Saki

Following Saki's signature style, even the singularly ridiculous name of the Pigeoncotes hints at their similarly peculiar personalities. A parody of the shallow English upper classes, the...

If Suzanne would just have been a little nicer to her friend Eleanor in Saki's story "Fur," things might have turned out quite different for her. Suzanne, however, refuses to do one small favor...

In Saki’s story “A Shot in the Dark,” Philip Sletherby happens to share a “railway carriage” or train compartment with a boy named Bertie. Philip is a young man with political ambitions who hopes...

For Saki, satire is the tool with which he is most proficient; in addition satire serves Saki's purposes as an author. For satire, while providing humor in its ridiculing of human foolishness or...

One clue that this story is set in the past and was written in the past is that Bertie is fishing for money and only comes up with a sixpence, which the author refers to earlier as a sixpenny. The...

In “The Dreamer,” snobby Adela Chemping asks her seventeen-year old nephew Cyprian to accompany her on an expedition of store sales. Not wanting to miss bargains, she invites him for one purpose:...

There are two main images found in Saki's "The Image of the Lost Soul": the little bird and the Lost Soul. Both images represent the idea of the solitary, exiled, and embraced. The little bird is...

This line that you are citing comes from "The Open Window," by Saki. The narrator says this with reference to Framton Nuttel. The narrator uses these lines to describe Nuttel when Nuttel starts...

Wilfrid has a reputation of being a kleptomaniac. This is someone who has a compulsion to steal, and even though he's just inherited the title of baron and all the phenomenal wealth that goes with...

In "A Shot in the Dark," as is often the case in his short stories, Saki is satirizing the upper echelons of the British class system. The hapless Philip Sletherby is off to Brill Hall, hoping to...

Saki's written style is perfectly matched to his choice of settings. He often sets his stories in the kind of respectable social environments with which he was all-too familiar. One thinks of the...

Mr. and Mrs. Pigeoncote have always been reluctant to invite cousin Wilfrid to stay with them, as he's an incorrigible kleptomaniac. This means that he has an uncontrollable impulse to steal...

It is ironic that Mr. Appin is killed by one of the animals he is working with, since working with the elephant was suggested as safer for people than having house cats and other household pets....

"The Music on the Hill" is very ambiguous, with a lot of room for interpretation. Was Sylvia's death all a terrible accident of a hunt gone wrong? Was it the work of the nature god Pan? Might Pan...

The irony of Saki's "The Lumber Room" is in the twists of events. Instead of the self-appointed aunt being successful in punishing Nicholas and rewarding the other children by sending them to the...

In "The Blind Spot," by Saki, Egbert has just come from his Aunt Adelaide's funeral. He has been named executor and principal heir of her belongings. Egbert is having lunch with his Uncle Lulworth....

"Tobermory" is a half-comical, half-sinister story published in 1911 in the Chronicles of Clovis. It is, primarily, the story of an incident concerning a cat named Tobermory, who has the curious...

"The Lumber Room," like Saki's "Open Window" is a little more lighthearted than his darker tales such as "The Interlopers." At first glance, "The Lumber Room" seems to be about a clever boy who...

Hello! In Mrs. Packletide's Tiger, Loona Bimberton did not shoot a tiger; her chief accomplishment was being flown by an Algerian aviator eleven miles in an airplane. Mrs. Packletide and Loona...

A blind spot is defined as "an area where a person's view is obstructed." This is the literal definition. In daily life, people often talk about having a figurative "blind spot" for someone; by...

In the enotes biography on Saki, this is written, Saki came to the short story as a satirist and never averted his eye from the darker side of human nature, a place where not only social...

As with most of Saki's short stories, the rationale behind the motivation and actions of many of his characters is often as shallow, empty, and senseless as the characters are themselves. Mrs....

Cornelius Appin has done the impossible: he has trained a regular cat to talk and make full use of human speech. While his deed is, in fact, quite amazing, it is very hard for those who surround...

Only two characters appear in the story: Egbert and his Uncle Lulworth. They discuss three other characters: the married couple Peter and Alexandra, who were Egbert's aunt and uncle, now both...

H. H. Munro (1870–1916), generally known by his pen name, Saki, originally wrote as a journalist, then turned to short fiction and novels—often satirical—as well as nonfiction. Born into an English...

If you have used any of the study guide aids such as the essays and criticisms, character analysis, of summary, for instance, there is an icon on the page that you can click which will provide you...

To persuade a reader that satire is a valuable form of literature, first define what is “valuable” to a reader. It could be an enjoyable reading experience, a lesson from literature that can affect...

"A certain German art expert, who had obtained from the municipality of Bergamo permission to inspect the famous masterpiece, declared it to be a spurious Pincini, probably the work of some...

1909.