Image of the Lost Soul
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Title: The Image of the Lost Soul
Composer: Saki
Source: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/ImagLost.shtml
Date: 1919
About:
• By Saki, is a short story about belonging through relationship to others.
• Story examines the interdependence of two social outcasts forged through a mutual sense of not belonging to the mainstream culture.
• ‘The Image of the Lost Soul’ by Saki is a short story about belonging through mutual exclusion. The story, narrated largely by personified birds, observes the relationship of two social outcasts, the lost soul and the bird, which originates from their experience of alienation from the ‘mainstream culture’.
Quotes, techniques and links to belonging:
• Emotive short story is written in third person with personified birds largely narrating the story.
• The author juxtaposes a particular statue with the rest “nearly all were in attitudes of pious exaltation and composure. But one figure….. its face was hard bitter and downcast”.
o Effectively contrasts the statues and emphasises the physical differences which construct a sense of not belonging to the mainstream society.
• However the little bird and the statue, who are both excluded from society, are able to establish a sense of belonging through relation to each other “the lonely bird grew to love its lonely protector”.
o Here the statue is also characterised as a ‘protector’ emphasising to the audience the care and bond between the two entities.
• Characterisation “no respectable bird sang with so much feeling”
o Reveals the opinion of the mainstream society → differing values prevent belonging
• Irony: village folk assume the birds music is wasted and cage the bird, removing it from the statue
o The two outcasts have become interdependent and can not survive without each others companionship
Saki’s use of juxtaposition in ‘nearly all were in attitudes of pious exaltation and composure. But one figure…it’s face was hard, bitter and...
Composer: Saki
Source: http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/ImagLost.shtml
Date: 1919
About:
• By Saki, is a short story about belonging through relationship to others.
• Story examines the interdependence of two social outcasts forged through a mutual sense of not belonging to the mainstream culture.
• ‘The Image of the Lost Soul’ by Saki is a short story about belonging through mutual exclusion. The story, narrated largely by personified birds, observes the relationship of two social outcasts, the lost soul and the bird, which originates from their experience of alienation from the ‘mainstream culture’.
Quotes, techniques and links to belonging:
• Emotive short story is written in third person with personified birds largely narrating the story.
• The author juxtaposes a particular statue with the rest “nearly all were in attitudes of pious exaltation and composure. But one figure….. its face was hard bitter and downcast”.
o Effectively contrasts the statues and emphasises the physical differences which construct a sense of not belonging to the mainstream society.
• However the little bird and the statue, who are both excluded from society, are able to establish a sense of belonging through relation to each other “the lonely bird grew to love its lonely protector”.
o Here the statue is also characterised as a ‘protector’ emphasising to the audience the care and bond between the two entities.
• Characterisation “no respectable bird sang with so much feeling”
o Reveals the opinion of the mainstream society → differing values prevent belonging
• Irony: village folk assume the birds music is wasted and cage the bird, removing it from the statue
o The two outcasts have become interdependent and can not survive without each others companionship
Saki’s use of juxtaposition in ‘nearly all were in attitudes of pious exaltation and composure. But one figure…it’s face was hard, bitter and...