Short Fiction

    The short story I have chosen is "The Interlopers" by Saki

"Neighbour," he said presently, "do as you please if your men come first. It was a fair compact. But as for me, I've changed my mind. If my men are the first to come you shall be the first to be helped, as though you were my guest. We have quarrelled like devils all our lives over this stupid strip of forest, where the trees can't even stand upright in a breath of wind. Lying here to-night thinking I've come to think we've been rather fools; there are better things in life than getting the better of a boundary dispute. Neighbour, if you will help me to bury the old quarrel I - I will ask you to be my friend."

...I think that most people would agree that betrayal in this story is for the better. "Neighbour, if you will help me to bury the old quarrel I - I will ask you to be my friend." (3) When the man speaking asks the other man to drop the dispute that had been going on for three generations, he was betraying his ancestors who had begun this disagreement. He proposes this to guarantee that he will live another day. The betrayal unlike most I have found, creates hope contradicting the quote by Steven Dietz that states that betrayal destroys hope. This is similar to the cause of betrayal in my flash fiction. Although in this story, the betrayal does not come at the cost of another's life. Unfortunately, after the two men agreed to become friends, but before they were freed from under the log, they were eaten by wolves...