THE BIRD OF SERBIA
Starting Point. In “The Bird of Serbia,” Mr. Street desired to say through the medium of fiction a certain thing. “Perhaps I wanted to say: ‘Nothing is so small or so nasty that it can not be made to serve an autocratic ruler in carrying out his designs.’ So, then, I took as my symbol for smallness and nastiness, the louse. And then I set out to prove that lice could serve the autocrat who wished to start a war. I wanted to show how very true that theory is, and I should say that the quality of truth in that story—the convincingness of it—is the best thing about it.”—Julian Street.
Plot.
Initial Impulses, giving rise to the struggle and the complication.—
Gavrilo Prinzip, a subject of Austro-Hungary, living in Sarajevo, Bosnia, is a Serb by descent and nature. The revolutionary spirit he displays at an early age gives evidence of his passionate racial feeling. In 1913, at the age of eighteen, he is betrothed to Mara. The two are devoted to each other, but Mara resents Gavrilo’s constant ideal of a free Serb race. She is, perhaps, “jealous of a people.”
Steps toward the Dramatic Climax: Sarajevo plans to have on June 28, Kossovo Day, a celebration greater than usual because of Serbian independence gained in the two preceding years of the Balkan War. A few days before, Mara’s relative, a former supposed rival of Gavrilo, gives her a black song bird—a kos. Gavrilo begs her to release the bird. She feels that she will be giving up her own character to free it, and persists in keeping it caged. She is confirmed in her stubbornness through the advice of her relative. The Serbian festival is forbidden; attempts to commemorate the anniversary will result in arrest. Austrian manoeuvres will take place, instead. The Archduke will appear, in spite of advice to the contrary. It is clear that a plot is brewing. Gavrilo has promised, however, not to participate in anything violent so long as Mara loves him. She assures him of her love, whereupon he asks her again, to set the kos free.
Minor Climax: She refuses. The kos has become a symbol for both. Mara in releasing it would surrender her will power; Gavrilo releasing it would see an emblem of freedom for all Serbs.
Gavrilo engages in the plot, but remembering his promise he refuses to “participate in certain matters.” He and Mara are happy so long as the bird is not mentioned. When he puts leaves into the cage, however, Mara begs him not to do so; she fears they are poisonous, as the bird is growing weaker. Gavrilo insists that captivity is killing it.
Dramatic Climax: On the evening of June 27, the bird dies. “It was not a dead bird that I saw, but a climax in a parable.”
Steps toward the Climax of Action: Gavrilo and Mara, filled with emotion, dispute over the cause of death. Mara insists that the bird man must determine the cause, and affects to believe that Gavrilo has poisoned it. He runs from the garden, frantic. The bird man comes; he points out the lice. Mara sends for Gavrilo. He cannot be found. The Archduke, his wife, and their suite arrive.
Climax of Action: On the morning of June 28, Gavrilo shoots the Archduke and the Archduchess as they ride through the streets of Sarajevo.
Dénouement: Gavrilo dies, four years later, in prison.
The struggle, then, is one of wills—Gavrilo’s against Mara’s. The two lines of interest forming the complication are 1st, the love story of Gavrilo and Mara; 2nd, the relations between Serbians and Austria. This complication begins with the initial impulse of the story and finds its solution only with the climax of action.
Examples of good craftsmanship in details are 1st, making Gavrilo a good shot, and at the same time introducing the bird motif; 2nd, strengthening Mara’s will and antagonizing Gavrilo by the cousin, who is introduced with the first mention of Gavrilo’s love affair. Point out other instances of plot finish.
Presentation. The story, as told by a man in a smoking-car, is immediately and logically motivated by the newspaper account of Gavrilo Prinzip’s death. The dénouement, therefore, is presented first, though it appears from the conclusion that the narrator’s fellow-travelers do not recognize this fact until the series of events comes full circle.
In connection with the plot, notice how the narrator is bound up with it. What advantages do you find in the author’s presenting the story in the rehearsed, rather than in the dramatic way? “In order to show what I was driving at,” says Mr. Street, “it was necessary for me to use the form of the inner, related story—a form which is always awkward, but which sometimes succeeds in spite of its awkwardness, for the reason that the reader becomes so absorbed in the inner story that he forgets that an individual is supposed to be speaking, and that, too often, that individual is talking like a book, rather than a human being, let alone an easy raconteur.
“My story, ‘The Bird of Serbia,’ is not without this fault. The man who sits in the smoking-room of a Pullman car and relates the inner tale, would not, in actual life, have spoken altogether as I made him speak. To that extent, then, the story is imperfect; but this imperfection is not likely to be noticed by the average reader, because it is not sufficiently glaring to remind him that the man in the smoking-room is supposed to be talking all the while.”
Characterization. What traits in the chief actors are most conspicuous? Are they “played up” convincingly and economically? What value have the background characters—the mother of Gavrilo, for example? What points of the Austrian character are noted, because of which sympathy is diverted from the Archduke?
Is the narrator of Gavrilo’s story, the man in the smoking-car, a minor character or a disinterested chronicler of the events he followed so minutely and accurately?
Setting. Notice that Mr. Street restrains his narrator from stating the name of the place, Sarajevo, until near the conclusion. Does its reserve increase the final effect? What details indicate the author’s familiarity with local conditions, customs, dress, and language? To what end do these local color data contribute?
Details. What clue do you find in the narrator’s statement about the “microscopic unclean forces of which historians will never know”?
Do you regard the ending as one of “surprise”? If so, is it calculated as such, or rather a chance offshoot of what was intended, rather, as a strong closing sentence?
On the subject of story writing in general, Mr. Street makes a valuable observation:
“It seems to me that there is a tendency, in discussing the art of short story writing, to confuse manner and matter, and to conclude that the story with a big, sombre theme must necessarily be superior, as a work of art, to the story which is lighter in subject and treatment. When I say ‘light’ I do not mean frivolous or false. De Maupassant, Leonard Merrick, and O. Henry have taught us better than that. A story can have the quality of truth, and can be rich in character and observation, yet be done with splendid deftness of touch—and oftentimes this very deftness, which we so seldom see in a story, is regarded too lightly by critics. It is much as though we were to insist that the wood-chopper has greater skill than the tight-rope walker, valuing the heavy strokes of the one more highly than the poise and adeptness of the other. A light touch in a story often suggests that it has been produced with ease; and a light step on the tight-rope suggests the same thing; but when we see a man swinging a heavy axe at a huge tree trunk, breathing hard and sweating, we readily perceive that he is doing real work. Hard work. I do not dispute that there may be certain lumber-jacks who handle the two-edged axe with a practiced skill rivaling or, perhaps, even surpassing the skill of a fair tight-rope walker; but neither do I hold with those who see art only where there is sweat and smell and swearing.”