Dusk by Saki PreReading There are 5 people

Dusk by Saki

Pre-Reading There are 5 people who ask you to give them 10 shekels. Whom do you give your money? Explain your answer. 1. A beggar in the street. 2. A woman in a drugstore asks you for ten shekels to buy medicine. 3. A woman who feeds homeless cats and asks you for 10 shekels to buy them food. 4. Your schoolmate (who is not your classmate) who needs 10 shekels to buy a sandwich as he has lost his purse. 5. A foundation that asks you to send an SMS to help children who have nothing to eat.

English Hebrew Location in the text dusk לקראת הערב , בן הערביים 4/35 a bar of soap חפיסת סבון 44/36 to betray למעול באימון , לבגוד 16/35 defeated מובסים 8/35 disappointed מאוכזב 19/35 to fail להכשלה 15/35 foreign זר 59/36 to judge לשפוט 108/37 to lend להלוות 97/37 in a mood to notice במצב רוח לשים לב 13/35 24/35 noticeable shadows קל להבחין בו , ניכר צללים 12/35 6/35 to trust לתת אימון ב 16/35

Basic Understanding A. Choose the TWO correct answers to show you understand the meaning of the word in bold. 1. How do people feel when they are betrayed? (i) hurt 2. (ii) disloyal (iii) disappointed How do people usually feel in a foreign country? (i) angry (ii) confused (iii) less confident 3. If people want to be unnoticeable, what don’t they want? (i) to be seen (ii) to draw the attention to others (iii) to notice other people 4. How should we judge people? (i) by their behavior (ii) by their looks (iii) by their character 5. If you lend money to a friend, what do you expect? (i) to get it back (ii) to pay it back (iii) to be paid back

B. Circle the correct answer. Number the sentences according to the events in the story. 2 ___ (a) When the young/ old man left, a young/ old man took his place. 1 ___ (b) Norman sat on a chair/ bench in the park next to an old man. 5 ___ (c) When he wanted to return to his hotel/ shop, he realized he didn’t remember its soap/ name and he didn’t have any money with him. 3 ___ (d) The young man asked Norman to give him some money/soap, otherwise he would have to spend the day/night in the park. 6 ___ (e) Norman didn’t believe/ believed the stranger’s story because he didn’t have a bar of chocolate/ soap with him. 4 ___ (f) He explained that he had found/checked into a hotel and then went out to eat/buy some soap.

C. Match sentences in column A with the sentences with in column B A 1. Norman didn’t give the man any money. 2. But then, Norman saw a small package next to the bench. B a. It was a bar of soap. b. The man was looking for a bar of soap. c. Norman felt he couldn’t trust 3. At that point, Norman believed people again. that the man’s story was true. d. So the man walked away. 4. Then he saw the old man who had been sitting next to him. e. He hurried after the man and gave him some money. 5. Norman understood that the young man had lied to him. 1 -d; 2 -a; 3 -e; 4 -b; 5 -c

Analysis and Interpretation 1. What is the setting in the story? When: at dusk ( late in the evening 6: 30) in March Where: in the busy park , probably in England 2. Why did Norman tend ( )לנטות to believe the young man’s story at first? Because he had as similar experience in a foreign country. 3. What else made the man’s story believable? He gave details which were true: a. The Berkshire hotel had indeed been torn down and replaced by a movie theater. b. Taxi drivers often advise their passengers about hotels. c. He hated little bars of hotel soap.

A film maker is looing for actors who will play roles of siblings in the new series. He comes to your class and tries to compare you with your friends. Both Appearance Family Hobbies Age

4. In what kind of mood was Norman when he met the young man? How did his mood affect his decision not to believe the man’s story? Norman was in the mood to put himself among the defeated. Norman was inclined not to believe that the man was telling the truth because he felt defeated. He was disappointed by life because he had been betrayed by someone he had trusted. As a result, he tended to doubt people’s honesty. 5. How did the bar of soap change Norman’s outlook on life? a. How did it make him trust people again? b. How did it cause him not to trust people again? c. How did it affect his belief in himself when he found the soap? when he met the old man the second time?

a. b. c. When Norman found the soap, he thought that the young man had been telling the truth. He was glad that he had met an honest man. The soap restored his belief in people. His perspective changed: he was hopeful/optimistic. He looked at life from a different angle, the values of truth and honesty do exist! He was happy to help a man in need. After giving the money to the young man, he met the old man who had been looking for his bar of soap. At that moment, Norman’s perspective changed. He realized he had been conned. Now he knew the truth. That knowledge caused him to retreat to his former perspective-that of the defeated and disappointed by life. When he found the soap, he thought he had misjudged the young man. He felt he was not good at assessing people’s character. He felt guilty. When he spoke to the old man again, he realized he had assessed the young man correctly at first. As a result , he was angry at himself for falling into the trap set by the con man.

Irony-the contrast between what seems to be and what really is. .

6. Give an example of an ironic situation from the story. When Norman asked the young man to show him the soap he had bought, the young man said he must have lost it. Norman rightly concluded that the man was lying, so he didn’t give him any money. When he found a bar of soap under the bench, he ran after the man and apologized for not believing him. “Excuse me for not believing you. Without the soap, I didn’t think you were telling the truth. But now I am convinced. ” (lines 94 -97) This was an ironic situation because the soap didn’t belong to the young man. Norman “was convinced” by what seemed to be true but was, in fact, untrue.

Metaphor-a figure of speech which describes one thing by aying it is something else.

7. What is dusk a metaphor of? Circle the suitable words failure darkness shadows hopelessness defeat loss half-light trust soap a dark, pessimistic perspective

Bridging Text and Context “Trusting is hard. Knowing who to trust, even harder. ” Maria V. Snyder, Poison Study How is this quote connected to the short story Dusk by Saki? This quote by Maria V. Snyder can be connected to the plot of Dusk in the following way. Snyder asserts that trusting is hard. For Norman, the main character of Saki’s short story , it is true as after being betrayed by someone he trusted he could hardly trust anybody even if there were facts that supported the person’s honesty. On the other hand, it is hard for Norman to know who to trust as because of a bar of soap he found under the bench he changed his opinion about the young man he met in the park and lent him some money. Later, he discovered that this man was a liar which means that actually he wasn’t so good at distinguish between people he can trust and ones he cannot.

Post Reading Saki doesn’t tell us much about Norman. We only know that “… he had been hurt and betrayed by someone he had trusted…” Fill in this ‘gap’ in the story. Make up your own version who/how/when/why/where betrayed Norman. Write at least 5 sentences.