Sherlock Holmes stories. The format allowed
him to launch straight into each story without having to worry about
setting the scene, giving him the freedom to craft the narrative around
the solving of the mystery. It was a freedom he used to brilliant
effect in the best of the stories, constructing a tangible atmosphere
of menace from what seems on the surface to be a collection of
incidental details. In addition, the necessary brevity of the piece
generally ensures that the tension is not lost until the final
denouement. It is interesting to note that, apart from The Hound of the
Baskervilles, the full length novels are not of the same standard.
In her short story The
Birds Daphne du Maurier also uses the structure of the narrative to
increase the claustrophobic sense of fear, with the Hocken family
increasingly penned into their fortified cottage, as the world around
them collapses. But the structure also brilliantly highlights the
similarities between the father, Nat Hocken, and his avian foes. First
we see him sitting out on the cliff top watching the world, much like a
gull perched before taking flight. Then there are the trips between his
cottage and the farm, either shepherding his children to safety or
foraging for supplies in the wrecked farmhouse, each occasion
reminiscent of a bird cautiously breaking cover only to quickly return
to shelter. And finally, of course, we have the cottage itself, stocked
with supplies and with him tirelessly watching over it – the
epitome of a nest if ever there was one. We are left with the
unmistakable message that Nat Hocken is somehow in tune with the
birds, and that is the key to him keeping his family alive.
The story is best known, of
course, through the Hollywood film which used it as the starting point
for its own much extended plot. Rightfully seen as a classic, it is an
archetypal Hitchcock thriller which still makes enjoyable viewing even
if aspects now seem very dated. We may cringe at the 1950s-style
flirting between the two main characters, but the film is still
unsettlingly scary in parts. Not, however, as unsettling as the
original, probably for the very reasons which made the film such a
success – the two glamorous leads with their romantic
subplot, and the more reassuring ending.
The Hocken family are
distinctly unglamorous, living as they do in their austere Cornish
cottage, and Nat is the antithesis of a Hollywood hero. He is not even
an example of the ordinary guy who wins through because, as I mention
above, he is in many ways a rather curious character. The second reason
the original story is more unsettling is to do with the nature of the
short story: because the writer has invested less time and effort in
creating the characters, there is less concern for what happens to them
at the end. If the story demands that they must all meet a grisly fate,
well – so be it. In The Birds, of course, it is not the
Hocken family who meet such a fate, but possibly the rest of
civilisation. All we know for sure is that BBC radio broadcasts have
gone off air (there is no TV in the cottage) and Mrs Hocken can find no
foreign stations as she tunes the dial. So in the space of a few pages
the reader is forced to confront the fact that the Hocken
family’s life and death struggle is actually a rare example
of human resistance in what has become a global catastrophe. The bleak,
sudden and largely unresolved ending is what gives the story its power
to unsettle the reader, a quality which could easily be dissipated in a
full length novel.