Year 10 Short Stories Unit

GCSE English

British International School Ukraine

Saki (Hector Hugh Munro) 1870-1916

Sredni Vashtar (1912)
Page 96
Author: Hector Hugh Munro, a British writer, was born in present day Myanmar.
After the death of his mother, he moved to England with his brother and sister.
His stories mock the Edwardian social scene often in a macabre or evil way. He is
considered a master of the short story.
Edwardian = period in the United Kingdom that covered the reign of King Edward
VII, from 1901 to 1910.
Genre: Macabre (characterized by a grim atmosphere often with an emphasis on
death)
Summary:
A boy named Conrandin is dying of an unnamed illness and is forced to
live with his cousin Mrs. De Ropp, who finds pleasure in mistreating him.
The only comfort he finds is in an imaginary world he created in an
unused toolshed with a Houdan hen and polecat-ferret named Sredni
Vashtar.
His imaginary world becomes a sick obsession where Sredni becomes his
God.
His world starts falling apart when his cousin ransacked his shed and sells
his pet hen.
She expected Conrandin to be devastated but he was unemotional.
His trips to the shed continued where he worshipped Sredni daily asking
for an unknown favour.
Mrs. De Roop looked in his bedroom for the key to the shed and went out
there one morning.
Conradin watched in silence and she searched the shed.
Mrs. De Roop did not return
The story ends with Sredni Vashtar escaping the shed with a dark wet
stain on his mouth.
The maid screamed about the presumed (think something is probable)
death of Mrs. De Roop.
Theme: Rebellion, loneliness
Wider Reading
Other short stories by Munro, such as The Toys of Peace, The Storyteller or The
Lumber Room. You might also be interested in O. Henry and Dorothy Parker.

Year 10 Short Stories Unit

GCSE English

British International School Ukraine

Compare with:
o The Taste of Watermelon (page 310)
Television
Sredni Vashtar, The Storyteller and The Lumber Room are shown in a BBC
production from 2007, Who Killed Mrs. De Roop?
Online
A brief biography can be found at: http://haytom.us/bibliography-of-saki-h-hmunro/
A full list of Sakis books can be found online at: http://haytom.us/stories-fulllist/
Listen to it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT33s2SiJ1I
Watch the film at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S1Pwra7r2g