This is an essay for my English class. I need reviews ASAP. All of this is on short stories we've read. I'm sorry if you get lost. I've got a strict teacher... so tear it apart. Thanks.
“The Interlopers” by Saki is a story of bitter hatred, grudging reconciliation, and the unmerciful acts of nature. Ulrich von Gradwitz and Georg Znaeym are two men who have continued a long lasting feud. To add to their own conflict mother nature complicates a night of hunting, finally ending both of their lives.
“But a man who has been brought up under the code of a restraining civilization cannot easily nerve himself to shoot his neighbor in cold blood.” Both men yearn for the other's end; both wait and pray for the day they can send condolences to a widow. Yet society has turned them away from committing the actual deed. Though they can bring themselves to hate and wish ill will neither harbor the complete lack of morals it takes to kill a man without hesitation. Georg Znaeym is a man of jealousy. He sees no reason not to hunt on land the courts have deemed another's if taken from his family with trickery. Znaeym refuses an offering of wine from his enemy, Ulrich von Gradwitz, saying, “No, I can scarcely see anything' there is so much blood caked round my eyes, and in any case I don't drink wine with enemies.” Georg is a proud man. He is a man who won't accept help from any outside his circle of friends and family. He will not admit defeat or pain. Ulrich von Gradwitz is the one to offer the wine, the first movement toward friendship, “In the pain and languor that Ulrich himself was feeling the old fierce hatred seemed to be dying down.” The first glimmer of forgiveness, of pity is found in Ulrich. Ulrich is merciful, though he has wanted to kill Georg as much as Georg has him. He is more mature, because he can put all the bad feelings aside in a time of need.
This story is full of conflicts. The whole theme is how foolish small quarrels are. The small quarrel is man verses man between Znaeym and von Gradwitz. “As boys they had thirsted for one another's blood, as men each prayed misfortune might fall on the other.” This rivalry has been going on for all of their lives. All of this time they have been fighting over over a forest. This forest, ironically, gives them a bigger, slightly more important problem to focus on. “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 tree had thundered down upon them.” As they are arguing over Conflict Number One a tree falls on them, producing Conflict Number Two, a man verses nature conflict. Finally, Conflict Number Three is also man verses nature. “Who are they?”
“Wolves.”
Ulrich sees forms in the distance, and both men cry for help, assuming the forms are men. When they get close enough to be seen clearly Ulrich realizes that these forms are in fact wolves. The wolves then eat the two men trapped under the birch tree. That is the end of Conflict Number Three and the conclusion of the story.
This short story is ironic in a cruel way the other three stories could not produce. The two men find peace to a feud that has been going on for at least three generations trapped by a tree in the forest that is the root of their animosity. That is ironic in itself. Then, before anyone can be told that a treaty has been made they are eaten, silenced forever. “Good,” snarled Georg, “good. We fight this quarrel out to the death, you and I and our foresters, with no cursed interlopers to come between us.” The court was the interloper Znaeym was speaking of, getting in between the two families and their argument. The wolves are the true interlopers though, and they do not come between the men but between peace and goodness. “No one living can remember seeing a Znaeym and a von Gradwitz talking to one another in friendship. And what peace there would be among there would be among the forester folk if we ended our feud tonight and if we choose to make peace among our people tonight there is none other to interfere, no interlopers... Ulrich von Gradwitz I will be your friend.” The men never get to make peace among their people because of the cursed interlopers, the wolves. “There was silence again for some minutes and then Ulrich gave a joyful cry.
“I can see figures coming through the wood. They are following in the way I came down the hillside.” Ulrich is happy about figures, and then they turn out to be the wolves, the interlopers that bring his death. Each of the short stories we have read have been ironic in one way or another but this one takes the cake.
“The Interlopers” is most similar to “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell. In both the characters are avid hunters, and that hobby leads to the man verses man conflict. General Zaroff found his end with the help of his cockiness, and Znaeym and von Gradwitz are killed with the forest they both see as theirs. In both stories characters are killed with something in their possession, and irony can be found in that situation. There is a conflict between men, and the only resolution either see at the beginning is death. Canines are the direct cause of death in both stories, and thus nature confronts men in a man verses nature conflict.
