Lumber Room

The analysis of the text “The Lumber - Room” by H. Munro.

The text under analysis is written by an outstanding British novelist and a short – story writer Hector Munro. Also he is better known for his pseudonym Saki.  

The main character of the story is a boy, Nicholas by name, an inventive and inquisitive boy. We meet him in the story at the unpleasant moment when he is punished for his prank with a frog in his bread-and-milk. That very day the children except Nicholas were to be driven to the sands. That trip did not appeal to Nicholas, although there were some decent tears on his cheeks at the moment of the departure. He dreamed to realize his plan of getting into the mysterious lumber-room, which had long germinated in his mind. When his aunt was in the gooseberry garden, he slipped into the house, found a key and opened the door into the lumber-room. It came up to his expectations: a great many of things claimed his attention. There was a peace of framed tapestry with a hunting scene on it. That tapestry attracted Nicholas’ attention and he sat for many minutes revolving the possibilities of the scene. There were other objects of delight and Nicholas wanted to pay attention to all of them. But his aunt’s voice made him leave the room, to his great sorrow.

Meanwhile, looking for Nicholas, the aunt slipped into the rain-water tank and asked him to fetch the ladder so that she could get out of it. But it was necessary to enter the gooseberry garden to help the aunt whereas before Nicholas had been told not to enter. So, he decided to be “obedient”, especially because it gave him a wonderful opportunity to mock at his aunt. The boy pretended that he didn’t recognize his aunt’s voice. It was an unusual sense for Nicholas to talk to his aunt in such a ridiculous way. And only thirty five minutes later a kitchen-maid rescued the aunt from the rain-water tank.

There was a frozen muteness at the evening tea table. Every member of the family had his own reason for...