The Train Carriage
The story begins with the aunt, the three children, and the bachelor in a small, hot train car together. Detailed descriptions, such as the first line, "It was a hot day, and the railway carriage was correspondingly sultry" (1), appeal to the senses to make the reader feel close to the story.
The Park
Saki describes the world of the bachelor's story with perhaps even more detail than he does the real world of the short story. The bachelor draws out his description of the park Bertha was allowed to go to, detailing all the types of animals and plants along with the variety of their colors. This emphasizes how desirable it was for Bertha to get to go into the park, and adds to the irony of the climax in which Bertha was killed in such a beautiful place reserved for good children.
The Aunt's Story
Saki does not leave it up to the reader to decide whether the aunt's story, and stories like it, are worth one's time. Saki uses strong, humorously vivid adjectives to describe the aunt's story; for example, he writes, "she began an unenterprising and deplorably uninteresting story about a little girl who was good" (3). Through this kind of emotive, opinionated language, the narrator persuades the reader to agree with the children and the bachelor.
Bertha's Death
Since the bachelor is telling his story to children, one might expect a fun story with a happy ending. Not only does the bachelor tell a dark and ironic story, he also describes in special detail the trapping and death of Bertha. The bachelor builds suspense as Bertha hid while the wolf tried to see and smell her. Finally, her last moments of death are described with vivid adjectives and verbs: "He dashed into the bush, his pale grey eyes gleaming with ferocity and triumph, and dragged Bertha out and devoured her to the last morsel" (8). The vividness of this language, as well as the moral of the tale, is what the bachelor thinks will stick with the children even after he leaves the train carriage.
