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Short Story Of Canute

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Canute
In today’s society, everything is about power and control. Most people seem obsessed with having control. In their careers, at home, everywhere, because control equals power. Often with power comes leadership and most controlling people like to lead. However, some people don’t even want the control and power, it is just a part of their image. It is the way society portrays them. Therefore, they seek the incontrollable things, like people and nature. This is exactly what the main character is seeking in the short story Canute by Nikesh Shukla from the book The Best British Short Stories, published in 2013.
The short story is about a man goes hunting for sea-bass in order to lose control and escape his hectic life as a business man. He is tired of everyone seeing him as a man of control and power, when all he really wants is the opposite. He likes to get away from his everyday life and seeks shelter in the water.
In this short story, we have a limited third person narrator. It is a third person narrator, because the narrator isn’t a character in the story, yet sees the story from the outside. It is a limited narrator, because the narrator only …show more content…

It is called “Canute”, because our main character is being compared to Cnut the Great. The title of the novel is really good. Cnut the Great was the Viking king who of Denmark, England and Norway. The other Vikings would compare him to God. Cnut didn’t believe so and to prove them wrong, he demonstrated by trying to stop the tides. It did not work, of course, therefore he proved he had no control of the elements. Shukla makes a clear comparison here between our main character and Cnut the Great. They both have people, who believe they’re always in control, when they clearly aren’t. Both always have a fondness of the water, which seems to be their escape. Therefore, the title is a perfect fit for the short story, because in any ways our main character is the modern day

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