I would describe the overall tone as light-hearted and comical as the story was written mainly to mock the upper class society. The fact that the typical ghostly settings, dark, dull weather, evil presence and ghosts are non existent in ‘Laura’ contributes to the overall purpose of the text and the overall tone of the story.
What evidence is there to suggest Saki wrote this story as a playful, satirical attack on Edwardian upper-class values? :
The purpose of the text Laura is to mock the upper class Edwardian society. The story is narrated in third person, limiting the point of view. Most of the characters beliefs and thoughts are meant to be implied by their speech; here Saki displays his unique wit. We are to assume characters’ personalities through their word choice, we learn a lot about the character Amanda, who if followed throughout the story.
Firstly, the stark contrast in Laura and Amanda’s reactions to Laura’s impending death puts emphasis on the way the Edwardian Society think and behave. Amanda who is portrayed as ‘one of those who shaped their opinions rather readily from the standpoint of those around them’ reacts in a serious manner and shrugs off Laura’s unorthodox ways of thinking when Laura talks about reincarnation. One way to look at this is the upper class are sheep, they follow the crowd. Amanda’s reaction may also imply that Amanda is afraid to die as she is so involved in her life, she doesn’t want to leave her social activities behind.
At the time of Lauras death, Amanda complains at how ‘dreadfully upsetting’ it is for Laura to die at the time when she ‘asked a lot of friends down for golf and fishing and the rhododendrons are looking their best’. Amanda seems to be far more upset about her having to cancel her social activities rather than her friend, Laura’s death. This adds new elements to Amanda’s character, which are selfishness, inconsiderate and maybe even cold-hearted. The reader begins to ponder whether all of the upper class society is the type to behave in such a manner.
Sir Lulworth, Amanda’s uncle, further contributes to the undesirable image the reader builds up in their mind, with the comments he makes about Laura. Sir Lulworth talks about how ‘inconsiderate’ Laura had been ‘born during Goodwood week, with an Ambassador staying in the house who hated babies’, this also implies Sir Lulworth may have known Laura since she was born, they could even be related.
Sir Lulworth seems to like to analyse situations, but never too far. Although he will question and point out what comes from his thinking, he does not seem to like to think about certain topics such as life after death. This is evident when Amanda asks him if he thinks Laura has been passed into animal form, he stays silent and does not reply.
During this short story each time Laura reappears in different forms she always comes back with intentions of torturing Egbert but in a playful and mischievous way. Lauras actions are justified to the reader who have the impression that Laura is not the typical ‘snobby’ upper class citizen, she lives life to the fullest and does not obey the accepted way of doing things of her time, in a way Laura could be looked at as a reflection of the reader as her ways of thinking and behaving etc are modern and remain uninfluenced by the upper class, she is capable of making up her own mind. The readers’ sympathy does not lie with Egbert who is described by Laura as ‘peevish’. Egbert is married to Amanda and is devoted to poultry and his garden. Needless to say he runs a farm with sorts and seems quite happy with Laura’s death. Laura obviously knows what Egbert loves most and each time sets out to destroy his flower beds or kill his ‘Speckled Sussex’. Lauras decision to come back as a ‘Nubian boy’ was intended by Saki to mock colonialism, the policy of acquiring and keeping colonies.
“To Be Taken With A Grain Of Salt” by Charles Dickens
Describe what happens in the first part of the story:
The narrator, whose name isn’t mentioned, is a bachelor who works in a bank. One morning on his way to work, the narrator sees two men, one behind the other. ‘The foremost man often looked back over his shoulder. The second man followed him at a distance of some thirty paces, with his right hand menacingly raised.’ It is as though the second man was threatening the first man. As the two men passed by the window, the narrator was looking through; they both stared up at him. The narrator comments ‘I saw their two faces very distinctly and I knew that I could recognise them anywhere,’ obviously the two men left quite an impression on the narrator who points out how the first of the two men had an ‘unusually lowering appearance’ and he also describes the face of the second of the two men as ‘the colour of impure wax’. This is the first time that the narrator sees the two men, seeing the two men leaves the narrator uneasy and pondering about who they possibly could be.
A few days after the narrator’s first sighting of the two men, one late evening he was standing in his bedroom giving directions to his servant, John Derrick. His face was towards the only dressing room door which was closed. His servant had his back to the door. While the narrator was speaking to his servant the dressing room door opened; a man looked in and ‘beckoned’ to the narrator. The narrator instantly recognises the man who was beckoning, as he was second of the two men walking along Piccadilly, the man with the face ‘the colour of impure wax’. Casually, after beckoning, the figure disappears inside the dressing room, closing the door.
The narrator walks past his bedroom and opens the door with a lightened candle in his hand. The narrator at this point had no expectations of finding the figure in his dressing room and was not surprised to find no figure in his dressing room.
The narrator then turns around to see his servant ‘stood amazed’. As the narrator lays hand on his servant’s breast he realises the startling change in him. The servant ‘trembling violently’ says, “O Lord, yes, sir! A dead man beckoning,” this adds to the feeling of supernatural in the story and by now the reader begins to raise questions such as: What does the man want? This suspense device used by Charles Dickens leaves the reader hanging on edge and eager to read on out of curiosity. It is also important to note that the servant felt the presence of the figure and knew what had happened even though he had his back to the door the whole time.
The night after the incident the narrator sleeps uneasy and is eventually awoken in the morning by his servant, who has a letter in his hand. The letter summons the narrator ‘to serve upon a jury at the forthcoming sessions at the Old Bailey.’ For a day or two the narrator seems to be in two minds about whether he wants to attend the sessions or not. Finally, the narrator decides to go to the trials ‘as a break in the monotony’ of his life.
What effect does Dickens’ use of gothic elements of atmospheric description before the trial have? :
Before the trial starts Dickens uses elements of darkness, dullness etc which you would normally associate with murder. The narrator describes there being ‘a dense brown fog in Piccadilly’ on ‘the appointed morning’.
When the narrator arrives at the court, as he takes his ‘seat in the place appropriated to jurors in waiting.’ he describes the atmosphere inside the court to be the same as the weather at Piccadilly. He says, ‘I looked around the court as well as I could through the cloud of fog’. Cleverly the weather at Piccadilly is associated with the atmosphere inside the court using a simile. This sets the mood so the reader distinguishes a mental image of the atmosphere inside the court.
As the narrator looks around the court he also notices ‘the black vapour hanging like a murky curtain outside the great windows’. Pathetic fallacy is used here; the weather completely changes the mood of the text and also helps to build up suspense to what may happen at the trial. Yet again Dickens uses techniques which make the reader unable to stop reading at this point.
Describe some of the ways in which the ghost intervenes during the trial:
The ghost intervenes during the trial numerous times. The first intervention was on the second day of the trial. The narrator had been made ‘foreman of the jury’ and as he counted his ‘brother-jurymen’ he ‘found an inexplicable difficulty’. He counted several times but each time he did he ‘made them one too many’. To reassure himself he asks his ‘brother-juryman’ whose place was next to him to count instead. Hearing this request the man ‘looked surprised, but turned his head and counted’. Even this man was faced with the same difficulty of counting one extra.
Even though ‘there was no appearance – no figure’ there was always one extra this is because the ghost was present in the court and sitting with the brother-jurymen.
All of the ‘jury were housed at the London Tavern’ during the trials. On the night of the second day of the trials the ghost made an appearance to the narrator. The narrator was sitting on the officers, Mr Harker’s, bed. A strange shiver crossed Mr Harker and he said: ‘who is this!’ To behave in such a manner Mr Harker must have obviously felt the presence of something or have had an unexpected surprise. The narrator followed Mr Harker’s eyes which were ‘looking along the room’ and saw ‘the figure I expected – the second of the two men who had gone down Piccadilly’. As the narrator turns to look at Mr Harker, Mr Harker was totally calm by now and laughed off his peculiar behaviour and said, ‘I thought for a moment we had a thirteenth juryman, without a bed. But I see it in the moonlight.’ This suggests that the ghost only ever appears in the moonlight and also implies that Mr Harker did not actually see the figure but saw its shadow and felt its presence. The narrator carried on watching what the figure did. The figure was behaving in a strange manner, ‘it stood for a few moments, by the bedside of each of my eleven brother jurymen, close to the pillow. At each bed the figure stood at the right-hand side.’ The figure seems to take no notice of the narrator and disappeared where the moonlight came in. It seems that the figure is trying to send the narrator a message. The next morning the members of the jury that the figure had stood over during the previous night, all claimed to have had a dream of the murdered man, except Mr Harker and the narrator of course.
After this revelation the narrator’s suspicions of the ghost being the actual murdered man are confirmed.
On the fifth day of the trial a small miniature of the murdered man, in a locket, was being taken up to the jury by a ‘officer in a black gown’, the figure of the second man at Piccadilly rose from the crowd, took the miniature from the officer and handed it over to the narrator with his own hands, while saying ‘in a low and hollow tone’, before the narrator saw the miniature (as it was in a locket) – ‘I was younger then, and my face was not then drained of blood.’. The figure came between each person the miniature was being passed to but none of the jury felt the figure present except the narrator who not only felt his presence but also saw the figure. The pieces of the jigsaw are finally being put together as the narrator realises that the figure is trying to tell him he has been murdered.
The jury arrive back into Mr Harker’s custody at the end of the fifth day where they all discuss the day’s proceedings. While some of the jury were preparing to go to bed the murdered man suddenly appears behind them, calling the narrator. As the narrator joins in with their conversation, the murdered man behind them ‘immediately retires’.
After the fifth day the ghost is always in the court. There was a change in the way the murdered man behaved now; he would address himself to the person speaking at the time. The person would feel the presence and become disturbed. An example of this is on the sixth day of the trial when in the opening speech of defence it was suggested that the murdered man may have cut his own throat as it was cut straight. At that very moment, the figure, in the state that he was in when he died (with a cut throat), stood at the speakers elbows, motioning across and across its windpipe, first with the left and then, with the right hand, ‘suggesting to the speaker himself the impossibility of such a wound having been self inflicted by either hand.’ The leaders’ speech became faltered; he took his handkerchief out and began to wipe the beads of sweat off his forehead. It is important to notice that the sudden change in this man as the figure approaches him is startling.
The last day of the trial was the last time the narrator was to see the murdered man. As the judge was sat at his desk with his papers to sum up the case, the ghost appears and peers over the judges shoulder and looks at the papers. A change overcomes the judge, who seems to pick up on the murdered mans presence and begins to shiver and only recovers after drinking a glass of water.
How in this tale is the supernatural used as a means of righting an evil from the past:
It is obvious that the figure wants to convey a message to the narrator and he does so by actions rather than words. The purpose of supernatural in this tale is so that justice is served and the accused man, who is the actual evil in this tale, is sentenced for his deed.
Explain what happens at the end of the story:
At the end of this short but dramatic story, justice is served. The trial comes to an end and the accused man is sentenced. On the day of the verdict, the murdered man wears a ‘great grey veil’. When the verdict ‘Guilty’ is announced by the jury, the figure seems satisfied and drops his veil and leaves the court room. Following the juries verdict, the judge also announces the final verdict, which is ‘Guilty’.
The judge asks the murderer if he has anything to say before the sentence of death could be passed upon him and he replies in silent mumbles, ‘My Lord, I knew I was a doomed man when the foreman of my jury came into the box. My Lord, I knew he would never let me off, because, before I was taken, he somehow got to my bedside in the night, woke me, and put a rope around my neck,’
What the murderer says explains why he behaved is such a ‘violently agitated’ manner when he first laid eyes on the narrator.
Conclusion
“To be taken with a grain of salt” by Charles Dickens is a conventional example of this genre as it contains all the typical elements of a ghost story. The themes of this story are murder and blood is a recurring image. It is important to identify particular types of landscapes, buildings, characters and objects in this story. These elements appear in an atmosphere of terror. Gothic emphasis on the description of the weather, geographical landscapes and the element of supernatural make this ghost story conform to the gothic style and make this story conventional.
“Laura” by Saki.(H.H.Munro) is an unconventional ghost story as it does not contain all the typical elements of a ghost story. The settings are hardly mentioned but we are to assume that it is some type of country town, seeing as Egbert seems to run a farm. The weather is hardly mentioned and there is no evil present, in supernatural form. There is the reincarnated spirit of Laura whose actions are justified due to her candid nature. The elements of blood, guts and murder are non existent in this story. Due to the lack of all these elements this ghost story is considered to be unconventional.
Out of the two stories I enjoyed “To be taken with a grain of salt” by Charles Dickens the most. Dickens uses a number of techniques which builds up the element of mystery which leaves the reader full of suspense and unable to stop reading. The elements of darkness and dullness set the mood and the tone of the story and help to build up tension. Pathetic Fallacy is used on numerous occasions putting emphasis on the intensity of the situation and helping the reader to create a vivid image in their minds. The ghostly settings also contribute to the rising tension. The plot of this story revolves around a deceased man. At the beginning when the spirit is first introduced the reader ponders as to what the spirit may want, this making the reader read on to find out. The fact that the plot of this story revolves around a ghost makes this story a conventional example of this genre as in this genre a ghost exists as an inseparable element. Also once the reader finds out the true intentions of the spirit all the mysteries are not solved and remain unsolved when the story finishes for speculation in the readers minds, the ending is widely open.