BEFORE READING

Answer the following questions before reading the story:

1-What characteristics should a good story teller have?

2-How would you entertain children if you were to travel with them on a train?

3-What is the general reaction children have to stories?

4-Look at these proverbs:

a) A good tale is better for being told twice

b) Well began is half done

c) Boys will be boys

d) Easier said than done

e) Necessity is the mother of invention

F) Variety is the spice of life

- Choose the right explanation for each one:

1. Children, in part, love to hear a good story again, no matter how many times they have heard it before.

2. It is simpler to talk about doing a thing than it is to do it. It is easier to give advice than to put it to practice.

3. Life becomes very monotonous without some break in the daily routine.

4. If you make a good start, everything follows naturally and easily. The bad start seriously affects what comes after.

5. Boys are normally noisy, destructive, dangerous. It is their nature.

6. When the need for something becomes the reason for creating something

After reading the whole story come back to these proverbs and explain how they apply to the story.

http://www.classicshorts.com/bib.html - Storyteller
The Storyteller (Saki)

by H. H. Munro (Saki) (1870-1916)

It was a hot afternoon, and the railway carriage was correspondingly sultry, and the next stop was at
Templecombe, nearly an hour ahead. The occupants of the carriage were a small girl, and a smaller girl, and a
small boy. An aunt belonging to the children occupied one corner seat, and the further corner seat on the
opposite side was occupied by a bachelor who was a stranger to their party, but the small girls and the small boy
emphatically occupied the compartment. Both the aunt and the children were conversational in a limited,
persistent way, reminding one of the attentions of a housefly that refuses to be discouraged. Most of the
aunt's remarks seemed to begin with "Don't," and nearly all of the children's remarks began with "Why?" The
bachelor said nothing out loud. "Don't, Cyril, don't," exclaimed the aunt, as the small boy began smacking the
cushions of the seat, producing a cloud of dust at each blow.

"Come and look out of the window," she added.

The child moved reluctantly to the window. "Why are those sheep being driven out of that field?" he asked.
"I expect they are being driven to another field where there is more grass," said the aunt weakly.

"But there is lots of grass in that field," protested the boy; "there's nothing else but grass there. Aunt,
there's lots of grass in that field."

"Perhaps the grass in the other field is better," suggested the aunt fatuously.

"Why is it better?" came the swift, inevitable question.

"Oh, look at those cows!" exclaimed the aunt. Nearly every field along the line had contained cows or bullocks,
but she spoke as though she were drawing attention to a rarity.

"Why is the grass in the other field better?" persisted Cyril.

The frown on the bachelor's face was deepening to a scowl. He was a hard, unsympathetic man, the aunt decided
in her mind. She was utterly unable to come to any satisfactory decision about the grass in the other field.

The smaller girl created a diversion by beginning to recite "On the Road to Mandalay." She only knew the first
line, but she put her limited knowledge to the fullest possible use. She repeated the line over and over again in a
dreamy but resolute and very audible voice; it seemed to the bachelor as though some one had had a bet with
her that she could not repeat the line aloud two thousand times without stopping. Whoever it was who had made
the wager was likely to lose his bet.

"Come over here and listen to a story," said the aunt, when the bachelor had looked twice at her and once at the
communication cord.

The children moved listlessly towards the aunt's end of the carriage. Evidently her reputation as a story- teller
did not rank high in their estimation.

In a low, confidential voice, interrupted at frequent intervals by loud, petulant questionings from her listeners,
she began an unenterprising and deplorably uninteresting story about a little girl who was good, and made
friends with every one on account of her goodness, and was finally saved from a mad bull by a number of
rescuers who admired her moral character.

"Wouldn't they have saved her if she hadn't been good?" demanded the bigger of the small girls. It was exactly
the question that the bachelor had wanted to ask.

"Well, yes," admitted the aunt lamely, "but I don't think they would have run quite so fast to her help if they
had not liked her so much."

"It's the stupidest story I've ever heard," said the bigger of the small girls, with immense conviction.

"I didn't listen after the first bit, it was so stupid," said Cyril.

The smaller girl made no actual comment on the story, but she had long ago recommenced a murmured repetition
of her favourite line.

"You don't seem to be a success as a story-teller," said the bachelor suddenly from his corner.
The aunt bristled in instant defence at this unexpected attack.

"It's a very difficult thing to tell stories that children can both understand and appreciate," she said stiffly.

"I don't agree with you," said the bachelor.

"Perhaps you would like to tell them a story," was the aunt's retort.

"Tell us a story," demanded the bigger of the small girls.

"Once upon a time," began the bachelor, "there was a little girl called Bertha, who was extra-ordinarily good."

The children's momentarily-aroused interest began at once to flicker; all stories seemed dreadfully alike, no
matter who told them.

"She did all that she was told, she was always truthful, she kept her clothes clean, ate milk puddings as though
they were jam tarts, learned her lessons perfectly, and was polite in her manners."

"Was she pretty?" asked the bigger of the small girls.

"Not as pretty as any of you," said the bachelor, "but she was horribly good."

There was a wave of reaction in favour of the story; the word horrible in connection with goodness was a
novelty that commended itself. It seemed to introduce a ring of truth that was absent from the aunt's tales of
infant life.

"She was so good," continued the bachelor, "that she won several medals for goodness, which she always wore,
pinned on to her dress. There was a medal for obedience, another medal for punctuality, and a third for good
behaviour. They were large metal medals and they clicked against one another as she walked. No other child in
the town where she lived had as many as three medals, so everybody knew that she must be an extra good
child."

"Horribly good," quoted Cyril.

"Everybody talked about her goodness, and the Prince of the country got to hear about it, and he said that as
she was so very good she might be allowed once a week to walk in his park, which was just outside the town. It
was a beautiful park, and no children were ever allowed in it, so it was a great honour for Bertha to be allowed
to go there."

"Were there any sheep in the park?" demanded Cyril.

"No;" said the bachelor, "there were no sheep."

"Why weren't there any sheep?" came the inevitable question arising out of that answer.

The aunt permitted herself a smile, which might almost have been described as a grin.

"There were no sheep in the park," said the bachelor, "because the Prince's mother had once had a dream that
her son would either be killed by a sheep or else by a clock falling on him. For that reason the Prince never kept
a sheep in his park or a clock in his palace."
The aunt suppressed a gasp of admiration.

"Was the Prince killed by a sheep or by a clock?" asked Cyril.

"He is still alive, so we can't tell whether the dream will come true," said the bachelor unconcernedly; "anyway,
there were no sheep in the park, but there were lots of little pigs running all over the place."

"What colour were they?"

"Black with white faces, white with black spots, black all over, grey with white patches, and some were white all
over."

The storyteller paused to let a full idea of the park's treasures sink into the children's imaginations; then he
resumed:

"Bertha was rather sorry to find that there were no flowers in the park. She had promised her aunts, with
tears in her eyes, that she would not pick any of the kind Prince's flowers, and she had meant to keep her
promise, so of course it made her feel silly to find that there were no flowers to pick."

"Why weren't there any flowers?"

"Because the pigs had eaten them all," said the bachelor promptly. "The gardeners had told the Prince that you
couldn't have pigs and flowers, so he decided to have pigs and no flowers."

There was a murmur of approval at the excellence of the Prince's decision; so many people would have decided
the other way.

"There were lots of other delightful things in the park. There were ponds with gold and blue and green fish in
them, and trees with beautiful parrots that said clever things at a moment's notice, and humming birds that
hummed all the popular tunes of the day. Bertha walked up and down and enjoyed herself immensely, and
thought to herself: 'If I were not so extraordinarily good I should not have been allowed to come into this
beautiful park and enjoy all that there is to be seen in it,' and her three medals clinked against one another as
she walked and helped to remind her how very good she really was. Just then an enormous wolf came prowling
into the park to see if it could catch a fat little pig for its supper."

"What colour was it?" asked the children, amid an immediate quickening of interest.

"Mud-colour all over, with a black tongue and pale grey eyes that gleamed with unspeakable ferocity. The first
thing that it saw in the park was Bertha; her pinafore was so spotlessly white and clean that it could be seen
from a great distance. Bertha saw the wolf and saw that it was stealing towards her, and she began to wish that
she had never been allowed to come into the park. She ran as hard as she could, and the wolf came after her
with huge leaps and bounds. She managed to reach a shrubbery of myrtle bushes and she hid herself in one of
the thickest of the bushes. The wolf came sniffing among the branches, its black tongue lolling out of its mouth
and its pale grey eyes glaring with rage. Bertha was terribly frightened, and thought to herself: 'If I had not
been so extraordinarily good I should have been safe in the town at this moment.' However, the scent of the
myrtle was so strong that the wolf could not sniff out where Bertha was hiding, and the bushes were so thick
that he might have hunted about in them for a long time without catching sight of her, so he thought he might
as well go off and catch a little pig instead. Bertha was trembling very much at having the wolf prowling and
sniffing so near her, and as she trembled the medal for obedience clinked against the medals for good conduct
and punctuality. The wolf was just moving away when he heard the sound of the medals clinking and stopped to
listen; they clinked again in a bush quite near him. He dashed into the bush, his pale grey eyes gleaming with
ferocity and triumph, and dragged Bertha out and devoured her to the last morsel. All that was left of her were
her shoes, bits of clothing, and the three medals for goodness."

"Were any of the little pigs killed?"

"No, they all escaped."

"The story began badly," said the smaller of the small girls, "but it had a beautiful ending."

"It is the most beautiful story that I ever heard," said the bigger of the small girls, with immense decision.

"It is the only beautiful story I have ever heard," said Cyril.

A dissentient opinion came from the aunt.

"A most improper story to tell to young children! You have undermined the effect of years of careful teaching."

"At any rate," said the bachelor, collecting his belongings preparatory to leaving the carriage, "I kept them
quiet for ten minutes, which was more than you were able to do."

"Unhappy woman!" he observed to himself as he walked down the platform of Templecombe station; "for the
next six months or so those children will assail her in public with demands for an improper story!"

While-reading tasks: Read the story and do the tasks:

1- Describe the aunt’s personality. Provide concrete evidence for your description

2- Is the aunt’s attitude typical? What about the children? Provide examples to show why.

3- The writer uses a comparison in the first paragraph. Evaluate its effectiveness.

4- What impression did the aunt get of the bachelor? How do you know?

5- What did the bachelor find annoying about the girl?

6- How could the bachelor tell that the aunt was not a good story teller even before she started it?

7- What was wrong with the story? Why did the children question its content?

8- After the aunt finishes her story, what is the bachelor’s attitude? What is the aunt’s reaction?

9- Choose from this list the adjectives that may apply to the aunt and the bachelor:

Intolerant - rude -arrogant -defiant –aggressive- vindictive- polite -ironic -sneering

Aunt: ______________________________________________

Bachelor:___________________________________________

10- What was the children’s first impression of the story told by the bachelor?

11- How was the story teller different from the aunt in the way he told the story?

12- The bachelor uses an oxymoron. Can you find it? What effect does it have on the listeners?
13- In what way is the story effective?

14- What would be the moral in the story told by the bachelor?

15- What is the aunt’s objection to it?

16- What does the bachelor predict about the children? Do you agree with him?

17- In what way would you change the end of the story? Could the aunt do anything?

General analysis of characters

1. What kind of person is the aunt?

a) In what way is the aunt’s handling of the children negative?

b) Why is she unsuccessful in interesting the children in what is going on outside the train window?

c) We are given the aunt’s reactions whilst the bachelor is telling his story. What do they tell us about the kind of person the
aunt is?

d) Judging from her story and her reactions after the bachelor has finished his, what does the aunt think the purpose of a
story should be?

2. What are the children like?

e) Cyril smacks the cushions and the smaller girl repeats one line of poetry over and over again. Why?

f) Where and why do the children first become interested in the bachelor’s story?

g) What aspects of the bachelor’s story are the children particularly interested in? What does that tell us about them?

h) After both the aunt and the bachelor have finished their stories the children give their opinions. What do they tell us about
the children?

General analysis of the plot

1-In what ways is the bachelor’s story similar to traditional fairy tales?

i) Are the opening words of the bachelor’s story a typical fairy tale beginning?

j) Consider the animals and the people in the bachelor’s story. Which of them would you say are often found in fairy tales and
which are not?

k) Are there any similarities between such tales as Little Red Riding Hood and The Wolf and The three Little Pigs and the
bachelor’s story?

2-What are the surprising aspects of the bachelor’s story?

l) Where is the first sign that the bachelor’s story will be different from a typical children’s story?

m) The bachelor explains why there are no sheep in the park. What is surprising about his explanation?

n) How does the bachelor make fun of Bertha in the paragraph beginning “Bertha was rather sorry to find that there were no
flowers in the park”?

o) In what ways is Bertha punished for her goodness?