‘Interlopers’: A Story of Hope Beneath the Surface of Despair

H.H. Munro, better known by the pen name “Saki,” wrote a story that invites two very different interpretations.

A falling tree causes disaster, in Saki's short story "Interlopers." Public Domain

The short stories of H. H. Munro, the English writer who used the pen name “Saki,” are macabre, mordantly witty, acerbic, suspenseful, and masterful works of literature.

“Interlopers,” published in 1919, is all these things and more. Superficially, it has a grim ending, but it challenges readers to consider the value of friendship, the hatefulness of grudges, and their revulsion of physical death. It asks readers to choose what’s more important: friendship or physical life.

If reader believe in love more than they dread death, the story is also an avenue to understanding the nature and necessity of other important spiritual truths.

Dark Yet Thought-Provoking

The story describes two bitter enemies who have escalated their families’ feud of multiple generations by literally hunting each other. Upon their encounter, bloodshed is only prevented by an accident of nature that temporarily incapacitates both. A conversation, begun in hatred, surprisingly, miraculously turns to charity and new friendship. However, the ending hints very strongly that the reconciled men won’t live to see their resolutions through.

Nighttime in the forest is dangerous for both prey and predator. Public Domain

It’s easy to see how “Interlopers” could be interpreted as despairing or nihilistic. The very title contains an irony, since the question of the interlopers’ identity depends on two very different perspectives of the story, and it’s a question that is never answered definitively by the author. Moreover, the feel of the story, with the improbable reconciliation happening right before all-but-certain death, is anticlimactic.

While the New York Times Book Review praised the storytelling, it emphasized the “grimness” that seemed unusual even for Saki. But the reasons for calling it “grim” are superficial.

In his writings, Saki was a pronounced enemy of sentimentality. It’s important to differentiate between the “uplifting” and the “sentimental.” Saki was a great storyteller, and a rule of great storytelling is that there’s no point in a happy ending if it has nothing to do with reality. A “feel-good” ending would provide nothing to readers, who live in reality not on a page.

While a beautiful event occurs—the mending of a feud that has lasted generations—it doesn’t erase a past replete with suspicions, insults, and hateful acts. That past remains; it’s because of that past that the two men are alone and disabled, and it’s because of that past that they’re stuck in a remote place in the cold of winter. The enmity that they and their families have cultivated for generations seems to have died, but the consequences remain.

"The Poacher," 1908, by Frédéric Rouge. Public Domain

But desperate situations sometimes offer the only time that people can change for the better. Even if this opportunity is taken advantage of, as it is in this story, danger will likely remain. A good parallel is in Flannery O'Connor’s short story, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find.” Once the selfish protagonist is held at gunpoint, she finally becomes admirable. The villain says this about her: “She would have been a good woman if someone had been there to shoot her every minute of her life.” Something similar can be said about the two men in “Interlopers.”

The sad ending is completely appropriate because, while this story depicts an inspiring reconciliation, it simultaneously conveys a truth: Long-held hatred invites self-punishment.

The reader is challenged to look at two beliefs, both of which are represented in our culture today. One of these is that nothing is worse than death because physical life is the most important thing there is. This belief is a symptom of practical materialism. On the other hand, there is the intuition, witnessed at every Memorial Day celebration, that some things are worth more than life itself. Friendship is one of these.

The 157th Wilmington Memorial Day ceremony was held on Soldiers and Sailors Monument Park, on May 30, 2024. Celebrations like these invite participants to remember that sacrifices come from love. Lily Sun/The Epoch Times

A reader’s evaluation of the two men’s fate in the “Interlopers” depends on how he or she decides what’s more important: physical life or love. Seeing this question put so simply can startle a reader into acknowledging the transcendental nature of human friendship. It also encourages readers to consider, more seriously, other transcendentals: mysterious and hopeful things like eternal life, truth, goodness, beauty, and God.

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