The Lumber Room - Literary Devices

 

Literary Devices

 The text is full of childhood experience of the Nicholas. The entire narrations is about a days of Nicholas at home with his aunt and his secret visit to the lumber room. It is a lifelong memory for Nicholas.

The story goes on with 3^rd person narration. It is divided into four complete parts. The exposition: It says about the family of Nicholas. He and his cousins under the care of their strict aunt. The story begins with a breakfast which is refused by Nicholas as there is frog in his breakfast. Nicholas makes impossible things possible. But his behavior provokes his aunt, he faces punishments.

 All the speech of Nicholas is good and full of scientific vocabularies, but Aunt’s speech is simple and primitive. The author says about the aunt “she was a woman of few ideas.”

In this section of the story the author uses. “Bobby won’t enjoy him much. The aunt’s “grim chuckle” Nicholas does not accept his aunt’s authority over him. The use of metaphor is quite interesting. It was taken from the Bible – “forbidden Paradise”. This shows how curious Nicholas would be to explore the lumber room. 

The Author uses repetition “often and often Nicholas had picture to himself” – which says about Nicholas creative imagination.

The author says “golden minutes” to describe the importance of the lumber room for Nicholas.

 The use of rhetorical of question such as “But did the hunts man see, what Nicholas saw, wolves were coming in his direction through the wood? These questions make the readers to imagine.

 Simile: “teapot fashioned like a china duck” a very interesting comparison and imagination of Nicholas. Nicholas admiration could be enjoyed when he saw the birds. “and such Birds”.

The use of alliteration gives a strong impression.

“First and foremost, there was …….”

The Anticlimax starts there Nicholas jumps out the heaven to earth and runs to in search of his aunt.

“your voice doesn’t sound like aunt’s. you may be the Evil one tempting me to be disobedient….”

Nicholas uses his aunt’s words against her. It is an ironical situation. Nicholas takes every opportunity to punish the aunt, he with intention asks about the strawberry jam and makes Aunt to accept her follies. It was quite a success to Nicholas.

     

          “She maintained the frozen muteness”

 In the evening dinner the aunt was silent in anger, Nicholas was silent as he was too occupied with his imaginative story.  One can feel and see that the story presents a generation misunderstanding.  The aunt is a symbol of moralistic person but she is hypocritical and exaggerates a child’s naughtiness and compares it to a great sin.  She is very dominant expecting strict obedience from them.  Thus, we can see the differences between her world and the innocent world of the children.

 

Themes

Innocent Children and strict power, morality, hypocrisy.

 Throughout the story, Saki describes the aunt as being a narrow minded.  She finds fault with petty things and punishes them and put them in disgrace put the blame on them as they brought the disgrace upon her.  She is old, wise and powerful over the children and orders them what she wants them to do.  She missuses her power over them.  Instead of motivating them for a creative skill, she tries to shunt them form their skill. 

The children are more sympathetic as they do not express themselves.  They obey the aunt blindly.  They do not have voice or power to stand for themselves.  They are ignored, cornered and controlled.  The aunt uses some of the children to punish Nicholas.  She ignores their likes and dislikes.  They play as per aunt’s rule.  But Nicholas is young enough and matured to find the mistakes of his aunt and rebels against her.  Clever, creative and imaginative to find an end for his story of the tapestry portrait.  Nicholas proves his intelligence and understanding of his aunt’s over power by using her own words against her “the Evil One” it was such an unexpected quickness from a small boy.

 At the conclusion of the story “frozen muteness” reveals the mind set of each one at the dinner table.  A complete contrast between their reactions.   Till the end of the story Nicholas and his intelligence influences and gives a complete satisfaction to the readers

                                                                        Satire

The lumber room is a satire of the upper-class Edwardian England and the period before world war 1.

Satire is a style of humor that could ridicule social issues, human errors, political corruption and social abuses of the upper-class systems.  Nicholas defeated his aunt’s pride and mean mind.  Saki presents a criticism of the autocratic unimaginative natures of the Edwardian England.  The readers could both enjoy the humor and give serious thinking over the Edwardian nature.

Allegory and motifs and symbols

 Nicholas represents children and their mind set. Nicholas is the most active kid in the story. He is full of mischievous and playfulness. Saki brings out that the fact that being playful is part of childhood life and adults should understand it and should not give harsh punishments upon them. Nicholas seems very curious to explore the lumber room and amazes at the things he sees inside the lumber room. In fact, what he sees stored inside, all other things in the outer world seem uninteresting. What Nicholas imagines inside the lumber room and how he brings an end to each character in the pictures in his imagination shows a child’s mentality.

The Aunt

The aunt represents the nature of adults and portrayed in a negative sense. The aunt is a very strict. Though Nicholas refuses his food by putting a frog into it, in the eyes of the aunt, it is a serious crime that puts the child in “disgrace.” The punishment she gives is even more disgraceful. she represents adults who punish children on unreasonable grounds, without giving chance for them to explain. On the other hand, the aunt refuses children’s freedom unnecessarily. The aunt wishes to keep all children out of the lumber room and it is locked all times. she fails to understand is that, children’s curious nature is a part of their growth and the elders should not control them when they grow mentally.

The Lumber Room

The lumber room has many serious symbols providing humor. It symbolizes the imagination of children:  Nicholas didn’t realize the passing of the time when he is exploring the room the tapestry into life.  His creativeness and imagination are quite powerful that made the readers to forget the whole story of the Aunt.  He carries the experiences of this lumber room with him not to forget forever. His imagination stays with him.

 The Metaphors and Similes

Punishment for sins  

It is the habit of the aunt to give punishment for the disobedience. The trip is not to give pleasures to the kids but it is a kind of punishment to embrace Nicholas who refuses the breakfast and disobeys the aunt.

“if all the children sinned collectively, they were suddenly informed of a circus in a neighboring town, a circus of unrivaled merit and uncounted elephants, to which, but for their depravity, they would have been taken that very day.”

 The key to the Door

The key is very important to open the door.  Not only the door but also the imagination of a child. He explores the room and goes into his world where he creates his own story.

                                                                         The opening of the door

 “The door opened, and Nicholas was in an unknown land, compared with which the gooseberry garden was a stale delight, a mere material pleasure.”

 It opens a new world to Nicholas.

 Behind the Door

 The story of the tapestry gave a wild imagination to Nicholas.

“a teapot fashioned like a china duck; out of whose open beak the tea was supposed to come.”

This new world opens the mind of a child”. Other things are magical to him and bought a lively moment in his life and its metaphorical imagery.

 The Evil One

“…you may be the Evil One tempting me to be disobedient. Aunt often tells me that the Evil One tempts me and that I always yield. This time I'm not going to yield."

Nicholas uses Aunt’s words against as his weapon to her. 

 Irony

” there is a frog in his breakfast of bread-and-milk”

The impossible becomes possible

  “The older, wiser, and better people had been proved to be profoundly in error in matters about which they had expressed the utmost assurance.”

 First incident where the aunt is under Nicholas’s tricks. And the older wiser and better people become unwise. 

The Punishments

The punishments given by the aunt to Nicholas are very severe.  He is not allowed the pleasure trips and prohibited to enter the gooseberry garden. But the irony is these punishments are a way for Nicholas to decide his own pleasure. He is not bothered or moved by any of these punishments.

 Boomerang

It is an interesting irony to note that the aunt who forbids Nicholas to the gooseberry garden, pleads him to come to the same garden, as she needs help, for she gets stuck into the water tank.

Brilliant Nicholas take the aunt’s words as weapon against her to put her into dilemma.  “The Evil One” she uses these words to punish the innocent children, and Nicholas uses it to her to bring out her lies and hypocrisy.

Imagery in the Lumber Room 

Disgrace

The term “Disgrace” plays a vital role in every children’s growth.  The aunt who misuses her authority over the children and punishes them in a most severe manner.  Their freedom will be barred, their pleasures are denied, keeping them off from other children is a disgrace and painful experience to kids. The humiliation she brings on the children is a pattern of imagery the author paints to bring out the Edwardian culture.

 Self-betrayal

“Aunt had many other things to do that afternoon, but she spent an hour or two in trivial gardening operations among flower beds and shrubberies, whence she could watch the two doors that led to the forbidden paradise.”

 It is interesting to note that aunt who is working in the garden could have enjoyed the nature but she could not enjoy as she is focusing herself towards Nicholas. She is occupied with his tricks and watchful and thereby loosing her beautiful atmosphere around her.

Nature

 The nature is there before the characters.  One denies to enjoy and the other forbids to enjoy.   Yes, the aunt is very much occupied to punish Nicholas, whereas the kid is busy to enter the lumber room.  Both have different views towards nature.  Aunt ignores the truth.  Nicholas loves to create his own world.  He sees the wild world in the tapestry and enjoys and goes into that wild world.

 Tapestry

The portrait of the hunting scene in the tapestry is a turning point in Nicholas’s life. He see another two world in side the Lumber Room.  First, he sees the hunting man with a dead stage and two dogs and approaching ferocious wolves.   This scene kindles his imagination to create a wonderful story in his small world.  He starts and ends the story of the hunting in his own imagination and carries the sweet memories with him. Also, he sees beautiful things there in the room such a candlestick and tea pot.  They are pretty antics. It is a magical world to young Nicholas.  He is amazed and enjoys every moment there.

 

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