Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,7, University of Trier, language: English, abstract: In these times badmouthing about other people and playing tricks on them is the order of the day. Being intimidated and embarrassed has become normal and unspectacular. People, who act really kind, are rare and if they do, the person they are acting nicely towards, is irritated. It seems like we have lost the ability to give and accept love and that superficiality and coolness are spread more and more. The same instances seem to have occurred more than 40 years ago, when Hitchcock was working on his brilliant film The Birds . Within the following I am going to reveal, how love or a lack of love utters in Hitchcock’s The Birds and what it leads to in case of the three characters Annie, Lydia and Melanie. Furthermore I will show what role birds play in this context. To better be able to analyse the film I have divided it into chapters, as does the DVD. The exact division can be seen in the appendix.