Analysis Of Interlopers By Saki

Have you ever protected your belongings from someone? In the story Interlopers, a man named Ulrich von Gradwitz protects his ancestral property from an enemy in a rival family named George Znaeym. When a tree falls on top of them, the two men get trapped and ends the feud between the two families. In Saki’s “Interlopers”, Saki uses the plot, setting, and conflict to structure the story to help create tension and surprise. The theme of the story is to “forgive and forget”, which is applied near the end of the story when the two enemies realize the trouble they are going through for an old forest that has been around for generations.
The plot is used to structure the story to help create tension and surprise in Saki’s “Interlopers” when Ulrich finds the enemy he’s looking for in his forest. In paragraph 3, it says “And as he stepped round the trunk of a huge beech he came face to face with the man he sought”. Ulrich finding Znaeym is a surprising moment in the story, because we are told what he was after and why he was there just before he shows up in the story. In paragraph 4, it says “The two enemies stood glaring at one another for a long silent moment. Each had a rifle in his hand; each had hate in his

heart and murder uppermost in his mind.” This scene creates tension in the story because it leaves the reader waiting on who’s going to fire the first shot.
The setting is used to structure the story to help create tension and surprise in Saki’s “Interlopers” when the value of the Gradwitz forest lands are expressed.

In chapter 2, it says “The forest lands of Gradwitz were of wide extent and well stocked with game; the narrow strip of precipitous woodland that lay on its outskirt was not remarkable for the game it harboured or the shooting it afforded”. When this is explained in the text, it brings up an Aha Moment on why the enemy family wanted to steal the land from the Gradwitz for many generations. In paragraph 1, it says “Ulrich von Gradwitz patrolled the dark forest in quest of a human enemy”. This creates tension in the story as the dark forest could have easily affected his hunt and quest of his “human

enemy”.
The conflict is used to structure the story to help create tension and surprise in Saki’s “Interlopers” when a storm cause a tree to fall on Ulrich and George. In chapter 4, it says “A fierce shriek of the storm had been answered by a splitting crash over their heads, and ere they could leap aside a mass of falling beech tree had thundered down on them”. It is a surprise on how the beech tree that Ulrich found George behind was the same tree that would help them resolve their issues. In chapter 7 and 8, the two men wait to see whose men will come first to save them from the branch. This raises tension and suspense as the story comes to an end when none of their men show up yet.
The plot, setting, and conflict is used to structure the story by Saki’s in “Interlopers” to help create tension and surprise.