Inference Exercise—W. Somerset Maugham, "Death Speaks" (Chapter 7)

Read the fable again carefully and then label these inferences as follows:  PA (probably accurate), PI (probably inaccurate), NP (not in the passage).  Answers and explanations follow.

1. _____   Death is depicted as a woman.

2. _____   The servant misinterpreted Death's gesture in the market-place.

3. _____   The merchant thought his servant was foolish to go to Samarra.

4. _____   The time and place of our death are predetermined before we are born.

5. _____   The servant thought he could outwit Death.

6. _____   Ironically, in trying to escape Death, the servant sealed his own fate.

Here are the answers:

1.   PA            2.  PA             3.  PI           4.  NP          5.  PA            6.  PA

            Study these explanations carefully, and if you are unsure about an answer, see your instructor.

            The first inference is clearly accurate based on a careful reading of the first sentence. Based on the information in sentences 6 and 7, inference two is similarly accurate; however, to make this inference, we must accept Death's explanation for her gesture and reject the servant's explanation.

            The third inference should be marked probably inaccurate. Sentence 4 implies that the merchant willingly lent his horse to the servant, suggested that he agreed with the servant's decision to flee Death's threatening gesture. Further evidence is that later the merchant scolded Death for frightening his servant. Also, a good master would not want his servant to die. Thus the original inference statement misinterprets the story's events.

            The fourth inference should be marked not in the passage. Death says that she knew in advance that the servant would be in Samarra, implying that the servant's death was predetermined; however, the fable says nothing about our own death being predetermined, much less before our birth. Last, inferences 5 and 6 should be labeled probably accurate. In attempting to outwit Death and escape his fate, the servant, instead, sealed his own fate. We and the narrator, Death, know what the servant does not.

            This fable nicely illustrates the concept of dramatic irony.