Vengeance deferred: Children in selected short stories of Saki.
Abstract
This article examines the position of privilege allotted to children in selected short stories by ‘Saki' (H.H. Munro 1870-1916) and the possible autobiographical justification behind it. While other writers, then and now, have favoured the child over adults, Saki is notable for the intensity of his bias, by which children are intrinsically cruel but honest, and uncontaminated by the hypocrisy that marks the grown-up. Their behaviour can, however, transgress accepted moral boundaries, especially in their treatment of very young infants.
Saki’s fiction is also striking in its lack of mothers, particularly a lack of caring mothers. In their stead there is the aunt who embodies all that is false and callous in the adult world and who, on a significant number of occasions, is the target of vengeance on the part of her young wards. Equally significant is the bond forged between children and animals in an alliance against these representatives of insipid adulthood.
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References
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