Dusk

The setting must have been very important to Saki for this particular story. He wanted the reader to feel the mood of a city at that particular time, when the day's activities were at an end and...

In "Dusk," Gortsby feels that the time of day known as dusk is the hour of defeated people. People who live defeated lives come out at dusk. It is a time of day when they will not be recognized...

If you want to take the position that the young stranger who sat down beside Norman Gortsby had just made up his hard-luck story on the spur of the moment, there are several clues you can offer....

Titling his story "Dusk" and beginning it with a description of dusk gives the setting a universal quality. Dusk is a time rather than a place. Dusk occurs everywhere all around the globe, so...

In Norman Gortsby, Saki created a character who would serve to illustrate his moral, which is that charity is often a mistake. Gortsby is young. He has a lot to learn about life and people,...

Perhaps this would be a good place to try to explain exactly what the young man claims happened to him, since it seems pretty odd for a person to lose a hotel. The young man says he "came up this...

Literally speaking, the role of the soap is that it fools Norman Gortsby and makes him give money to the young man. The young man says that he has forgotten which hotel he was staying in (he had...

Stochastically speaking, there is at least a ninety-nine percent probability that the young grifter was lying about his whole hard-luck story, including the cake of soap. He tells Norman Gortsby he...

The young man's story was cleverly constructed and carefully rehearsed. The fact that he couldn't produce the cake of soap to substantiate it was his one mistake. There is one especially clever...

Saki's short story "Dusk" presents people in a park who partake in that time of day that is neither day nor night. In this "gloaming" period they pass along the walks unnoticed. On the bench...

The delightful short story "Dusk" told in Saki's typical style of irony and surprise, brings to mind two important points: the hubris of the wealthy at that period of England's history, and the...

Saki opens his story "Dusk" with a description of the poor people who come out after dark because they are ashamed to show themselves by daylight. They are described from the protagonist Norman...

Norman Gortsby was apparently accustomed to lounging on a park bench at the end of the day. This suggests that he is not to be taken as a gentleman of leisure but as a young man with a...

The title "Dusk" seems quite appropriate for Saki's story for several reasons. Obviously, it creates a mood associated with the setting. Most importantly, however, is the fact that dusk is the time...

Dusk centers on a series of interactions in Hyde park in London between Norman Gortsby (whose perspective the story follows), an old man, and a young man. Norman sees the old man sitting on the...

To me, the old man is sort of a plot device -- he is used as a way to set up Gortsby to be fooled by the younger man. He also serves as the one who reveals to Gortsby that he has been fooled. At...

The young man who tries to con Gortsby with a hard-luck story about losing his hotel appears to be a novice criminal. For one thing, he is "young," so he could not have had much experience. For...

Saki does not share physical characteristics about Norman Gortsby in his story “Dusk.” Everything in the story is seen through Gortsky’s thoughts and feelings although he is not the narrator of...

Norman Gortsby is probably in his mid-twenties. Saki wanted him to be young because the moral of the story is conveyed by Gortsby's painful learning experience. He is not a wealthy gentleman of...

The short story "Dusk" by Saki opens with a man named Gortsby sitting on a park bench at dusk, contemplating the type of people around him in the park at that time of day. An elderly man next to...

The young stranger tells Gortsby that he left his hotel to buy a cake of soap. He ought to have the cake of soap in his possession to serve as proof of his story. It seems possible that the elderly...

The story opens with Norman Gortsby sitting on a bench in a park in London. It is early March and dusk is setting in, and this pleases Gortsby who sees dusk as "the hour of the defeated" when men...

The term "jostling" was probably an accurate description of many of London's streets. Saki was born in 1870, long before automobiles were even thought of. Many streets in big cities were not even...

The young con man either invented the story about the lost hotel or else he learned it from some other con man. He seems to be a novice. He should have bought a cake of soap in order to be able to...

What a great question. I believe the short story "Dusk," by Saki has its title for a two-fold reason. The setting is around 6:30 on a March evening in Hyde Park: dusk. But more importantly, I...

The young man that replaces the old gentleman who seems so defeated by the vicissitudes of life on the bench is described as being "fairly well dressed" but having the same depressed and browbeaten...

The story takes place at dusk. This is the time of day when it is just getting dark. The significance of the time of day is that the defeated people come out at dusk. It is a time of day when the...

When the story of "Dusk" opens, the setting is a park. The main character Gortsby is sitting on a park bench. He is noticing the defeated who come out at dusk, the time of day when no one will...

The chief similarity, or the common denominator, between the young con man in Saki's "Dusk" and the elderly con man in Dahl's story "The Umbrella Man" is that both have figured out ways to obtain...

The dusk, or twilight, and the cake of soap contribute to the lesson of Saki's "Dusk" in two ways: 1. Both the dusk,"the hour of the defeated" and the cake of soap are symbolic of Norman Grotsby's...

There is no irony in “Dusk” until the end. Gortsby is observing the men and women he thinks of as “the defeated,” but he is not feeling sorry for them. The scene pleased Gortsby and harmonized...

In several ways, Norman Grotsby of "Dusk," and the mother in"The Umbrella Man" are similar, yet there are some differences. Norman Grotsby While Norman Grotsby considers himself among the...

Saki seems to be deliberately leaving the ending of "Dusk" with an open question. Apparently the young stranger was a fledgling con artist who got a sovereign and a cake of soap from Gortsby by the...

Norman Gortsby strikes me as a sophisticated young man who has lived in the great city of London for years and has been approached for money innumerable times. He is eminently approachable because...

It appears that the young man's emotional reaction may have been part of his act. The text tells us that, after the brief show of emotion, he quickly blurts out a word or two of thanks before he...

Given that you did not specify which passage, this answer will address numerous passages and the qualities present in the protagonist for each passage. Saki's short story "Dusk" tells of Norman...

"Dusk" seems an appropriate title for this story. The author emphasizes that it is the time of day when people whom he describes as "defeated" come out because they are ashamed to be seen in the...

"Dusk" is another one of Saki's darkly ironic tales. The protagonist, Gortsby, spends the duration of the story observing people scurrying about at dusk. He thinks of most of the people whom he...

When the story opens, Gortsby is sharing a bench with an elderly gentleman who has "a drooping air of defiance." His appearance in the story at all seems to be to serve as the rightful owner of the...

This is an interesting question. It is a very strange coincidence that both the old man and the young man claim to have lost a cake of soap. It is hard to see how they could have been accomplices,...

Perhaps we can understand the setting, tone, mood and message of “Dusk” better if we consider certain facts about the author Saki, whose real name was H. H. Munro. According to an article in...

Saki describes the setting and the atmosphere in the opening paragraph of his story. It was some thirty minutes past six on an early March evening, and dusk had fallen heavily over the scene, dusk...

The young man lets out a loud—and very audible—expletive as he flings himself into the seat next to Gortsby. Straight away, it's pretty obvious that he's not in the best of moods. We soon discover...

The story "Dusk" by Saki illustrates the defeated. It is at this time where many unconsidered figures moving silently through the half-light, or dotted unobtrusively on bench and chair, scarcely...

The title of "Dusk" for Saki's story is indeed appropriate on both the literal and the figurative levels. For, it defines the setting which is at twilight, the time when the defeated come to the...

As is typical of Saki, there is a subtle irony to his story, "Dusk," in which a complacent, yet heart-weary Norman Grotsby rests on a park bench in the Park in London at twilight. The scene...