The Romancers Saki

Contents

4the Author Plot

SummaryMain

CharactersWriting Styles

Personal Statements

21 3 5

About the AuthorHector Hugh Munro (18 December 1870 – 14 November 1916)Pen Name: SakiWitty, mischievous and sometimes macabre stories satirized Edwardian society and culture Considered a master of the short story and often compared to O. Henry and Dorothy Parker

Plot Summary

【 A professional beggar tried to tell his fake miserable experience to Morton Crosby in order to arouse sympathy in the latter, and eventually get money from him. However, Crosby was too intelligent to believe the beggar’s story. Instead of exposing him directly, Crosby made up an even more ridiculous story. In the end, the beggar failed to cheat Crosby of his money. 】

Main Characters

Morton Crosby

The Beggar

• wary of strangers• street-smart 江湖智慧• concerned about personal interests

• a liar who wants to make use of others' sympathy and get something for nothing

Analysis of Characters

The Beggar: I daresay you've found it to be a strange world, mister?

Morton Crosby: The strangeness has worn off in the course of thirty-six years.

The Beggar: Marvelous things that have really happened to me.Morton Crosby: Nowadays there is no demand for marvelous things that have really happened, the professional writers of fiction turn these things out so much better.

Analysis of Characters

The Beggar: I take it that you are a professing Christian. Morton Crosby: I am a prominent and I think I may say an influential member of the Mussulman community of Eastern Persia.

The Beggar: Persia. I should never have taken you for a Persian.Morton Crosby: I am not, my father was an Afghan.

The Beggar: Afghanistan. Ah! A very wealthy country, I believe. No real poverty there.Morton Crosby: It possesses, nevertheless, a number of highly talented and ingenious beggars...

Battle and Rebuttal

The conversation had at last taken a favourable turn.

The Beggar: Then if I was to ask you for a small loan - if I was to ask you for, say - Morton Crosby: At any other time, certainly, in the months of November and December, however, it is absolutely forbidden for anyone of our race to give or receive loans or gifts...The Beggar: But it is still October! wants eight days to the end of the month!Morton Crosby: The Afghan November began yesterday.

Battle and Rebuttal

Writing Style

Witty

Sarcastic

【 A witty, mischievous and sarcastic short story that satirized Edwardian society 】

Writing Style

EXAMPLES:1.(para 1) It was autumn in London, that blessed season between the harshness of winter and the insincerities of summer; a trustful season when one buys bulbs and sees to...

2.(para 2)Out of the corner of his eye Crosby also noted with some interest the hesitating hoverings of a human figure, which had passed and repassed his seat two or three times at shortening intervals, like a wary crow about to alight near some possibly edible morsel.

EXAMPLES:3.(para 2) The uncared-for clothes, the aggressive, grizzled beard, and the furtive, evasive eye of the new-comer bespoke the professional cadger, the man who would undergo hours of humiliating tale-spinning and rebuff rather than adventure on half a day's decent work.

4.(para 18) He raised his voice on the word "poverty" with a suggestion of intense feeling. Crosby saw the opening and avoided it.

"Two of a trade never agree" ( 同行是冤家 )"Men are not what they were in times past and the general moves are getting worse and worse."( 人心不古，世风日下 )

Personal Comments

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