“The Song of the Wren” is a short story written by H.E.Bates who is considered to be one of the most prolific English writers of 20th century. The place of action in this story is garden of a very unusual woman – Miss Shuttleworth. One day while feeding her birds she is visited by a man who is doing social research about different views of society so that latter a book could be written. He asks some questions to Miss Shuttleworth and tries to put her answers into some certain frame to fill his charts. In her abstract answers Miss Shuttleworth reveals her view of life but the author of this story – the main problem of this story.
In my opinion the main theme of this story is a shortage of a dialogue between people. This text describes two people representing different world views. A problem that arose during the way to complete understanding between them was that the second would not try to listen to the first. In this I see a parallel to Miss Shuttleworth observations to the birds. In the exposition part after wondering why does the birds always go for the same sandwiches she gives herself a question:
“Why did the wren never ever come to the sandwiches? Pure shyness? Indifference?” …
