Dusk
by Saki
(Hector Hugh Munro)
Comprehension
Read and answer:
1. Match the following:
=
|
a. Dusk, to his mind, |
i. count himself among the defeated. [b] |
|
b. Gortsby was in the mood to |
ii. genuineness of
your story has turned up.[e]
|
|
c. The weak point of your story is |
iii. on one
afternoon suggests wilful carelessness. [d]
|
|
d. To loose a hotel and a cake of soap
|
iv. was the hour of
the defeated. [a]
|
|
e. The important witness to the |
v. that you can't
produce the soap. [c]
|
2. Fill in the blanks:
a. Men and women who came out at dusk were those who had fought and lost.
b. Gortsby had failed in a more subtle ambition and for the moment he was heartsore and disillusioned.
c. The old gentlemen on the bench belonged unmistakably to that forlorn orchestra to whose piping on one dances.
d. His place on the bench was taken almost immediately by a young man, fairly well dressed but scarcely more cheerful of mien than his predecessor.
Reference to context:
4. "You wouldn't be in a good temper if you were in the fix I'm in," he said; I've done the silliest thing I've ever done in my life."
a. Who is he? Who is he speaking to?
= He is the young man.
He is speaking to Gortsby.
b. Why is he not 'in a good temper'?
= He is not in a 'good temper' because he has been in a 'fix' since he has come up there. He came up that afternoon, meaning to stay at the Patagonian Hotel in Berkshire Square. when he went there he found that it had been pulled down some weeks ago and a cinema theatre run upon the site. Taxi driver recommended him to another hotel some way off and he went there.
He jest sent a letter to his people, giving them the address, and then he went out to buy some soap. As he hated using hotel soap. He then strolled about, had a drink at a bar and looked at the shops. He then came to turn his steps back to the hotel and he suddenly realized that he did not remember its name or even what street it was in. He can not know the address by wiring his people as the letter has yet not received by them. He is without any money, came out with about a shilling and spent it in buying the soap. He is wondering about with two pence in his pocket and nowhere to go for the night.
c. How did he make it know to others that he was in a bad mood?
= There was an eloquent pause after the story had been told. He was talking to Gortsby with a resentment in his voice.
5. The young man hastily removed all doubt on the subject by pocketing the coin.
a. Which 'subject' is being referred to here?
= The 'subject' is about the genuineness of his story which he has told to Gortsby. He has told Gortsby the he has come to buy a soap. Eventually Gortsby found a cake of soap under the bench they were sitting. This made Gortsby believe the story of the young man.
b. Why does the young man accept the coin so quickly?
= The young man was conscious about the fact that the soap found by Gortsby was not his, so he wanted to terminate the matter as soon as possible as this might expose his falsehood.
c. What does this act tell us about the character of the young man?
= Firstly the young man was very skillful in convincing others by his story telling telling talent. He could well manage every events sequence wise from the beginning to end. He is conscious about in which way his mischief could have been exposed. So, very aptly he was stopping those segments of conversation with Gortsby.
Reflect and answer:
6. What mood is the author trying to create in the first two paragraphs? Which words has he used to create the mood? Write five words/phrases used for this.
= The author is trying to create a vacant and pensive mood in the first two paragraphs. He describes the scene of the surrounding to create a mind set of the readers before going through the whole story. The writer very skilfully uses the words - 'sward'; 'dusk had fallen heavily'; 'dusk mitigated'; 'some faint moonlight'; 'unconsidered figures'; etc. to create the mood.
7. What kind of person do you think the young man is ? Draw a character map to show his character traits. Are they positive traits, negative ones or a mix of both? Justify your trait choices with examples.
= At the moment the writer introduces us to the young man, he was fairly well dressed and he was not mentally more cheerful. It clearly showed that the world went badly with him.
In reply to Gortsby's suspicion, he told him the whole story of how he came there got into a hotel, came outside to buy a soap and forgot about the address of the hotel he was lodging in. Above all, he had got insufficient money with him to spend the night anywhere else.
His story was so convincing that Gortsby along with all the readers took it as fully true. Till here, the trait of the young man was positive. Then Gortsby found the cake of soap and our assumption becomes firm belief that young man was genuine. Gortsby offered him money and very aptly he took it without delay.
Then we see that Gortsby found the elderly gentleman poking and peering beneath the same bench for a cake of soap, he became astonished as well as the readers too. This apparently proves that the young man was a fraud to convince and get money from Gortsby. It is also possible that both the old man and the young man bought a cake of soap each and both of them lost it. The writer has portrayed the young man totally in negative trait, but in a mix of negative and positive both instead.
8. "Yes, sir, a cake of soap." What do these lines suggest? Why are they important in the story?
= These lines suggest that the soap which Gortsby thought of the young man, was actually of the old man. Initially, based on the cake of soap, he thought the whole story of the young man was true and he gave him a coin. But these lines of the old man proved him to be all wrong.
These very lines raise question on all our assumption and perception of the whole storyline. This also takes the judgement of Gortsby before doubts. This is the turning point of the story making the positive traits to negative within a blink of an eye. This marks the end of the story leaving us in utter illusion.
9. If you read the lesson carefully, the narrator's ability to observe and identify people's emotions, though it sometimes get muddled up by his active imagination, is highly honed. Imagine that you are waiting at a bus stop or sitting in a balcony on a sunny day. A person comes and sits down in your line of sight. She heaves a deep sigh and bends forward and puts her head in her hands. How would you respond?
= If such a person sits beside me, definitely I'll ask about her current situation and if I can help her anyway and I will try my best to console her and heal her problem everyway.
Besides this I will definitely keep it in mind that whether her worries are genuine or not. Still I will help her by not crossing the limit of personal safety.
About the playwright :
Saki (1870-1916) was the pen name of Hector Hugh Munro. He is known for writing short stories with surprising or unexpected endings. Most of his stories were written about the England of his times, though the situations depicted were generally unusual.