There are many similarities and common ideas between the short stories “The Shining Houses”, by Alice Munro and “The Interlopers”, by Saki. Both short stories are common classics. If you compare the two stories, there are certain aspects of the plot which are very similar to each other. You will notice that there are similar personality traits between some of the characters, there are similar conflicts and they both share similar messages. If you compare the protagonists from each story, Mary from “The Shining Houses” and Ulrich from “The Interlopers”, you can notice indistinguishable personality traits and beliefs between the two of them. At the beginning of “The Shining Houses”, you read about how Mary likes to get into other people’s business. As the story states, Mary likes to talk to her neighbours and pretend she knows less than she actually does in order to get …show more content…
You first read about how she’s talking to her neighbour, Mrs. Fullerton and listens to what she has to say about her past. In a somewhat similar way at the beginning of “The Interlopers”, the protagonist, Ulrich also tried getting into Georg’s business. Ulrich purposely goes into the woods to see if Georg is there. After comparing these two events which happen in the story you can see that they are both curious. This can be summarized to say that they share the personality trait of inquisitiveness. Another word which can describe a personality trait which both Mary and Georg share is that they are caring, which can be shown later on in both stories. In “The Shining Houses”, when Mary goes to a party which is for many people in her neighbourhood, they all start talking about how they want to get rid of Mrs. Fullerton’s house because it is in such bad condition that it is degrading the value of the neighbour’s homes who live in the new subdivision. Despite the fact that Mary lives in the neighbourhood and Mrs. Fullerton’s house is most likely degrading the value of her