Catherine, Called Birdy

Catherine, Called Birdy is a young adult novel by Karen Cushman.

The eponymous Catherine is a headstrong teenage girl living in the Middle Ages. As the daughter of a lord, she is expected to lead the life of a proper young lady of the time. However, Catherine is reluctant to pursue embroidery and household chores, and finds herself rebelling against her parents' and society's expectations of her.

The book is narrated through Catherine's journal entries, spanning about a year. From the beginning, much of the conflict centers on Catherine's family's attempt to find her a suitable husband. This is easier said than done, as Catherine does not wish to marry anyone in particular and frequently goes to great length to drive her suitors away. However, this strategy backfires on her when the one man who is not repulsed by her behavior turns out to be a loud, coarse idiot. Now caught in a terrible engagement, Catherine does all she can to escape, eventually running away from her home to stay with her aunt. In the end, though, Catherine realizes that she is better off simply facing her fate bravely than running all of her life, and she returns home. Much to her pleased surprise, it turns out that her fiancé has died in her absence, and she is now set to marry his son—a man who, though they have never met, seems to be a pleasant and intelligent fellow.

While the main plot revolves around the marriage issue, Catherine's journal entries cover many other aspects of her life, and chronicle her personal development. Through the course of the book, Catherine reflects on religion, goes through various crises with her family and friends, and begins to develop a talent for painting.

Even though Catherine has not truly freed herself by the end of the book, she has learned to reconcile her own personality with her duties to her family and society, in a sharp contrast to the arrogant and impractical girl she was at the start of the story.

A beloved staple of middle school bookshelves everywhere, Catherine Called Birdy is a charming and entertaining story with a witty heroine and a unique look at daily life during the Middle Ages.

Not to be confused with Catherine Called Birdo.

Tropes used in Catherine, Called Birdy include:

• Abhorrent Admirer: "Shaggy Beard" (a.k.a. "the pig"), Catherine's arranged husband.
• Abusive Parents: Her father often hits her, but she's pretty dismissive of it when she writes about it. The only people he never hits are his wife and Morwenna, Catherine's nurse.
• Arranged Marriage: Catherine does not want to get married this way at all in the beginning. However, she learns to come to terms with this.
  • Perfectly Arranged Marriage: Shaggy Beard's son, who inherits the betrothal after his father is killed in a brawl.
• Blind Without'Em: Catherine mentions her 'weak eyes' several times. Of course at that point there were no such things as corrective lenses, so she just lives with having to squint all the time.
• Brainless Beauty: Catherine thinks her mother is a mild variant.
• Briar Patching: Perkin, the goat-boy, pays the yearly rent on his grandmother's cottage with a goat. In the preceding weeks before the rent is due, he will tell people that he will give up any goat except a certain one for the rent. When it comes time to pay, Catherine's father will insist on being given that goat, thinking that he's gotten the best of Perkin. Each time, it turns out that the particular goat is either the meanest or smelliest one of the flock, or the one that will try to eat the laundry.
• Cloudcuckoolander: Odd William, called such because he's the third William in the area and they needed a way to differentiate them. Catherine briefly admires his apparent "wisdom", but her opinion twists when he callously refuses to help with her mother's labor.
  • Her aunt Ethelfritha, who was struck by lightning as a young woman and occasionally forgets who she is (at one point, she spends a day thinking she's a sausage.)
• Curse of the Ancients: Catherine spends a while trying to think of a unique way to curse; eventually she settles on "God's thumbs!"
• Deadpan Snarker: Catherine, full stop.
• Hair of Gold: Her friend Aelis has beautiful blonde hair, and manages to appear innocent. In reality she's as rebellious and wickedly snarky as Catherine. Meg the dairymaid is a more straight example. Catherine herself gripes about her own hair being brown, as in the time period blonde hair was a feminine ideal.
• Infallible Narrator
• Insult to Rocks
• Jerkass: Catherine's father. Also Geoffrey, the boy who briefly fosters at the manor.
• No Periods, Period: Averted. She mentions her lack of one as proof she's not ready to be anyone's wife.
• Plucky Girl: Catherine.
• The Prankster: Catherine displays this as many of her actions towards her suitors come off as pranks.
• Rebellious Princess Lady
• Snipe Hunt
• Unlucky Childhood Friend: Subverted. Perkin may or may not like Catherine, but she marries Shaggy Beard's son.
• Wholesome Crossdresser: She puts on some of her brother's old clothes when she wants to go past her village without being recognized.