Imagine yourself as ‘Norman Gortsby’ from the story‘
The Dusk ’and rewrite the story from your point of view
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Answer:
Norman Gortsby is a young city dweller who considers himself something of a philosopher as well as a shrewd judge of human character. He is not a gentleman of leisure. He does not have a university education, although he seems tolerably well educated. He probably works in a London office and is sitting on the bench because he has gotten off work and doesn't want to go home to his modest apartment where he may eventually cook his own supper. He is feeling "heartsore and disillusioned," either because of disappointment in a love affair or some career reversal; the author does not specify the cause. Gortsby is
. . . not disinclined to take a certain cynical pleasure in observing and labelling his fellow wanderers as they went their ways in the dark stretches between the lamp-lights.
This description suggests that the young man who sits down beside him to tell his intricate hard-luck story is going to have a hard time extracting any money from Gortsby, who is willing to listen but not in a charitable mood. He seems to take a sadistic pleasure in pointing out the flaw in the young stranger's story.
"Of course," said Gortsby slowly, "the weak point of your story is that you can't produce the soap."
It seems unlikely that Gortsby would have helped the other man out even if he had produced the soap. But when Gortsby finds a cake of soap by the bench he feels guilty--not only guilty for rejecting the young stranger's story, but also guilty for feeling so cynical and cold about all of humanity. When he rushes to find the other man and give him the sovereign, he is doing it for himself. He is making a decision to change his attitude about his fellow man and become more generous and more "Christian" in the future. The sovereign he gives the young man is like an offering in church, a symbol of atonement.
Saki has been described as a Tory and staunch conservative. He was not the type of person to observe needy people and reflect that the government ought to do more to help them. What his story "Dusk" is really suggesting is that it is a mistake to feel sorry for other people. This is a dog-eat-dog world in which the strongest survive.
Explanation: