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Singlebury
The Superior only briefly makes an appearance in the story, but he is nevertheless master of both the Narrator’s and Singlebury’s fate. In events prior to the opening of the story, the Superior orders the Narrator to fire several workers, including Singlebury, the firm’s most loyal and longstanding employee. The only explanation given for this corporate restructuring is that the firm recently showed “discouraging trading figures.” The firm is just one of the Superior’s many business ventures, and the Superior himself is very affluent, living in a lavish mansion run by servants. As such, his decision to fire Singlebury and the others is made not out of necessity but rather out of greed. The Superior, who remains unnamed throughout the story, functions as a stand-in for corporate avarice and cruelty.
Superior Quotes in The Axe
The The Axe quotes below are all either spoken by Superior or refer to Superior. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Axe Quotes
From this point on I feel able to write more freely, it being well understood, at office-managerial level, that you do not read more than the first two sentences of any given report. You believe that anything which cannot be put into two sentences is not worth attending to, a piece of wisdom which you usually attribute to the late Lord Beaverbrook.
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I would describe my feeling at this point as resentment, and I cannot identify exactly the moment when it passed into unease. I do know that I was acutely uneasy as I crossed the hall and saw two of your domestic staff, a man and a woman, holding my coat, which I had left in the lobby, and apparently trying to brush it. […] Then I saw they were not smiling at my coat but that they seemed to be examining their fingers and looking at me earnestly and silently, and the collar or shoulders of my coat was covered with blood. As I came up to them, although they were still both absolutely silent, the illusion or impression passed, and I put on my coat and left the house in what I hope was a normal manner.
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I have passed the time so far as best as I could in writing this report. One consideration strikes me. If what I have next door is a visitant which should not be walking but buried in the earth, then its wound cannot bleed, and there will be no stream of blood moving slowly under the door. However I am sitting at the moment with my back to the door, so that, without turning round, I have no means of telling whether it has done so or not.
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Superior Quotes in The Axe
The The Axe quotes below are all either spoken by Superior or refer to Superior. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Axe Quotes
From this point on I feel able to write more freely, it being well understood, at office-managerial level, that you do not read more than the first two sentences of any given report. You believe that anything which cannot be put into two sentences is not worth attending to, a piece of wisdom which you usually attribute to the late Lord Beaverbrook.
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Explanation and Analysis:
I would describe my feeling at this point as resentment, and I cannot identify exactly the moment when it passed into unease. I do know that I was acutely uneasy as I crossed the hall and saw two of your domestic staff, a man and a woman, holding my coat, which I had left in the lobby, and apparently trying to brush it. […] Then I saw they were not smiling at my coat but that they seemed to be examining their fingers and looking at me earnestly and silently, and the collar or shoulders of my coat was covered with blood. As I came up to them, although they were still both absolutely silent, the illusion or impression passed, and I put on my coat and left the house in what I hope was a normal manner.
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I have passed the time so far as best as I could in writing this report. One consideration strikes me. If what I have next door is a visitant which should not be walking but buried in the earth, then its wound cannot bleed, and there will be no stream of blood moving slowly under the door. However I am sitting at the moment with my back to the door, so that, without turning round, I have no means of telling whether it has done so or not.
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