Ulrich von Gradwitz is in the forest to hunt down his archenemy Georg Znaeym in order to kill him. Both Ulrich and Georg despise each other from childhood and their antipathy for each other has blown out of proportion to a point where they want to eliminate each other. This is because of a piece of forest land that separates each family’s land and which had been the root cause of animosity between the two families for several generations. Even though the courts had ruled that the land rightfully belonged to Ulrich’s family, the disgruntled Znaeym family still laid claim over it. During this particular evening, Ulrich just like Georg had ventured into the disputed forest land in order to seek his enemy out and kill him in order to end the generations’ long feud. The two men were in the company of a group of foresters whom they had...
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each gathered to further assist their course. Ulrich finally encounters Georg face-to-face but before any of the men exchange fire, lighting strikes a tree that turns over and traps the men underneath it. While trapped, Georg and Ulrich reconciled and united to call out for help.
In the Saki short story "The Interlopers," Ulrich is in the forest looking for his sworn enemy.
“…eastern spurs of the Karpathians, a man stood one winter night watching and listening, as though he waited for some beast of the woods to come within the range of his vision, and, later, of his rifle. But the game for whose presence he kept so keen an outlook was none that figured in the sportsman's calendar as lawful and proper for the chase; Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled the dark forest in quest of a human enemy, Georg Znaeym.”
Georg and Ulrich have been enemies since their birth because their fathers were enemies as were their fathers. This animosity occurred over a land dispute and has been passed down over the generations.
In the first paragraph of Saki's short story, he writes that Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled his forest in search of a human enemy, Georg Znaeym. Ulrich von Gradwitz has no intention of hunting any wild animals on his tract of precipitous land and is solely focused on murdering Georg Znaeym on this particular night. Both Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym have inherited their family feud, which has been passed down through three generations. Ulrich's family believes that they are the rightful owners of the precipitous woodland on the eastern spurs of the Karpathians and considers the Znaeym family to be illegal poachers, who continually trespassing on their land. Ulrich had hoped to catch Georg Znaeym poaching on his land and had every intention of killing him at the beginning of the story. When Ulrich von Gradwitz eventually discovers Georg in the forest, both men face each other with bad intentions. Suddenly, a massive tree falls on both of them and prevents them from exacting revenge on each other.
In "The Interlopers," what motivates Ulrich to patrol the forest?
In "The Interlopers," Ulrich von Gradwitz separates from his hunting party
on the Carpathian Mountains with the intention of patrolling the forest. His
motivation for doing this revolves around his sworn rival, Georg Znaeym, who he
knows is also in the area and whom he means to track down and kill. For
generations, the families of the two men have been struggling in a bitter feud
over land.
What Ulrich does not know is that his quarry is also looking for him, for the
same reason. Eventually, the two meet, but before they can kill each other,
they are both pinned by a large falling branch, from which there is no
unassisted escape. The two are able to make peace, finally seeing the futility
of their feud, but are eventually encircled by wolves, and the story ends with
a grim cliffhanger.
Why is Ulrich in the woods in "The Interlopers"?
In order to answer this question, some background information is necessary.
Right from the beginning of the story, the narrator introduces a family feud. The Gradwitz family and the Znaeym family are feuding over a tract of land. The land is not very good, but they are fighting out of hatred, rivalry, and pride. The court ruled in favor of the Gradwitz family, but the Znaeyms would not accept it.
After two generation Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym are still fighting. Ulrich and his men are in the forest for one reason. They want to guard the land from Georg and his people. Ulrich even wants to kill him. Ulrich considers Georg an interloper. According to the text, there was real animosity. The men hated each other. The language that Saki uses is strong:
The neighbour feud had grown into a personal one since Ulrich had come to be head of his family; if there was a man in the world whom he detested and wished ill to it was Georg Znaeym, the inheritor of the quarrel and the tireless game-snatcher and raider of the disputed border-forest. The feud might, perhaps, have died down or been compromised if the personal ill-will of the two men had not stood in the way; as boys they had thirsted for one another's blood...
The irony of the story is that they become friends, as both men are pinned down under a felled tree.