Layers of naming and responsibility in Saki's short stories

This study takes as its departure point a comment in Tom Docherty's Reading (Absent) Character about naming and responsibility. It places this notion in the context of Saki's short stories, and through them in the comic context as a whole. General illustrations of Saki's gift for naming characters lead to presentation of three specific stories, "The Schartz-Metterklume Method", "The Unrest-Cure" and "Shock Treatment", which involve the extra "layer" mentioned in the title, as the main characters receive or take on new names for the duration of the story. The study links the author's gesture of naming to Docherty's comments on responsibility and to the relationship of havoc-wreaker to victim and havocwreaker to self.