Abstract

“The Lumber Room” by Hector Hugh Munro(1870-1916),who wrote under the penname “Saki”, is a short story that covers the survival struggle of the juvenile Nicholas growing in the care of some authoritarian adults. The conditions Nicholas suffers in the story parallel with some details of Munro’s childhood that he spent in the custody of his aunts after the death of his mother. Based on what transpires in the life of Nicholas as a child, this paper attempts to carry out a psychological study of punishment as misdirected discipline, in order to establish that the intelligent independently develop their own stance about the good and the bad, however much they are suppressed in society. From this general stance on Munro’s short stories, this paper investigates the psychological effects of punishment on the Aunt and Nicholas in their respective roles as the prosecutor and the offender in “The Lumber Room” in a situation of misdirected discipline.

Keywords: punishment, discipline, psychoanalysis, frustration, childcare