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 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.