What is the aunt's reaction to the bachelor’s story in "The Storyteller"?
“The Storyteller” is a short story by Hector Hugh Munro, who used the pseudonym Saki. It was first published in 1897.
The short story is about a train journey. In order to entertain the children she is travelling with, the aunt tells the children a story. The aunt’s story ends happily, as the little girl in her story is rescued and survives. However, there is a fellow passenger on the train who also listens to the aunt’s story. He criticizes her storytelling skills: “you don't seem to be a success as a story-teller.” Challenged by this, the aunt asks the bachelor to tell a story himself, which he proceeds to do.
His story, however, is a much more interesting version of the aunt’s story. In contrast to the aunt’s story, the bachelor’s story does not have a happy ending, as the little girl, Bertha, dies in his...
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version of the story. The aunt’s reaction to the bachelor’s story is therefore a negative one. She is jealous that his story had had more success with the children than her own. The children had clearly been a lot more engaged during the telling of the bachelor’s story. For example, they kept interrupting him with lots of questions in order to find out more about the story. One girl even states that “it was the most beautiful story that I ever heard,” which clearly upsets the aunt.
The aunt is said to have a “dissentient opinion” of the story. She calls the story “improper” and accuses the bachelor of undermining her authority.
What words does the bachelor use to describe the aunt in "The Storyteller"?
Early on in the story, the bachelor points out that the aunt does not "seem to be a success as a story-teller." She has attempted to quiet her two nieces and one nephew with a story that was completely unsatisfactory to the children, and they were disinterested and not entertained by it at all. In fact, it prompts even more rude comments and questions from the children, because it is so boring and predictable.
In a desire to keep the children quiet for just a few minutes, the bachelor begins to tell his own story. In it, a girl who had been "horribly good" was awarded with a private entrance into a special garden. The garden was full of pigs, and these attracted the notice of a wolf. Because the child was so clean, the wolf spotted her gleaming white frock right away, and when she hid in the bushes, her medals for goodness clinked together, giving away her location; thus, the wolf ate her. In the end, the bachelor succeeds where the aunt failed, and she insists that he has undone years of careful teaching with his story, calling it "improper." He then calls her an "unhappy woman," because, now that she's called the entertaining story "improper," the children are going to keep asking her for improper stories in public! This is certainly going to make her unhappy.