The StorytellerBy Saki

Authors biography:

Saki was born Hector Hugh Munro in, 1870, in Akyab, Burma. Sakis mother would die in pregnancy two years later. Brought
to Great Britain by their father, Hector and his siblings were raised by two rather repressive aunts until their father resigned
his commission and took his children on extended tours through Europe to further their education; this period marked the
end of Hectors time at one of Great Britains upper-class public schools.

At twenty-three, Munro served for a short time as a military police officer in Burma before malaria brought him back to Great
Britain, where he set up bachelors quarters in London.

At the height of his fame for his short fiction and while he was working on a play, World War I broke out. Saki volunteered for
military service. Refusing an officers commission or a safe position, Munro fought in France and was killed in action during
the Beaumont-Hamel offensive on November 1916.

Historical period and Socio-cultural context:

Saki stories Humorous, mischievous and sometimes macabre that satirize Edwardian society and culture. Much of Saki's
work contrasts the conventions and hypocrisies of Edwardian England with the ruthless but honest life-and-death struggles
of nature. Nature generally wins in the end.
Edwardian period (King Edward VII) United Kingdom between 1901 and 1910, is sometimes extended beyond Edwards
death to include years leading up to de WWI.

The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 and the succession of her son Edward marked the end of the Victorian era.
Edward was the leader of a fashionable elite that set a style influenced by the art and fashions of Continental Europe. The
periods was marked by significant changes in politics as sections of society that had been largely excluded from exercising
power in the past, such as common labourers and women, became increasingly politicised.
Saki was homosexual, but in Britain at that time sexual activity between men was a crime and that meant "that side of
[Munro's] life had to be secret".
Summary of the plot:

Beginning on a hot afternoon on a passenger train, three young children and their aunt were not looking forward to the long
ride ahead. The children become a bit troublesome, so their irritated aunt begins to tell a story about a young girl who was
good, and made friends with everyone on account of her goodness.

The children are dissatisfied with the story, and a young bachelor sitting next to them notices the aunts trouble. To her
embarrassment, he assures her that he can tell a better story.

The bachelor tells a story of a little girl named Bertha who was horribly good. Bertha was so good that she awarded medals
for her kindness and the Prince allowed her to play in his park once a week. As she was playing in the park one day, a big wolf
came along to find food. Bertha tried to hide and escape from the wolf, but her medals clinked together. The wolf heard the
sound and soon ate Bertha.

The children are impressed by the story, and describe it as the most beautiful story they have ever heard. The aunt strongly
disapproves the story, but the bachelor proves his point: He was able to keep the children under control while she could not.

Style

- Unique. His stories are mostly miserable and tragic.

- Writings influenced by his background and childhood experiences.
 - The stories are amusing, interesting and tinged with humor. They are considered to be true enough to be interesting
and not true enough to be tiresome.
- He had a great power of invention.
- His fiction mostly consists of dark humorous satires on the Edwardian society and culture with elements of fairytale.
- He contrasts the conventions and hypocrisies of Edwardian England with the ruthless but straight forward life-and-
death struggles of nature, which generally wins in the end.
- Hardly any of his characters are designed to inspire sympathy, and their difficulties are sketched with loving sadism.
- Influenced by Oscar Wilde and Kipling

Types of Conflict

Man vs society: The tense relationship between the children and the aunt; the bachelor disagreeing with the aunt's tale; the
children are restrained by the expectations that society places upon them. Man vs nature: men usually succumb to the laws
of nature as it is shown at the end of the story where Bertha is eaten by the wolf. Man vs God: this is presented as an inner
conflict related to the meaning of life and death and the religious beliefs spread by the church. The author may be questioning
the religious notion that good things happen to good people. Saki was hardly the first person to realize that righteous people
often suffer the same (or worse) fate as evil ones.

Theme: The main idea of the story is that being exceptionally good can attract both positive and negative fortune. The
concepts dealt within the story are:

Innocence to experience for the first time, the children are being exposed to the truths of the world, and not sheltered by
the fantasy of nothing bad happening to good people.

The Importance of Humility: Bertha is so proud of her medals that she chooses to wear them everywhere she goes. This
proves to be her doom, as it is the clinking of her medals that alerts the wolf to her presence and leads to her downfall.

Tone

Irony is the authors implicit feeling towards the story. An example of this is when Bertha is caught due to the clinking of her
good conduct medals. The author seems to be making fun at the kind of dull, moralistic tales that were often told to
children. In this story, as in real life, the children prefer the story of a goody-goody who is destroyed by her own goodness.
Children tend to find traditional moral stories boring, since they are so predictable and unrealistic. Children seemed to prefer
nasty plausible stories to fairy tales.

Characters

Saki uses indirect characterization, which is the description of characters, not by telling us information about them, but by
showing the characters in action or dialogue. Saki does not even give his characters names, with the exception of Cyril.

The aunt: is apparently unable to take control of them, for which the bachelor is extremely irritated. She is indirectly described
by her correct manners. Through her actions, we can infer that the aunt is quite a stereotypical because she represents the
typical society woman with no children of her own who, upon being charged with the responsibility of her nieces and nephew,
seems to lose control of them, and of her own discipline skills.

The bachelor: is the protagonist, the main character. Saki narrates how the bachelor had a frown and a scowl that made the
aunt perceive him as a "hard, unsympathetic man. We know that the bachelor's personality was entirely amiable for the
children, because he entertained, and left a great impression upon them. The aunt was never pleased, especially when the
bachelor pointed her inability and heightened his own ability to keep the children quiet.
 The children: mischievous, likely to misbehave, and cannot be controlled by their aunt.

RISING ACTION: Crisis: In an attempt to quiet the children, he tells them another version of the aunt's tale. In his story, the
main character, Bertha is so "horribly good" that she has three medals for her good behaviour. Tales of her goodness are
spread throughout the country and she is invited to walk through the prince's park. However, as she does so, a wolf appears,
looking for its supper. She runs to the myrtle bushes, looking for a place to hide.

CLIMAX: The wolf, unable to find her, is on the verge of leaving, when he is alerted to her location by the clinking of her
medals. Rather than escape, the heroine in the bachelor's story is unexpectedly eaten by the wolf.

The symbols

The Children

They represent society and their beliefs. In other words, just as the children expect exceptional virtue to be rewarded
exceptionally, society expects the same thing. The purpose of the story within the story, is that exceptional virtue can be a
danger. The children's interest and surprise in this revelation serves as a symbolic prediction of how an audience will respond
to the short story.

The Good Girl: Bertha (referred to as "horribly good")represents an ideal.

the symbolic manifestation of the ideal of exceptional goodness. Her actions and thoughts are very generic for the reason
that ideals do not have personalities. Instead, the girl demonstrates that being exceptionally good is not a guarantee that
nothing bad will ever occur to you (hadnt she been so horribly good, she wouldnt have been eaten)
The park:
It represents the rewards of virtue, but it does not symbolize the traditional image of an Eden. The pigs have eaten all the
flowers, so the traditional symbol of beauty is gone and in its place are pigs, suggesting the garden is more of a place of
interest rather than of pleasure. The garden symbolizes the gifts granted to those who are virtuous and forbidden to those
who are not. This idea of an exclusive reward for goodness is an idea possessed by the children on the train and, therefore,
by society as a whole.
The Pigs: Symbolize mediocrity. When the good girl attracts the attention of the wolf, she is attracting it away from
the pigs which represent the ideal of moderation, which is why they are able to escape the danger of the wolf.

The Wolf
Represents misfortune. Its role in the story is to upset the understandings of moral justice, and it does this through the
devouring of the good girl. Had the girl not been exceptionally good, the wolf would have eaten one of the pigs. But because
something exceptional caught its attention, those that were moderate were spared. The wolf, just like the girl and the pigs,
is an embodiment of an ideal. Saki presents a view of the world that exceptional virtue is not always rewarded exceptionally.
This fact is represented as a law of nature.

Personal opinion:The bachelors story has an unexpected ending, one that many people would disapprove, as the aunt does.
But why do we find the children so excited about this horrible story and not with the happy one of their aunt? From our point
of view, the kids find their curiosity and need of entertainment satisfied by this story because it is out of what is common,
different from what they are used to hear in their everyday lives, whereas the aunts story is the typical one with the happy
ending, which is too good to be true and therefore, lacks excitement.

Humans like things that we consider unpleasant but at the same time please our senses. Why do we find ourselves attracted
by horror films? We dont know the answer, but we personally consider the word morbidity a good one to explain the
childrens reaction to the bachelors story.