The Interlopers

Stories featuring family feuds, from Romeo and Juliet to Yellowstone, show how an initial dispute between individuals can become distorted and take on a different meaning as the enmity expands over several members of a family or even over multiple generations. The family feud in Saki’s story started as a minor legal matter but grew over time as it took on an emotional element disproportionate to the economic interests at stake. The grandfathers of Ulrich and Georg went to court over a disagreement about who owned an unproductive strip of woodland. The Znaeym ancestor did not agree with the court’s decision and, the narrator says, “a long series of poaching affrays and similar scandals had embittered the relationships between the families for three generations” (16). Ulrich and Georg grew up in the angry milieu of the feud and would have had little occasion to reconsider the vitriol that was passed down to them. In fact, with the ascension of Ulrich and Georg to the heads of their respective families, the dispute grew from a legal debate over unremarkable woods to a personal battle. Ulrich set out that night to confront Georg, whom he calls “the tireless game-snatcher and raider” (16), and his men “prowling thieves” and “marauders” (17).