The Open Window
by Saki

The Open Window: Genre 1 key example

Key Examples in The Open Window

Genre
Explanation and Analysis:

"The Open Window" is a satirical short story that mocks the decorum, pomposity, and ignorance of the English leisure class. Saki's desire to critique social mores can be understood in the context of the growing awareness of social injustice during his time. There was an air of change at the turn of the century, as society, and those representing it through art and literature, moved on from the Victorian period and began to look ahead towards their expectations of modernity. At the same time, there was nothing new about Saki's use of satire to make fun of the English elite; in the eighteenth century, for example, satirists like Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope made steady use of the genre to ridicule the ignorance and hypocrisy of aristocratic society.