Write about a selection of Saki's stories. What impression do they create of the world of adult-child relationships?

Write about a selection of Saki’s stories. What impression do they create of the world of adult-child relationships?

In order to answer this question I am going to be focusing on three of Saki’s stories; the story-teller, the lumber room and the open window.

Children at the time Hector Munro (Saki) was writing these stories would have had very vivid imagination; this is shown in Saki’s story “The Open Window” when the niece makes up the saga of Mr Sappleton’s death, illustrates how imaginative children can be, and that adults are very easily fooled. Fooling adults is a key theme in Saki’s stories; another time when it occurs is in the story “The Lumber Room” when Nicholas dupes his aunt into believing that he is somehow trying to get into the gooseberry garden, but instead has no intention of doing so but does sneak into the Lumber Room.

Another key theme that appears in these stories is that the children in all the stories are seen as innocent. This is shown in Saki’s story “The Open Window” when the Mr Nuttel believes the nieces story because he has no reason to think that a fifteen year old girl has any reason to lie, especially about something as horrible as death. Again these also relates to the theme of children being able to fool adults, because they are seen as innocent.

I am now going to write about the characters in Saki’s stories. Each story contains an ...

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I am now going to write about the characters in Saki’s stories. Each story contains an Aunt, who is perceived a strict and a person who follows the rules of Edwardian society very closely, and children, who tend to break the regulations that Edwardian society has, and by some other characters, like the Batchelor in the story “The Story-Teller” and Mr Nuttel in the story “The Open Window”

Firstly I am going to concentrate on the Bachelor in “The Story-Teller”. He is different to the rest of the adults in the early stories because he tells the children a story about a young girl is “horribly good”. The concept of someone been horribly good is alien to Edwardian society. Furthermore in the same story he also mentions that the girl who is “horribly good” gets killed by a wolf. This is another idea that would not have been thought possible to happen in Edwardian society, because they believed that you can never be too good. Saki has invented the character of the Bachelor in order to help him to ridicule Edwardian society. An example of the Bachelor ridiculing Edwardian society is when he comments on the aunts appalling attempt to tell a story – this would have been frown upon especially because he is not related to the family in any way.

The Aunts in these stories are exact models of how adults in Edwardian society should behave. This is shown throughout Saki’s stories, but is more prominent in the open window when the aunt starts moaning about how much mess her husband will make all over her “fine carpets”. This shows that she is very house-proud, like an Edwardian wife should be, and that she probably spends most of her time cleaning, cooking and washing.

507 Words Stuart Birse 10R (Page