His Bloody Project: A Historical Thriller

Birds appear throughout Roderick’s written account of his crimes, often when Roderick wishes to express something indirectly or to add a poetic flourish to whatever he’s describing. This first occurs during the episode in which Roderick kills Lachlan Mackenzie’s sheep, where he describes an imaginary conversation with a crow who is eager to feast on the sheep’s carcass. Later, when he attempts to flee Culduie for good, he sees a crow who he imagines saying, “I was thinking I might make a breakfast of your eyes” (112). In both these instances, crows appear as opportunistic scavengers looking to take advantage of Roderick’s misfortune. Although Roderick claims to disavow local superstitions that hold crows to be signs of bad luck, he nevertheless uses them as signs of bad turns of fortune in his narrative. This suggests that, even as Roderick recognizes the absurdity of making decisions based on petty superstitions, he understands the utility of using those same superstitions as literary devices—making his story more convincing by underscoring whatever feeling or impression he wants to invoke in his readers.

As such, the imagery involving crows and other birds that Roderick weaves into his narrative demonstrate that he is an incredibly canny writer who is willing to take full advantage of the written word to manipulate the reader’s perception of himself, his circumstances, and his crimes.