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Simile
Explanation and Analysis—Air Raids:
In this simile, Nat compares the experience of the birds' attacks to the experience of air raids during the war:
It was, Nat thought, like air raids in the war. No one down this end of the country knew what the Plymouth folk had seen and suffered. You had to endure something yourself before it touched you.
Nat encounters Jim, the cowman, and Mrs. Trigg in the morning after killing roughly 50 birds in his children's bedroom. Neither of them really believe him—Jim remarks, "Never heard of birds acting savage." The birds' attack is unreasonable and outside the bounds of daily life. As such, it is unimaginable for those who didn't directly witness it. Nat's instinctive comparison is to the air raids that devastated the British countryside, particularly the area of Plymouth, where, as the reader learns later, Nat's mother lived. Nat is repeatedly reminded of the time during the Blitz. Through this simile, du Maurier suggests that the senseless, absurd violence of the birds is not actually so unbelievable in a world where people are capable of destroying one another on such a massive scale. In fact, in some ways, the birds' senseless violence is a logical progression from the example set by humanity.
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