What writing style and literary techniques does Saki use in "Dusk"?
Saki's prose style clearly owes a certain amount to the aesthetic movement of the late nineteenth century, particularly the work of Oscar Wilde and Max Beerbohm. He tends, however, to be less poetically descriptive, favoring dryness and brevity over florid vocabulary. In "Dusk," it is notable that the atmosphere he describes at the beginning has everything to do with the title of the story but little to do with the plot—except, perhaps that a man would probably be more anxious about having no place to stay in London as the dusk draws in. Saki uses light and noise as symbols of success or participation in life, whereas Gortsby prefers the quiet and dim light that are connotations of dignified failure.
The dialogue is crisp and light, with the young man emphasizing that he is not a beggar by refusing even to ask directly for money. The closest...
Unlock This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial and get ahead in class. Boost your grades with access to expert answers and top-tier study guides. Thousands of students are already mastering their assignments—don't miss out. Cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
he comes is the following circumlocution:
"Unless I can find some decent chap to swallow my story and lend me some money I seem likely to spend the night on the Embankment. I'm glad, anyhow, that you don't think the story outrageously improbable."
He threw a good deal of warmth into the last remark, as though perhaps to indicate his hope that Gortsby did not fall far short of the requisite decency.
The desperation remains firmly below the surface, to the extent that Gortsby does not even directly refuse. He merely suggests that he might be more likely to help if the young man were able to produce the bar of soap. This restraint in the dialogue reflects the unemotional style of narration. Repetition is judiciously employed to emphasize coincidence, as when Gortsby reflects that the young man should have produced a cake of soap "wrapped and sealed with all the solicitude of the chemist's counter" and this phrase is repeated almost exactly when describing the cake of soap he finds. The sequence of coincidences and apparent coincidences with a final twist is typical of Saki's technique, which in this particular story involves such a sudden and paradoxical inversion of the protagonist's thoughts that it seems even closer than usual to the works of O. Henry.
What type of language is used in Saki's story "Dusk"?
In his story "Dusk," author Saki employs light/dark imagery to create a certain mystery in his narrative; in addition, his skillful utilization of irony and satire enhances the startling effect of his story's ending.
For instance, the mysterious tone is established with the light/dark imagery in the exposition of the narrative as Saki writes of the "faint moonlight," "shadowed gloom," and the "gloaming hour" which disguises the "unconsidered figures" who move with "bowed shoulders." In this atmosphere of abject figures in the twilight, Saki's character of Norman Grotsby, who takes cynical pleasure in watching the others, seems somewhat superior since he has only failed in what Saki terms a more "subtle ambition." With this subtle word choice which suggests Grotsby's superiority, and his demonstration of mental acumen as he detects the flaw in the young man's tale of being lost after stepping out of his hotel for soap, the satiric irony of Gortsby's error in thinking that the soap discovered under the bench after the young man departs belongs to him is startling.
In order to further enhance the irony and satire, Saki's diction creates credibility on the part of the young man. For example, Saki writes that the young man possesses a "look of disarming frankness," and he makes "an eloquent pause." When Gortsby does not seem to believe him, the youth displays "a suggestion of resentment in his voice." Further, this diction disarms the unsuspecting reader as the youth
threw a good deal of warmth into the last remark, as though perhaps to indicate the hope that Gortsby did not fall short of the requisite decency.
Thus, the diction of the narrative about the young man who talks in the shadows of twight to the cynical Gortsby, who seems the superior man of the dialogue, enhances the satire of human nature as well as the startling irony of the last line of the story.