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The Narrator’s Father
The hunger birds are huge, predatory, bird-like creatures that act as the vultures of the supernatural universe that the Hempstocks inhabit. They mostly eat “fleas,” or monsters, but they can and will eat anything—including the mortal world itself. Lettie calls the birds to do away with Ursula, but they decide they must also eat the narrator. They attempt to manipulate the narrator into believing he’s alone, friendless, and unloved. Though the narrator is terrified of the hunger birds, in part because of how the birds look, in adulthood he can no longer remember what exactly they look like. They sometimes take the form of shadows, while other times they look like prehistoric birds. He also cannot tell how many of them there are; there might be a dozen and there might be several hundred. The hunger birds destroy the world with impunity until Old Mrs. Hempstock scolds them—she is likely one of the few things in the entirety of the universe that scares them.
The Hunger Birds Quotes in The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The The Ocean at the End of the Lane quotes below are all either spoken by The Hunger Birds or refer to The Hunger Birds. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 11
Quotes
She had started to cry, and I felt uncomfortable. I did not know what to do when adults cried. [...] Adults should not weep, I knew. They did not have mothers who would comfort them.
I wondered if Ursula Monkton had ever had a mother.
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Chapter 12
Quotes
“They need to finish this up. It’s what they do: they’re the carrion kind, the vultures of the void. Their job. Clean up the last remnants of the mess. Nice and neat. Pull you from the world and it will be as if you never existed. Just go with it. It won’t hurt.”
I stared at him. Adults only ever said that when it, whatever it happened to be, was going to hurt so much.
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I had stood up to worse things than him in the last few hours. And suddenly, I didn’t care anymore. I looked up at the dark shape behind and above the torch beam, and I said, “Does it make you feel big to make a little boy cry?” and I knew as I said it that it was the thing I should never have said.
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There was silence. The shadows seemed to have become part of the night once again. I thought over what I’d said, and I knew it was true. At that moment, for once in my childhood, I was not scared of the dark, and I was perfectly willing to die (as willing as any seven-year-old, certain of his immortality, can be) if I died waiting for Lettie. Because she was my friend.
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The Hunger Birds Quotes in The Ocean at the End of the Lane
The The Ocean at the End of the Lane quotes below are all either spoken by The Hunger Birds or refer to The Hunger Birds. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
Chapter 11
Quotes
She had started to cry, and I felt uncomfortable. I did not know what to do when adults cried. [...] Adults should not weep, I knew. They did not have mothers who would comfort them.
I wondered if Ursula Monkton had ever had a mother.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12
Quotes
“They need to finish this up. It’s what they do: they’re the carrion kind, the vultures of the void. Their job. Clean up the last remnants of the mess. Nice and neat. Pull you from the world and it will be as if you never existed. Just go with it. It won’t hurt.”
I stared at him. Adults only ever said that when it, whatever it happened to be, was going to hurt so much.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
I had stood up to worse things than him in the last few hours. And suddenly, I didn’t care anymore. I looked up at the dark shape behind and above the torch beam, and I said, “Does it make you feel big to make a little boy cry?” and I knew as I said it that it was the thing I should never have said.
Related Characters:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
There was silence. The shadows seemed to have become part of the night once again. I thought over what I’d said, and I knew it was true. At that moment, for once in my childhood, I was not scared of the dark, and I was perfectly willing to die (as willing as any seven-year-old, certain of his immortality, can be) if I died waiting for Lettie. Because she was my friend.
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Page Number and Citation:
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