The Interlopers
There's something about rivalry: the intense hatred mixed with begrudging respect, a relationship of equals and yet always the desire to be greater than another. Do we want to see them finish each other? Do we want to see what they could do if they got along? Either way it is entertaining!
The Facts
Text: The Interlopers Author: Saki
Genre: Thriller, Horror Year: 1919
Available: Here (Free!)
Content Warning: Scenes of men lost/trapped in a forest, descriptions of being pinned down/trapped.
The Fiction
This week I look at British author Hector Hugh Monro better known by his penname Saki and his short story The Interlopers. One thing we can't get enough of is irony. Characters meeting comically twisted or just twisted fates that have that ironic edge to them is just something we seem to love. The ironic seems to be the meeting place of the comedic and tragic. Its not not just that something bad happens to characters (that's just tragedy) but that when something bad happens there is something darkly funny about it.
Like short stories effective irony has that twist, that oh, that moment of epiphany. For this reason the two go well together as demonstrated in this week's story. In The Interlopers we follow Ulrich von Gradwitz a landowner in a blood feud/rivalry with his neighbour Georg Znaeym. Years ago the courts granted the Gradwitz family rights to a disputed strip of forest between the two families properties. The Znaeym's disagreed with the courts and continued to hunt in that stretch of forest by poaching. We learn that Ulrich and Georg have exasperated this family dispute with their immense personal dislike of each other.
The story takes place one night in this disputed forest with Ulrich and his men trying to find and catch Georg and his men in their territory. A storm rages and when the two rivals find each other separated from their groups a fierce wind knocks a tree over pinning both men. While they initially remain hostile to each other, as the two are trapped their animosity begins to fade and they decide that when they get free they will bury their feud and become proper friends. They both call for help and eventually hear movement in the forest around them. Georg, who has blood in his eyes and can't see, asks Ulrich whose men have found them first. Ulrich responds that their men are not the ones who have found them. They are being approached by wolves.
The Feeling
Who doesn't love a good rivalry? They make for fantastic stories and character dynamics. The enmity between Georg and Ulrich makes for an entertaining first half of this story. Both characters view the other as "interlopers" into their forest and this fuels their dynamic. A rivalry is an intense relationship of mutual dislike, but there is also a layer of respect. It is deeming another as an equal even as there is a drive to surpass them. There is this notion in The Interlopers that their Ulrich and George's rivalry is something private and sacred to them. They comment that other townspeople and neighbors who gossip about their feud are also "interlopers" into their relationship. Although enemies there is powerful bond between these two men, a relationship that is understood only between the two of them, and which they dislike being infringed upon by others.
While it would be entertaining enough for theses characters to stay rivals and snipe at each other even while being crushed by a tree (and for awhile they try) this story is about the change in their relationship, and their decision to become friends. This is a beautiful moment of growth for the two men and of course the reason why their deaths are so tinged with tragedy: the moment they finally decide to get along they die and can never actually enjoy the warmth of friendship.
The title "The Interlopers" refers to different people through out the story. Ulrich and Georg both view each other as the interlopers to the forest. They also view everyone else as interlopers and know-nothings to their rivalry. But the twist/moment of epiphany in this story is the reveal that they are both the interlopers in the forest; it of course belongs to the wolves.
There is a commentary on perspective here. Who is right? Who owns the disputed strip of forest? Both Ulrich and Georg believe it to be themselves, with Georg going so far as to ignore a court decision in Ulrich's favour because he is so sure he is right. But in the end these are human borders, and human squabbles. No court of law can take the forest away from the wolves. The Gradwitz and Znaeym families spent generation arguing about a strip of forest to the point that Ulrich and Georg almost kill each over it, but in the end this story reminds us of our place in the world, and the size of our point of view. Nature in the force of the wind and a tree pins these posturing men to the ground, and then in form of prowling wolves shows them how small their human disputes are.
Isn't it tragic but also kind of funny how these two men so concerned with who was invading who's side of the forest both learn that they were the ones intruding? Isn't it ironic?
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