Summary Of H. H Munro's Dusk By Saki

Decent Essays
H. H. Munro, also known as Saki, is known for his practical jokes and comedic values in his short stories. One of his more well-known short stories is entitled “Dusk”. This short story is one that has more of a satirical view than a comedic view. In the story Saki makes you privy to a scene that occurs in Hyde Park, England. Ironically it is in this setting that the theme of “Dusk” comes into fruition. During the evening hours mankind tends to lose faith in one’s honesty. Why is it that the morning hours yield a greater faith in mankind than does evening hours? As the story opens, the main character, Norman Gortsby, tells us that he is sitting on a bench in Hyde Park at a little past six o’clock. Gortsby then goes on to describe some of his …show more content…
Gortsby sits in his spot on the bench and judges people and fills in blanks about their lives solely based upon the fact that it’s dusk at a public park and the way that people are dressed. I believe that the message Saki is trying to get across in this short story is that you should judge someone by location, looks, or even the time of day. This is something that can be seen in our everyday life and it may be something that even you do from time to time. Saki is trying to get the point across that we should get to know someone before we jump to conclusions about their personality or …show more content…
These all sound like lies, right? Exactly the reason why Gortsby didn’t believe his story one bit. Later on, after the young man has begun his way down the road Gortsby ends up finding a cake of soap and immediately chases after the young man while regretting jumping to conclusions about him based on his appearance. Once Gortsby has given the soap back to the young man he makes his way back to his spot at the park and finds the older gentleman searching around the bench where he was sitting. Gortsby goes up to him and asks him what he is looking for to which the old man replies that he has lost a cake of

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Author’s craft is a commonly used method in which the author uses literary devices to help tell a story. There are many different examples of Author’s Craft within the novel Night written by Elie Wiesel, a holocaust survivor. I believe that Wiesel is using Author’s Craft to help illustrate the story within the reader’s mind, as Night is a reflection of Wiesel’s personal memories with the Holocaust. Based on the different examples of Author’s Craft, I can conclude that the theme that Night is trying to convey is that “No matter how bad the circumstances are, do not give up!” as Elie Wiesel uses multiple types of Author’s Craft to help develop this theme in the story.…

    • 1116 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Night: by Elie Wiesel I chose to do a book report on this book called: “Night” written by Eliezer Wiesel. The author, Eliezer Wiesel is an actual survivor of the Holocaust, and he endured the suffering of living in the Auschwitz labour camps. This book is a first hand memoir of the horrors and painful experiences Elie Wiesel had endured when he was only fifteen years old. Throughout the book, Elie describes his struggle to keep his faith in God, as he is unable to believe that a loving God could allow horrible things happen to his “chosen” people. The title of the book, “Night” , refers to the the darkness and silence that Elie went through as a teenager living in a concentration camp.…

    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Elie Wiesel’s memoir, Night, shares the experience and personal experience from the actions that took place between 1941-1945. Throughout the text, Elie’s story of the holocaust is told. Elie’s story is shown through his spiritual and emotional transformation. During the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel changes from a spiritual, sensitive little boy to a spiritually dead, unemotional man.…

    • 990 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The novel Night was written as a first hand account of the actual events that took place during the Holocaust nearing the end of the Second World War. This account of the Holocaust underlies themes, not only of the Holocaust, but also of World War 2 itself. Some of these themes include the theme of darkness, not just the title of the story, but the physical and non-physical senses of the word. Another of these themes includes faith, particularly in Judaism, but also religion all across the world as they pertain to various ethical and moral decisions.…

    • 712 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In chapters 6-9, the Jews have given up almost completely in having faith in their God and rarely pray anymore. The realization of death is evident, people are dying daily, hourly, there’s no end to the pain and hunger these prisoners feel. Every man for himself is the moto being played out in these camps. Once they evacuated from Birkenau they had to take a long journey to the new camp called Buchenwald. It would prove to be a life defying journey as many prisoners would have lost their lives, no food or water and only living off the snow on the ground.…

    • 1156 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Jay Gatsby Downfall

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Great Gatsby is a famous and successful work which is known by most people. This novel is written by an American author F. Scott Fitzgerald during 1925. Today, The Great Gatsby is widely considered to be a literary classic and a contender for the title "Great American Novel". In 1998, the Modern Library editorial board voted it the 20th century's best American novel and second best English-language novel of the same time period.…

    • 1058 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Change is usually inevitable. Many factors influence internal or external changes in a person, causing them to turn out as a very different person. One main thing that can affect any part of a person is suffering. This suffering can be seen in the memoir Night by Elie Wiesel. Elie, a Jew and teenager, had been sent to Auschwitz, an insufferable journey, and finally to Buchenwald in central Germany, where he faced physical suffering, the test of renouncing his faith, and the obstacle of being dehumanized during the Holocaust.…

    • 887 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    For this reason, Elie Wiesel, a survivor of the Holocaust, decided on recollecting the dire memories he had of his stay at the concentration camps, into a memoir famously known as Night. The experiences he encountered has provided him with numerous life lessons, along with an altered perspective of the world.…

    • 1225 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the book Night by Elie Wiesel, He writes about his time in the concentration camps. This book takes place in the 1940s during the Holocausts. His family was Jewish and little by little their rights were taken away. It started off with small things like no radios, to not being able to leave the new ghettos that were set up. He and his family were then transported to the first camp.…

    • 701 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The chapter begins with the family of Eliezer heading towards an "unknown location." Throughout this journey, the protagonist becomes more aware of this situation and evolves into a different person altogether. I think from the moment Eliezer's family had been on that train; there has been a significant change in the outlook for the future of their family. Eliezer sort of went from believing everything, to being more ignorant and hopeless about his situation. As stated, everyone ignored Ms. Schäcther who repeatedly said something related to a fire around them, "The fire over there!"…

    • 633 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In the book, Night, by Elie Wiesel describes the hardship of the Holocaust through his own eyes. While in the camp, Elie experienced many situations that gives him a larger outlook on life and builds his power. In the passage on page 37, Wiesel demonstrates the difficult times in the camp through metaphoric use and imagery. First, he uses a metaphor to give a feeling of what shape the prisoners were in.…

    • 207 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    At the beginning of Night, Eliezer describes himself as someone who believes “profoundly. ”During his experiences at the camps elie has lost a lot of faith. And toward the end his has lost it all. He has no faith.…

    • 376 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Elie Wiesel once said “To forget a Holocaust is to kill twice”. Many people fail to truly understand the atrocious and haunting incident during WWII, the holocaust. Only the survivors and witnesses truly feel the timeless pain and long term effects that it caused. Elie Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor and readers see what the Holocaust and concentration camps caused through his short novel "Night". During his experiences in the concentration camp, Elie Wiesel loses faith in his fellow man and in God.…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Night PART ONE The story takes place in 1941 Transylvanian. The narrator is a young boy of about 12 named Eliezer. He and his family are Orthodox Jews. Eliezer’s parents are very well respected shop owners.…

    • 1166 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Mezzotint Analysis

    • 1120 Words
    • 5 Pages

    James uses the darkness by allowing for the mezzotint’s changes to either take place or be discovered late in the evening or in the night-time, this is mirrored in “Oh Whistle” where the weather is described as “bleak and solemn” and everything is “too late and too dark”. Cavallaro asserts that darkness is usually associated with menace and fear and “[l]onely spots in the grip of forbidding northern winters, preferably in the dead of night, are elements of a well-known matrix” of gothic settings (2002, 21f). The eeriness of James’s atmosphere is frequently interrupted by incidents that occur during daylight. This could be used as an effective contrast between light and dark and instil a greater sense of fear in the reader. However, the harmless activities that occur during the light such as breakfast chat and games such as cards create a safe and unalarming atmosphere.…

    • 1120 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays