Mrs. Packletide’s Tiger: Genre 1 key example

While Saki specifically satirizes wealthy English people in the story, he also uses humor to highlight the absurd lengths all people will go to for money. For example, in a comical twist at the end of the story, Louisa Mebbin blackmails her wealthy employer Mrs. Packletide in order to secure herself a weekend cottage. The following passage—in which Saki describes Louisa’s cottage home—demonstrates his satirical intentions:

Louisa Mebbin’s pretty week-end cottage, christened by her ‘Les Fauves’, and gay in summer-time with its garden borders of tigerlilies, is the wonder and admiration of her friends.

Cite this Quote

[…]

Mrs Packletide indulges in no more big-game shooting.

“The incidental expenses are so heavy,” she confides to inquiring friends.

Here, Saki has Louisa humorously name her cabin “Les Fauves” (“the big cats” or "the wild beasts") and has her plant tiger lilies all around it, both nods to the fact that she was able to pay for the cabin because of Mrs. Packletide’s tiger escapade. The final line of the story—in which Mrs. Packletide states that "The incidental expenses" of hunting "are so heavy"—cements Saki’s primary intention of satirizing the upper-class English elite. Rather than telling her friends she was swindled by her employee, Mrs. Packletide frames the purchase of Louisa’s cottage as an “incidental expense” in her hunting endeavor.