If "The Mappined Life" is taken as a statement of Saki's position, the chapter on "Elaborate Futilities" portrays a microcosm of the society which he abhors.  In this parade of "naked truths and overdressed fictions" ("Reginald on Besetting Sins", p.27) he exposes the absurd behaviour, futile pursuits and distorted values of the misguided characters whom he is satirising.  It is no accident that this illuminating dialogue between a niece and a prosaically-minded aunt should be inspired by a Zoo, the call of the wild imperfectly muted by the curbs of civilisation.

If the niece laments her own and her family's "lack of initiative" (p.480) she would certainly applaud the action of Lucien Wattleskeat in "The East Wing".  By these standards it is perfectly reasonable that he should consider his highly-valued life as worth forfeiting for the one imaginative gesture of his hostess's stifled existence.  Her painting of a portrait of the daughter she has longed for, and who exists only in her imagination, proves that she herself is capable of salvation, even though the despair of her anguished plaint: "'it will all begin over again now, the old life, the old unsatisfying weariness, the old monotony'" (M.p.45) suggests that she has given up hope.  Her one bid for freedom is of little avail against the stultifying regime which daily engulfs her, and from which the tragedy of the fire is merely a temporary respite.

The further irony of the fire's being accidental bears out the niece's assertion in "The Mappined Life" that "'if a wasp happens to sting one of us, well, that is the wasp's initiative, not ours; all we do is wait for the swelling to go down'" (pp.480-81).  Throughout these stories the constant refrain is a plea for the individual to break free from the bonds which constrain him.  When the aunt asks, "'What on earth do you mean by trammels? We are merely trammelled by the ordinary decent onventions of civilized society'" (p.480), she expresses the unenlightened view of the typical victim whom Saki is attempting, with all the ingenuity at his disposal, to jolt out of complacency, accidie and hidebound convention.

The human adult with his frailties and imperfections has four antagonists throughout the stories: the child, the supernatural, the "imp of Inconsequence"¹ and the animal world, which conspire severally and together to disconcert at best and punish at worst, sometimes with death.  Again and again arrogance and wilful blindness are routed by insight and imagination.

In Chapter 2, the "inexorable logic" of the child cuts through the hypocrisy and evasions of the adults who are no match for their tenacity and shrewdness, the inferiority of the adults all the more telling because of the surprising nature of its disclosure.  This same effect is equally true of the role of the supernatural in "The Domain of Miracle".  In "Reginald's Drama" Reginald declares, "After all, life teems with things that have no earthly reason" (p.30) the ironic truth of which is demonstrated again and again.  In both these chapters, the unexpected quality is designed to shock the gullible into a proper awareness of what is hidden below the surface.

Typical of Saki is the universal use of lies, as illustrated in "The Realms of Fiction", to uncover hidden truths - the ultimate in inversion.  As for the practical jokes, in "The Hen" Clovis asks the stolid Jane Martlett, "'Have you ever considered what it must be like to go on unceasingly doing the correct thing in the correct manner in the same surroundings for the greater part of a lifetime?'" (p.256).  Her predictable reply is the perfect justification for the tricks devised to upset the self-satisfied and stampede the foolish into a rejection of the conventions which they have always accepted unquestioningly.

All manner of allusions are employed to arrest the attention and certain key words seem to act almost as a code in this constant invitation to re-examine appearances.  Frequent reference is made to "eyes" in the sense both of perception and opinion, and Appendix A explores several other words whose incidence seems meaningful in this bid to uncover latent truths.  Behaviour is artificial and often pompous, feelings are masked and often inappropriate, laughter is generally forced or mirthless and everywhere the only evidence of natural behaviour is in the animal kingdom or the world of the child whose innocence is of a very knowing kind.

It is not important that many of the stories could readily fit into any one of these chapters.  What is significant is that by adopting any one of these "voices" it is possible to question the seeming import of what Saki is saying, and discover some nuance or detect a subtle undertow of meaning.  A Saki short story in some respects resembles an iceberg: superficially sparkling, sharp and refractive, but with most of the content - the dangerous part, perhaps - lurking below the surface with its "elusive undercurrents".

Notes

1. Vivian Carter's description of Reginald in Bystander (October 18, 1911), 134.

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