PPL MAN 1

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The Open Window (Short Story and Analysis)

Short Story Analysis

Author: Saki (Hector Hugh Munroe) (1870 – 1916)

Word Count: 1274

Genre: Thriller, Horror

The Open Window

“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; “in the meantime you must try and put up with me.”

Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

“I know how it will be,” his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; “you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.”

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction came into the nice division.

“Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.

“Hardly a soul,” said Framton. “My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.”

He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.

“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?” pursued the self-possessed young lady.

“Only her name and address,” admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.

“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,” said the child; “that would be since your sister’s time.”

“Her tragedy?” asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.

“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,” said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.

“It is quite warm for the time of the year,” said Framton; “but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?”

“Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.” Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human. “Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing ‘Bertie, why do you bound?’ as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window – ”

She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.

“I hope Vera has been amusing you?” she said.

“She has been very interesting,” said Framton.

“I hope you don’t mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn’t it?”

She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

“The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,” announced Framton, who labored under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure. “On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,” he continued.

“No?” said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment. Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention – but not to what Framton was saying.

“Here they are at last!” she cried. “Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with a dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window, they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: “I said, Bertie, why do you bound?”

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.

“Here we are, my dear,” said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window, “fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?”

“A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,” said Mrs. Sappleton; “could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.”

“I expect it was the spaniel,” said the niece calmly; “he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”

Romance at short notice was her specialty.

The Open Window tells about Framton Nuttel who went to countryside to rest his nerves. His sister had said beforehand that his nerves would worsen and had given introduction letters to people there.

There he was talking to Vera, a 15 year – old girl. She is a niece of Mrs Sappleton, a woman to whom Frampton has been given a letter of introduction by his sister. She told him that there was a tragedy befell to Vera’s aunt. Her aunt’s husband and her two young brothers were drowned, died in the marshes while out shooting several years ago. The tragedy sent the aunt out of her mind, and she always keeps the French window (glass door) into the garden open, believing that they will come back.

Mrs. Sappleton then arrived, apologized that she was late. She mentioned about the window to Nuttel and she waited for her husband, two young brothers and her dog. Nuttel felt a horrible atmosphere when he heard it. Then Nuttel looked through the window and found out that there were three men walking towards that window, looking exactly how the neice described them. He runs away in panic; the husband and brothers arrive, very puzzled by the guest’s strange behaviour. Vera calmly tells them that it must have been the dog; he told her he was terrified of dogs after being attacked by wild dogs in India.

Vera is very good at making up stories quickly.

The plot is well – structured and unified. In the beginning the protagonist, Frampton Nuttel, met and had a chat with Vera in a countryside house. He went there because he wanted to rest his nerves.

The conflict begins when she told him about a tragedy of her aunt’s husband and younger brothers. The complication takes place when Mrs. Sappleton, Vera’s aunt, told him about his family which made Nuttel frightened. Then the climax is when Nuttel saw three men and a dog resembled the ones in the story made him ran away because he thought that they were supposedly dead.

The story end with confusion among the inhabitants of the house and Vera explained why Nuttel ran away. In the last sentence the narrator told us that they all just made up stories from Vera who is good at making up stories.

This is a good plot because Vera, as the main character, who sets this story from the first place until the end. Vera seems to be truthful when she tells Nuttel the story of Mr.Sappleton and the hunting party, but in the end it was just a lie.

1. Vera (Main/Major Character): Self-possessed / confident, intelligent and allert, shrewd, creative and imaginative, a fine actress. Vera is the major character or she is the center of this story because she is the one who sets this story from beginning until the end. And the theme of this story matches with Vera’s role in this story.

2. Framton Nuttel (Dynamic, Minor Character): A shy, nervous man due to both his medical condition and having to meet many people he doesn’t know. He is a dynamic character because in this story his characteristic is changed after he faced an event. Nuttel has neural problem which makes him cannot think logically and makes him easily believed in Vera’s story.

3. Mrs. Sappleton (deutragonist)

4. Nuttel’s sister (tritagonist)

5. Mrs. Sappleton’s husband (tritagonist)

6. Mrs. Sapleton’s brothers (tritagonist)

7. A pet, spaniel dog (tritagonist)

This story uses dramatic method in the portrayal of its characters.

This story has no protagonist or antagonist because Vera as the main character doesn’t face any conflict.

C. Setting

1. Place: In a countryside house

2. Time: October evening

4. Mood or Atmosphere: quiet, somewhat ghastly and creepy

In this story the setting is important, especially the time and the atmosphere of it. It takes place on a quiet evening that makes it seems creepier and Vera ingeniously take full advantage of her surrounding to deceive Nuttel. Not only to deceive Nuttel but it also to deceive the reader that the atmosphere is creepy so the reader believe that she is telling the truth but in the end it is actually not

D. Point of View

This story uses limited omniscient narrator point of view, because the narrator knows the characters action and some of Nuttel’s feeling and thought, but he doesn’t know all of the character’s feeling. The narrator doesn’t explain what is in Vera’s mind when she tells Nuttel and her family a tale.

E. Style and Tone

In this story Saki uses irony. Some of the characters demonstrate a mirror image of their names and their personalities. On the other hand, other character’s names are the complete opposite of their personalities.

Vera’s name comes from words that mean truth or honesty, while in reality Vera lies and manipulates the truth due to the circumstances of her situation. Mr. Nuttel’s name on the other hand is ironic in the sense that it comes from words that mean crazy, mentally unstable, nuts, etc. and that is exactly how his character is described in the story.

The theme of this story is deception; while the moral value of this story is never believe something that you heard without clear evidence or make sure beforehand. Rechecking the information will avoid us from being deceived. It is a sarcastic to people who easily believe to anything from anybody.

We use eclectic approach, both historical and formalism approach.

Saki’s real name was Hector Hugh Munroe. He was born in the Asian country of Burma, now called Myanmar. When he was a toddler his mother was killed by a charging cow. His father sent Saki and his older brother and sister to live with relatives in England.

They were raised by their grandmother and two very strict aunts.
The aunts has many rules. Saki didn’t like the rules, but he had to obey. He was not allowed to play outside very often. The windows in his house were never even opened. Saki rebelled against this strictness when he grew older. He wrote many short stories about clever youths who trick the mean people in their lives.

Saki’s experiences inspired his view of the world. He wrote stories that mock the world he grew in. He showed the contrast between the way people seem to be and the way they really are. Saki grew up among rich people in England in the late 1800s. At that time, rich people followed strict rules of proper behavior in public, but they could play mean tricks on each other while pretending to be polite. Saki knew that children could sometimes be as mean as adults. His view on the world can be seen vividly in “The Open Window.”

We can see Saki’s reflection in Vera’s personality in The Open Window story. She deceives all of the adults around until the end of this story. In this story no one knows about her true intention but the reader and the narrator; Nuttel who runaway before saw the reality and Mrs. Sappleton’s family who don’t know the exact event.

Vera is the portrayal of Saki’s childhood when he wants to rebel against his aunt. He wants to take vengeance to the adults by deceiving them. This story’s theme, deception, is related to Saki’s feeling when he was a child.

Saki uses “The Open Window” as the title because when he was a child his aunt was very strict and didn’t allow him to play outside. The windows of his aunt’s house were never opened. By making “The Open Window” as the title, he wants to be sarcastic of her aunt’s strictness. Even the content of this story is the deception which is made by a child to the adults

The irony in “The Open Window” is the open window itself. The open window is symbolic of honesty, yet it is used to deceive Mr. Nuttle with the story of Mrs. Sappleton’s lost husband and brothers who left through the window and never returned.

The niece is playing on poor Mr. Nuttle who is “resting” due to some type of mental instability. It is further ironic in that everything Mrs. Sappleton remarks about her husband and brothers out hunting is taken differently by Mr. Nuttle. He is horrified at the glibness of her tone because he believes that they have suffered a tragedy.

The sudden reaction and departure of Mr. Nuttle when the men return through the window is ironic, as well. The niece is able to explain his fight by saying he merely was afraid of the dog, while in reality he believes they have come from some other realm.

The Open Window is a good story because not only provides good tone but also gives an unpredictable plot. As we will see through the analysis of the plot, this story is a striking example of the right way to use irony. We may think the story in some way, but in the end it turns out to be different than we originally thought. We need to comprehend every single element of this story it also contains moral value for us to consider.