Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review (JSSHR) Vol. 3, No. 4 (1-15) © Author(s) December 2018 ISSN: 2279-3933 Original Article
Punishment as Misdirected Discipline: A Psychological Study of “The Lumber Room” by H.H. Munro alias Saki EA Gamini Fonseka1
Abstract ‚The Lumber Room‛ by Hector Hugh Munro(1870-1916),who wrote 1Department of under the penname ‚Saki‛, is a short story that covers the survival English and struggle of the juvenile Nicholas growing in the care of some Linguistics, authoritarian adults. The conditions Nicholas suffers in the story University of parallel with some details of Munro’s childhood that he spent in the Ruhuna-Sri Lanka custody of his aunts after the death of his mother. Based on what [email protected] transpires in the life of Nicholas as a child, this paper attempts to carry out a psychological study of punishment as misdirected discipline, in order to establish that the intelligent independently develop their own stance about the good and the bad, however much they are suppressed in society. From this general stance on Munro’s short stories, this paper investigates the psychological effects of punishment on the Aunt and Nicholas in their respective roles as the prosecutor and the offender in ‚The Lumber Room‛ in a situation of misdirected discipline.
Keywords: punishment, discipline, psychoanalysis, frustration, childcare
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Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review (JSSHR) Vol. 3, No. 4 (1-15) © Author(s) December 2018 ISSN: 2279-3933 Original Article
INTRODUCTION “The idea that children have rights that Hector Hugh Munro,whose father was the state should protect may have Scotsman Charles Augustus Munro, seemed silly at the dawn of the an inspector-general in the Burma nineteenth century, but by the time police, lost his mother, Mary Frances Queen Victoria died in 1901, it had (née Mercer) in a tragic accident in gained significant support‛ (Gubar England with a runaway cow in 1872. 2005). Yet it takes time to get such an Thereafter, Hector and his two elder idea to be embedded in a society. siblings Ethel (1868) and Charlie (1869) Creative works of this type produced were sent to Broadgate Villa, in Pilton under the influence of personal village near Barnstaple, North Devon traumas, have undergone the where Charles Munro's widowed psychoanalytic screening of both mother lived with her two unmarried Freud (1905) who ‚treated literature as daughters, Charlotte and the expression of the author’s Augusta(Greenwell, 2018). His sister subconscious mind‛ (Selden 1988), Ethel in her Biography of Saki writes: and Jung (1930) who considered that ‚One of Munro’s aunts, Augusta, was ‚literature is drawn from ’primordial a woman of ungovernable temper, of experience’ transmitted through fierce likes and dislikes, imperious, ‘collective unconscious’‛(Selden 1988). and moral coward, possessing no Both their premises apply to the brains worth speaking of, and a perception of Munro’s narratives as a primitive disposition.‛Based on the byproduct of the realities recorded in traumas he sustained as a parentless the subconscious and the fantasies child at the hands of the two auntswho engendered by the collective were very strict disciplinarians unconscious. In this context, inclined to corporal punishment and Delahoyde’s (2011) premise that ‚One indiscriminate cruelty (E.M. Munro may psychoanalyze a particular 1924), Munro wrote his short stories character within a literary work, but it collected as Beasts and Super Beasts is usually assumed that all such (Munro 1914). characters are projections of the Thus the setting of ‚The Lumber author's psyche‛ is relevant. Room‛ is Edwardian England. Munro Accordingly, the psychological traits satirises the harsh practices the adults Munro’s characters manifest of the time followed at the domestic significantly determine their positions level long after the appalling in the personal relationships within narratives of child abuse in the the matrix of power fashioned under cottages, farms, poor houses, work the Edwardian value system. Through camps, orphanages, boarding schools, his work, Munro illustrates how the and factories in the novels by Dickens, impersonal conditions maintained by the Brontë sisters, Gaskell, Hardy, etc. social institutions related to law, government, religion, education,
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Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review (JSSHR) Vol. 3, No. 4 (1-15) © Author(s) December 2018 ISSN: 2279-3933 Original Article industry, etc. affect personal in the cold weather while the others in relationships at the domestic level. the household, including the Aunt, had a tough time outside. Nicholas considers his plight being similar to THE STORY STRUCTURE that of the hunter and his dogs The story has a fine narrative cornered by a pack of wolves in the structure. It is set in a household run tapestry and chooses silence as the by a headstrong woman whose solution to all his problems. behaviour leads to an interminable conflict between the adults and the children. The protagonist Nicholas is a A Punishment Inflicted through Psychological Torture boy with a questioning mind. The story opens in a setting where With the announcement of a Nicholas argues with the Aunt on punishment imposed on Nicholas, the being left behind as a punishment story opens in a claustrophobic court- while the other children have gone out room like atmosphere. In order to on an excursion. Then the story goes penalize Nicholas for an offence on to an elaboration of the offence committed at the breakfast table, the Nicholas has committed to deserve other children are ‚to be driven, as a such a punishment. Thereafter it special treat, to the sands at reveals how Nicholas turns his Jagborough‛ So, while Nicholas’ boy- punishment into an exploratory cousin and girl-cousin and his ‚quite expedition inside the lumber room, a uninteresting‛ younger brother are to forbidden quarter of the house. Later it enjoy an outing, Nicholas is ‚to stay at relates how the Aunt, out of curiosity home‛. Munro provides a description looks for Nicholas in the gooseberry of the punishment procedure of the garden, and falls into a rainwater tank. house as follows: This follows a dramatization of the ‚His cousins’ aunt, who Aunt’s repeated order to Nicholas to insisted, by an unwarranted help her out and Nicholas’ repeated stretch of imagination, in refusal on the grounds that he has styling herself his aunt also, been prohibited to enter the garden by had hastily invented the the Aunt herself. At last, when the Jagborough expedition in order other children return in utter to impress on Nicholas the frustration due to bad weather and delights that he had justly various physical pains, silence forfeited by his disgraceful dominates the atmosphere of the conduct at the breakfast- house. Nicholas recalls what he has table‛(Munro 1914). observed in the tapestry he saw during It is clear that the Aunt has improvised his visit to the lumber room. He feels this tour simply to hurt Nicholas. In thankful that he did not have to go out
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Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review (JSSHR) Vol. 3, No. 4 (1-15) © Author(s) December 2018 ISSN: 2279-3933 Original Article that sense Nicholas’ punishment can extravagances, the Aunt ignites be defined as ‚solitary confinement frustration in them. Pretending to be plus sensory deprivation‛ which, concerned about the children’s according to Grassian (2006), ‚can welfare, she uses rumours of fabulous cause severe psychiatric harm.‛ While entertainment events in the the others are supposed to play on the neighbouring towns to instigate unrest sands at Jagborough, he is supposed to and antagonism among the children. spend his time in isolation. This type Those who are rewarded are thus of punishment brutalizes the convict made to suffer from the dislike of their further, inculcating hatred and deprived peers who assume them to jealousy in him against those who be the cause of their deprivation. Thus, enjoy privileges prohibited to him, but the Aunt plays the classical colonizer’s the so-called ‚older and wiser and game of divide-and-rule in her small better people‛ in the house do not colony of dependents. understand it. Munro explicitly states Nicholas’ Offence: Subversion of the how the Aunt has incorporated the Adults’ Authority particular penal strategy in the The terms used in the communication management of her household on a between the adults and the children routine basis: within this particular household It was her habit, whenever setting are meant to inculcate in the one of the children fell from minds of the children the idea that the grace, to improvise something adults are ‚older and wiser and better of a festival nature from people‛ and that the food they offer is which the offender would be always ‚wholesome‛ and that the rigorously debarred; if all the complaints the children make are children sinned collectively invariably ‚nonsense‛. This implies they were suddenly informed that the children have to accept of a circus in a neighbouring everything the adults say or do town, a circus of unrivalled without reservation or inquiry. merit and uncounted Nicholas seems to subvert the elephants, to which, but for authoritarian pseudo-judicial practice their depravity, they would of the house. As Turiel (2003) explains, have been taken that very ‚Resistance and subversion are day‛ (Munro 1914). common because social arrangements Through this strategy she inculcates a and practices often embody constant fear of deprivation in the inequalities. ... However, this is not children which would kerb their only in the usual sense of people natural playfulness in the long run. At acting in line with societal the same time, by engendering desires expectations; social conditions evoke in the children for various types of opposition, resistance and subversion‛ (Turiel 2003).
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In that context, the offence Nicholas intention of ‚the whole affair‛ is to has committed to deserve punishment refute the adults’ claim that they are appears as follows: eternally right. Disregarding the ‚Only that morning he had possibility of Nicholas’ claim about the refused to eat his wholesome frog, the Aunt flatly rejects it as bread-and-milk on the ‚nonsense‛. Later when she is proven seemingly frivolous ground wrong, the Aunt interprets his act of that there was a frog in it‛ putting the frog in the basin of bread- (Munro 1914). and-milk as a ‚sin‛. That gives the implication that the Aunt, in addition Although the adults in the household to psychological torture, makes use of deny the presence of a frog in ‚his the notion of ‘sin’ to suppress the bread and milk‛, Nicholas argues that children’s right to freedom. This there was one, describing ‚with much portrays, as Widyalankara (2015) detail the coloration and markings of argues, how religion and law were the alleged frog.‛ The use of the term exploited in the rearing of children in ‚alleged‛ implies the pseudo-judicial England during the Edwardian era. A manner in the way the household is set of values arbitrarily developed to run. However, Nicholas subverts the the advantage of the adults were authority of the adults by trying to forcibly inculcated in the children establish his position about the frog: using a jargon influenced by law and ‚The dramatic part of the religion. incident was that there really Moral Deterioration: Negative Impact was a frog in Nicholas's basin of of Punishment bread-and-milk; he had put it In one effective sentence Munro reads there himself, so he felt entitled the mind of the Aunt who designed to know something about it‛ this punitive scheme. ‚A few decent (Munro 1914). tears were looked for on the part of Munro provides the ground for Nicholas when the moment for the Nicholas’ confidence in the argument departure of the expedition arrived‛ by revealing what he did with the frog (Munro 1914). This reveals a sadistic and the basin of bread-and-milk. element dormant in the Aunt’s psyche. Whether Nicholas is right to commit She expects Nicholas to become an offence such as ‚taking a frog from obedient as a result of the deprivation the garden and putting it into a bowl he is destined to suffer from. Yet the of wholesome bread-and-milk‛ is Aunt’s intention to overpower Nicolas immaterial, but his knowledge about psychologically does not materialize to its presence in his bread-and-milk her satisfaction. Instead of a catharsis, remains a source of inspiration for him her strategy generates in Nicholas a while challenging the authority of the sadistic tendency to derive pleasure adults. It is obvious that his sole over the inconveniences and
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Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review (JSSHR) Vol. 3, No. 4 (1-15) © Author(s) December 2018 ISSN: 2279-3933 Original Article discomforts the other children suffer different from them because, despite from. (See Vaknin 2013) Signs of moral the Aunt’s antagonism, he complains deterioration emerge in his remarks to her about things he does not like. about others. ‚How she did howl,‛ Unable to admit her fault in the case of says Nicholas ‚cheerfully‛ regarding Bobby’s shoes, the aunt shouts, his girl-cousin who kept crying after changing the subject: scraping her knee ‚rather painfully against the step of the carriage‛. From ‚You are not to go into the the plight of Bobby, with his shoes that gooseberry garden<‛ are too tight, he derives similar type of ‚Why not?‛ demanded pleasure, predicting ‚with a grim Nicholas. chuckle‛, ‚Bobby won’t enjoy himself ‚Because you are in disgrace<‛ much, and he won’t race much either‛ (Munro 1914) (Munro 1914). On the whole he The gooseberry garden is totally becomes jubilant to find no ‚elation of irrelevant here but the aunt attempts high spirits‛ among the party. to assert her command through a The Aunt turns a deaf ear to the prohibition imposed on Nicholas. Her dangerous signals sent out by rhetoric mirrors her devastating Nicholas on the way his mind is character. This type of defence working through his remarks. ‚She’ll mechanism suggests paranoia on the soon get over that,‛ she says regarding part of the tormentor. Nicholas’ girl cousin. Further she ‚< paranoid thoughts only predicts fine weather and tries to rouse become a problem if they stop jealousy in Nicolas through an people getting on with their interjection, ‚How they will enjoy everyday life because they are themselves!‛ Regarding the boy’s frightened of what might problem with the shoes, she resorts to happen. They are similar to a rhetorical question as a way out: phobias – a fear of heights, or ‚Why didn’t he tell me they were spiders, for example. Many hurting?‛ Disregarding her ‚asperity‛, people have such fears from Nicholas emphatically articulates his time to time, but phobias only complaint, ‚He told you twice, but become problematic for a small you weren’t listening. You often don’t number of individuals‛ (BPS listen when we tell you important 2015). things‛ (Munro 1914). From his In addition, she tries to intimidate remarks about the sad plight of the Nicholas, by further limiting his space. two cousins, the girl with a wounded However, Nicholas is not so easily knee and the boy in tight shoes, it is tamed. That is why he demands an understood that they both have been explanation. The aunt’s response is brought up to passively follow the just a formula she uses on those who Aunt’s instructions. Nicholas is
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Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review (JSSHR) Vol. 3, No. 4 (1-15) © Author(s) December 2018 ISSN: 2279-3933 Original Article offend her. The ‚lofty‛ tone she uses through his metaphor of the characterizes her arrogance. Nicholas Panopticon.1 does not utter anything as a counterargument. Yet, ‚*h+is face took Nicholas’ Exploratory Excursion on an expression of considerable obstinacy‛ (Munro 1914). He realizes The Aunt, ‚a woman of few ideas, the error of the Aunt’s judgement with immense powers of about his movements but maintains an concentration,‛ without knowing that advantageous silence. the gooseberry garden has already become a ‚stale delight‛ for Nicholas, The Aunt believes that, even though screens Nicholas’ movements in the Nicholas had no real desire to visit the belief that he is likely to get into the gooseberry garden, Nicholas would go gooseberry garden anytime. Well there simply to challenge her aware of this character-flaw of the authority. Nicholas makes use of the Aunt, Nicholas by pretending to be misunderstanding the Aunt nurtures trying to get into the forbidden garden in her mind about his desire to visit manipulates the Aunt into installing the gooseberry garden to take her herself ‚in a self-imposed sentry duty attention off his real intention. Munro for the greater part of the afternoon‛. describes the aunt as ‚a woman of few ideas, with immense powers of ‚Having thoroughly confirmed concentration‛. Unable to realize that and fortified her suspicions Nicholas is a smart boy who could do Nicholas slipped back into the whatever he wants without getting caught, despite her tight schedule for 1Panopticon is an architectural design put the afternoon, she spends her time on forth by Jeremy Bentham in the mid-19th ‚trivial gardening operations among Century for prisons, insane asylums, schools, flower beds and shrubberies‛ just in hospitals, and factories. Instead of using order to guard ‚the two doors that led violent methods, such as torture, and placing to the forbidden paradise‛. She clearly prisoners in dungeons that were used for centuries in monarchial states around the wants to pin another offence on world, the progressive modern democratic Nicholas. The type of moral state needed a different sort of system to deterioration the children undergo regulate its citizens. The Panopticon offered a under the suspicious eyes of adults of powerful and sophisticated internalized this sort damages their characters coercion, which was achieved through the constant observation of prisoners, each beyond repair. This can be explained separated from the other, allowing no through Michel Foucault’s premise on interaction, no communication. This modern the relationship between 1.) systems of structure would allow guards to continually social control and people in a see inside each cell from their vantage point in disciplinary situation and, 2.) the a high central tower, unseen by the prisoners. Constant observation acted as a control power-knowledge concept conveyed mechanism; a consciousness of constant surveillance is internalized. (Mason 2015).
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house and rapidly put into and such-like privileged execution a plan of action that persons‛ (Munro 1914). had long germinated in his In this phrase Munro sounds like a brain‛(Munro 1914). museum curator describing an Thus, with meticulous reasoning, artefact. The officialdom the adults Nicholas sets the scene for a plan of maintained in terms of the houseand action that for quite some time he had its smaller occupants comes to light been longing to implement. The other children are away. The Aunt is through the use of terms such as thoroughly engaged in guarding the ‚unauthorised intrusion‛ and two entrances to the gooseberry ‚privileged persons‛. When rulers garden. There is nobody inside the master strategies of control, their house to keep an eye on him. So subjects master strategies on how to Nicholas is completely free to go on an outmanoeuvre their masters. This is excursion to a mysterious part of the well-illustrated in Nicholas’ attempt at house. Nicholas distinguishes himself mastering ‚the art of fitting keys into from the other children with his keyholes and turning locks ... with the curiosity about this place known as the lumber room, ‚a room for storing old key of the schoolroom door‛. pieces of furniture and other things Nicholas’ brilliance shines in his that are not being used‛ (Marian- perception of the necessity of expertise Webster). before embarking on the project. ‚The The richness of the experience key turned stiffly in the lock, but it Nicholas is to experience in the lumber turned.‛ The stiffness felt while room is suggested in the image of the turning the key suggests that the door ‚fat‛ and ‚important-looking‛ key to has not been opened for quite some it that ‚repose*s+‛ on a shelf high time. His fascination with the idea of above the children’s reach. Through treasures that might be stored within the use of the verb ‚repose‛ the key is the room is suggested in the epithets personified as a guardian or even a such as ‚a stale delight‛ and ‚a mere jinni in Arabian legends that guards treasure troves enjoying his rest when material pleasure‛ used in relation to he is not on duty. the gooseberry garden. The Lumber Room appears to be ‚an unknown ‚The key was as important as it land‛ far more fascinating than what looked; it was the instrument which kept the mysteries of the the young Nicholas sees in his daily lumber-room secure from life. unauthorised intrusion, which The lumber room ‚so carefully sealed opened a way only for aunts from youthful eyes and concerning which no questions were ever
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Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review (JSSHR) Vol. 3, No. 4 (1-15) © Author(s) December 2018 ISSN: 2279-3933 Original Article answered" represents a mysterious screen,‛2 a stunning piece of art from characteristic of the Victorian- the orient.3 It is acknowledged that Edwardian society that had a strange Munro has adopted his penname interest in collecting and preserving ‚Saki‛ from the character of the things for the sake of amassing wealth. cupbearer called ‚Saki‛ in "The The colonial forces of the British Empire, in a variety of roles as Rubáiyát‛ by the Persian poet Omar warriors, administrators, business Khayyam (Williams 1978).4As Persia is people, apostles, educationists, famous for manufacturing rugs and anthropologists, etc., invaded other tapestries it could be assumed that this countries in the world, colonized them particular piece of tapestry, too, might and plundered their treasures in order have originated in that region. to bring them home. (See Ferguson 2003: 7-9) But the British people at The ‚living, breathing story‛ in the home did not have the necessary fire-screen which captures a moment imagination in order to appreciate in a huntsman’s life draws Nicholas those treasures, and therefore, they were consigned to dusty lumber into a contemplation of his own rooms. Nicholas stands apart from the destiny in comparison to that of the rest of the household because of his huntsman. The protagonist‚dressed in interest in visiting the ‚large and the hunting costume of some remote dimly lit‛ lumber room. For him it is period‛ takes immediately Nicholas ‚a storehouse of unimagined (as well as the reader of the short treasures‛. By drawing attention to story) into an historical or fairy-tale Nicholas’ enthusiasm to go through the ‚wonderful things for the eye to setting where the huntsman, in the feast on‛, Munro ironically highlights role of an amateur adventurer, appears the Victorian-Edwardian belief that alien to Nicholas who leads a straight ‚things spoil by use‛ and ‚consigned them to dust and damp by way of preserving them‛. 2A fire-screen, ‚a protective screen placed in front of an open fire‛ (Marian-Webster). 3 A Riddle of Life Focused on an Tapestry is ‚a fabric consisting of a warp Enlightenment Test upon which coloured threads are woven by hand to produce a design, often pictorial, used Munro turns Nicholas’ visit of the for wall hangings, furniture, coverings, etc.‛ lumber room into a decisive didactic (Dictionary.com) 4 experience by making him come "The Rubáiyát‛ by the Persian poet Omar Khayyam, (Williams 1978) is‚a classic across ‚a piece of framed tapestry that [composed in quartets] full of themes that was evidently meant to be a fire- involved complex mystical and philosophical thoughts‛ (Iran Chamber Society 2015).
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jacketed life under the supervision of a himself to in his attempt to claim his woman with a limited imagination. kill. Nicholas is fascinated by the life-like The occasion depicted in the tapestry quality of the figures in the tapestry. provides a succinct riddle through the He sympathises with the huntsman, nexus of the characters it portrays. As assesses the danger the huntsman is in the huntsman has shot down a stag, he for, and formulates options for the obviously has the right to claim it. But, huntsman in order to rescue him and because of the ridiculously short range his dogs from the ‚tight corner‛ they at which the hunter shot the stag while are in. Munro calls the ‚minutes‛ it was grazing in the wood, his Nicholas spends on the plight of the prowess in archery remains doubtful. huntsman and his dogs ‚golden‛ in One wonders whether the huntsman the sense that they are so valuable for who is admiring his kill is aware of the him because of the intellectual fact that four wolves were coming reinforcement they provide him with. towards him through the woods. They He creatively puts all the may be members of a large pack of circumstances together and works out wolves, and there may be more wolves the best option for the huntsman. hidden behind the trees. The two Finally, he decides that the hunter spotted hounds of the huntsman do should ‚escape with his hounds while not seem to demonstrate any ferocity the wolves feasted on the stricken either. So the huntsman cannot stag‛. This understanding of the depend on them in facing an attack necessity of compromises is crucial for from the wolves. In addition, he has his existence among the Aunt and her got only two more arrows left in his entourage of the so-called ‚older and quiver. That means, even if he were an wiser and better people‛. By putting expert archer, he did not have a himself in the shoes of the huntsman sufficient number of arrows necessary he confronts the limitation of his own to defend himself against a large capacity to fight against his group of wolves. The final conclusion adversaries and subsequently he is that, in the face of the ferocious applies the solution he proposed to the wolves, the huntsman can depend on huntsman to his own situation. neither his personal strength nor his Through his experience Nicholas dogs and arrows. All these facts about seems to have gathered a certain the hunting scene suggest the mortal amount of enlightenment on his danger the protagonist has exposed capacity to deal with oppressive forces in his life.
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1912) and nature drawings in Enjoying the Harmonising Impact of Victorian era natural history books Art inspired by great renaissance masters Once within the lumber room such as Alfred Dürer (1471-1528). Nicholas finds himself free from the Very ironically, Nicholas’ peaceful depression that plagued him. In contemplation of beauty comes to an addition to the fire-screen with the abrupt end with the cacophony the huntsman and his hounds, he comes Aunt makes from the gooseberry across many ‚other objects of delight garden. Thus, Munro suggests the and interest‛ that arrest his attention. devastating interference the Aunt The ‚quaint twisted candlesticks in the often makes in the lives of the children shape of snakes‛, the ‚teapot in her house. She ruins their fashioned like a china duck‛, the contemplation on whatever that ‚carved sandal-wood box packed tight pleases them, agonises them with her with aromatic cotton-wool‛, the ‚little frequent domineering, and thereafter brass figures, hump-necked bulls, and finds fault with them when they peacocks and goblins between the angrily react to her intrusions. layers of cotton-wool‛, the ‚large ‚Suspicious at his long disappearance‛ square book with plain black covers‛ the Aunt leaps to the conclusion that containing ‚a whole portrait gallery of Nicholas has ‚climbed over the wall undreamed-of creatures‛ such as behind the sheltering screen of the lilac ‚herons and bustards, kites, toucans, bushes‛ and gets ‚engaged in tiger-bitterns, brush turkeys, ibises, energetic and rather hopeless search golden pheasants‛ call for his for him among the artichokes and admiration. However, the duck- raspberry canes‛. Soothed by his shaped china teapot contrasts with the experience with art, Nicholas remains ‚dull and shapeless nursery teapot,‛ calm on the face of the Aunt’s false the birds in the book, the fine brass allegation and smiles at her screaming. figures, etc. drew his attention to the Pointing to the mysterious atmosphere dullness of his existence. Together all of the place, Munro suggests, ‚It was the objects of art around him teases his probably the first time for twenty imagination and creates around him years that anyone had smiled in that an aesthetically powerful atmosphere lumber-room.‛ Nicholas gets ready to rich with serene delights. It is leave the lumber room. In the surmised that Nicholas oweshis meantime the angry repetitions of his appreciation of the antiques and name gives way to an alarming shriek, nature drawings to Munro’s exposure and then to a helpless cry. So clear in to great pieces of literature such as his mind in what must be done first, ‚Ode to a Grecian Urn‛ where John Nicholas carefully takes every step Keats creatively professes a disciplined necessary to eliminate all traces of his method of art appreciation (Lang 1844- presence in the room. He even shakes
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Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review (JSSHR) Vol. 3, No. 4 (1-15) © Author(s) December 2018 ISSN: 2279-3933 Original Article some dust over the book of birds from ‚I told you not to, and now a neighbouring pile of newspapers. I tell you that you may ...‛ After locking the door and replacing ‚Your voice doesn’t sound like the key exactly where it was, he aunt’s, ... you may be the Evil quietly walks into the front garden, as One tempting me to be if nothing has happened. From this disobedient. Aunt often tells me account, it is clear that Munro believes that the Evil One tempts me in a calming influence of arts on those and that I always yield. This who are exposed to them. time I’m not going to yield.‛ ‚Don’t talk nonsense ... go and fetch the ladder.‛ Malice Answered by Malice ‚Will there be strawberry Munro presents the communication jam for tea?‛ that takes place between the Aunt and ‚Certainly there will be ...‛ Nicholas in a dramatic dialogue where ‚Now I know that you are the he is using logic as opposed to Evil One and not aunt ... when arbitrary commands of the adults in we asked aunt for strawberry his dealing with adults. Nicholas jam yesterday she said there proves that he has matured as a result wasn’t any. I know there are of his exposure to arts. Having fallen four jars of it in the store into a wretched rainwater tank at a cupboard, because I looked, time of cold and wet weather, Aunt and of course you know it’s commands Nicholas to help her come there, but she doesn’t, because out: she said there wasn’t any. Oh, ‚Nicholas, Nicholas! ... you are Devil, you have sold yourself!‛ to come out of this at once. It’s (Adapted from Munro 1914) no use trying to hide there; I First the Aunt calls Nicholas in a stern can see you all the time.‛ voice, pretending to have noticed ‚Who’s calling?‛ where he is. Once she has fallen into ‚Me, ... didn’t you hear me? I’ve the rainwater tank, she calls him again been looking for you in the and again in several tones, implying gooseberry garden, and I’ve the increasing depth of her slipped into the rain-water desperation. Reluctant to admit her tank. Luckily there’s no water helplessness, the Aunt speaks in it, but the sides are slippery arrogantly and Nicholas in turn does and I can’t get out. Fetch the not want to give in. Instead, Nicholas little ladder from under the responds ironically reminding the cherry tree —‛ Aunt of the prohibition she set on him ‚I was told I wasn’t to go against entering the gooseberry into the gooseberry garden...‛ garden. The Aunt admits it at once, and declares the prohibition lifted.
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Nicholas pretentiously suspects her to she tells them – they carry out their be ‚the Evil One‛ who tempts him ‚to own investigations into the truth value be disobedient‛ and ironically of her claims and confirm her expresses his determination to stick to dishonesty; 4) although children do the Aunt’s warning. As usual the Aunt not have any authority, they are not tells him not to talk ‚nonsense‛. always at her mercy – under various Nicholas changes the subject with a circumstances, adults have to depend question that is irrelevant. ‚Will there on children; and finally 5) children’s be strawberry jam for tea?‛ The Aunt cooperation and help have to be assures him of the availability of it. earned rather than acquired by force – Nicholas uses this to expose the lie she children are thinking individuals and told him about strawberry jam the like adults they use their discretion previous day, and tells her about the while offering their assistance to discovery he made of the ‚four jars of somebody. Nicholas does not it in the store cupboard‛. Still, overindulge himself in the luxury of Nicholas pretends to believe that it is telling off the Aunt; rather he becomes the Evil One who is presently talking conscious of the danger hanging in the to him and shouts, ‚Oh, Devil, air. Maybe, just recalling the plight of you have sold yourself!‛ the huntsman and his hounds in the ‚There was an unusual sense of middle of a pack of wolves, he luxury in being able to talk to withdraws from the scene without talking further. an aunt as though one was talking to the Evil One, but Nicholas knew, with childish Malice Repaid with Shame discernment, that such luxuries ‚With shame their malice be repaid...‛ were not to be over-indulged (PSALM LXXI. 5) in‛ (Munro 1914) The above Psalm from the Bible, where Munro gets the Aunt to learn a few David makes a prayer to God against lessons in dealing with the children: 1) his enemies, suits the final scene where she would be the ultimate victim of everybody meets for tea in a fearsome her prohibitions when the children silence: the Aunt, rescued by a kitchen follow them to the letter – in an maid from an ‚undignified and emergency they are scared to bypass unmerited detention in a rain-water her bans and help her; 2) children pick tank for thirty-five minutes‛; the up her obnoxious flouting and children, back from Jagborough Cove hedging tactics and apply them when disappointed with the weather; Bobby she needs their help – instead of who suffered from an afternoon-long helping her they frustrate her by disastrous effect from the tightness of deviating from the topic as she always his boots; and Nicholas in the does; 3) children do not believe all that absorption of the solution he
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Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities Review (JSSHR) Vol. 3, No. 4 (1-15) © Author(s) December 2018 ISSN: 2279-3933 Original Article formulat ed for the huntsman that the their behaviour. Yet, as Maxey (2005) latter ‚would escape with his hounds argues, Munro concludes ‚The while the wolves feasted on the Lumber Room‛ with the great stricken stag‛. The Aunt is the most message that ‚in spite of constant affected person in the group. More punishment and privation, a child can than the physical pain she suffered retain mental independence, albeit from in the cold rainwater tank she fleetingly, through stolen moments of could not stand the humiliation of private fantasy, physically embodied being branded as the Devil.‚The aunt either by a cherished animal or the maintained the frozen muteness of one four walls of a secret room or shed.‛ who has suffered.‛She remains the centre of everybody’s silent criticism References for overlooking the weather ‚in the haste of organizing her punitive Albrecht Durer Paintings. http://durerpaintings.com/ (Accessed expedition‛. 12.12.2015) BPS - British Psychological Society (2015). ‚Paranoia.‛ http://www.mentalhealthcare.org.uk/
paranoia CONCLUSION Delahoyde, Michael (2011). ‚Psychoanalytic With the resolution as to what Criticism‛. Introduction to Literature. Nicholas should do in domestic crises Washington State University. http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/inde where the Aunt and her team of ‚older x.html and wiser and better people‛ charge Ferguson, Niall (2003). Empire: How Britain him of various types of crimes and Made the Modern resort to various types of punitive Grassian, Stuart (2006). ‚Psychiatric Effects of actions, the story ends in a remorseful Solitary Confinement‛. Access to atmosphere. The Persian fire screen Justice: The Social Responsibility of stimulates Nicholas’ critical thinking Lawyers | Prison Reform: Commission on with its symbolism that projects a Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons. universal moral. Nicholas places Washington University Journal of Law & Policy Volume 22. January 2006. himself in the position of the hunter and the Aunts and her team of adults Gubar, Marah (2005).‚The Victorian Child, c.1837-1901.‛ Representing in those of the wolves. Ultimately he Childhood. University of Pittsburgh. realises that what he decides for the http://www.representingchildhood.pi hunter applies to him with tt.edu/victorian.htm tremendous accuracy. Thus the reality Iran Chamber Society (2015). ‚Omar of the Edwardian society Munro Khayyam. The Astronomer- depicts is that the children cannot win Mathematician- Poet of Persia.‛ a fight against the adults, however Persian Language & Literature. much they are innocent and genuine in
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http://www.iranchamber.com/literatu The Book of Common Prayer and The Old and re/khayyam/khayyam.php New Versions of the Psalms. Oxford. 1815. Lang, Andrew (1844-1912). ‚John Keats‛. The Poetical works of John Keats. London: Turiel, Elliot (2003). ‚Resistance and Ward Lock. Subversion in Everyday Life.‛Journal of Moral Education, Vol. 32, No. Mason, Moya K. (2015) ‚Foucault and His 2.University of California, Berkeley, Panopticon.‛ USA http://www.moyak.com/papers/miche l-foucault-power.html Vaknin, Sam (2013). ‚Other People's Pain: Narcissism, Sadism, and Masochism.‛ Maxey, Ruth (2005).‚Children are Given us to Malignant Self-Love: Narcissism Discourage Our Better Instincts: The Revisited. California: Barne& Noble Paradoxical Treatment of Children in Inc. Saki’s Short Fiction.‚ Journal of the Short Story in English. Autumn 2005. Widyalankara, RohiniChandrica (2015). ‚The http://jsse.revues.org/442?lang=en Lumber Room: Ideal artifact for prose analysis - an epistle on child rearing.‛ Munro, Ethel M. (1924). ‚Biography of International Journal of Scientific and Saki‛. The Square Egg and Other Research Publications, Volume 5, Sketches, with Three Plays and Issue 9, September 2015. ISSN 2250- Illustrations. London: John Lane, The 3153 www.ijsrp.org Bodley Head. 3-120. Williams, Emlyn(1978). Introduction. Saki: Munro, H.H. (1914). Beasts and Super Beasts. Short Stories 1. London: Tuttle London: John Lane the Bodley Head. Publishing. 1991.
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