Skip to main content

In "The Interlopers," what caused the men's relationship to change?

Georg and Ulrich hate each other so much that on the night the story takes place, they are actively hunting each other. But an interesting thing occurs when they meet face to face: They hesitate. Neither man is prepared to take another man's life. In spite of their mutual hate, something prevents them from resorting to murder:



But a man who has been brought up under the code of a restraining civilization cannot easily nerve himself to shoot down his neighbor in cold blood and without a word spoken, except for an offense against his hearth and honor.



After this mutual hesitation, nature takes over and pins the men beneath the tree. They are still teeming with contempt for one another. But that previous hesitation showed that they are capable of civilized behavior.


Ulrich and Georg had always been hunters. But being pinned beneath the tree, they are vulnerable. In this helpless situation, they are now more like prey than predators or hunters. It is a terrifying experience and they only have each other in this case. Faced with the potential of not being rescued, Ulrich makes the first gesture. Eventually, Georg accepts his friendship. Facing a life or death situation (together) is what really puts things into perspective and brings the men together.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Is there a word/phrase for "unperformant"?

As a software engineer, I need to sometimes describe a piece of code as something that lacks performance or was not written with performance in mind. Example: This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. Based on my Google searches, this isn't a real word. What is the correct way to describe this? EDIT My usage of "performance" here is in regard to speed and efficiency. For example, the better the performance of code the faster the application runs. My question and example target the negative definition, which is in reference to preventing inefficient coding practices. Answer This kind of coding style leads to unmaintainable and unperformant code. In my opinion, reads more easily as: This coding style leads to unmaintainable and poorly performing code. The key to well-written documentation and reports lies in ease of understanding. Adding poorly understood words such as performant decreases that ease. In addressing the use of such a poorly ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Is 'efficate' a word in English?

I routinely hear the word "efficate" being used. For example, "The most powerful way to efficate a change in the system is to participate." I do not find entries for this word in common English dictionaries, but I do not have an unabridged dictionary. I have checked the OED (I'm not sure if it is considered unabridged), and it has no entry for "efficate". It does have an entry for "efficiate", which is used in the same way. Wordnik has an entry for "efficate" with over 1800 hits, thus providing some evidence for the frequency of use. I personally like the word and find the meaning very clear and obvious when others use it. If it's not currently an "officially documented" word, perhaps its continued use will result in it being better documented.
Post a Comment
Read more