"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 endeavoured 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 laboured 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
goodby 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 speciality.
Source:
Hyperfiction
and Contributors. (2002-2010). The Open
Window by Saki. Retrieved from
EST Tutorial 28.08.2012
Questions:
1. Search for the Open Window
by Saki on the internet. Read this short story thoroughly. Based on the short
story:
a. Identify 3 literary devices
in the short story and their significant.
- Symbolism
I.
The
most significant symbolism in the story is the window itself because throughout
the story symbolize the hope of Mrs. Sappleton that her husband and her two
young brother come back from the hunting. Although at the beginning of the
story, Mrs. Sappleton’s hope would never be fulfilled because we believed that
the men are dead in the woods and Mrs. Sappleton is losing her mind. But in the
end of the story, we found out that her hope is fulfilled as the men are
returned from the forest and the story is a mere tell tale that Vera told
Framton in order to scare him.
- Irony
I.
Framton
Nuttel is suppose to be relax and calm during his visit to the Sappletons but
instead he got himself a panic attack by Vera’s story of Mrs. Sappleton’s
tragedy three years ago and the return of Mrs. Spapleton’s husband and
brothers.
II.
Vera
Sappleton is a 15 years old girl that is expected to be an honest and innocent
child. But she later on turned out to be a good and excellent manipulator.
- Flashback
b. Framton Nuttel’s flashback
on a conversation between him and his sister tells us more about the nature of
Framton Nuttel like his nervous disease.
c. Where is the climax in the
short story? How is this achieved?
I.
When
Mrs. Sappleton announced that her husband and brothers are back from bunting.
This caused Framton Nuttel to panic attack and leave the house without saying
anything.
d. Describe the setting of the
short story?
I.
Time
– early 20th century, introduction letter
II.
Place
– England-based on the English name like Sappleton and Nuttel
III.
Society
– hunting – only been done in England during those period.
e. What is the lesson that you
can learned in this short story?
I.
The
lesson that I learnt from the story is fears can override our feeling.
II.
The
fears that Framton felt during the arrival of Mr Sppleton and his brother from the
hunting caused Framton to get a panic attacked that leads him to dash off from
the house.
III.
The
fear and nervousness consumed all the feeling. Fear can make not thinking
straight and fear usually made our body to reflex and we tend to chose flight
rather than fight.
f.
In
the short story, does Vera shows hospitality to Frampton Nuttel? If Vera were
Malaysia, would she have in like manner?
I.
Vera
does not show hospitality to Nuttel because as a host of the house, Vera is
expected to make Nutel uncomfortable.
g. If you were Nuttel, would
you trust every word Vera said? Why?
II.
If
I was Framton Nuttel, I will trust every single word that Vera said because
Vera is a very good liar and manipulator. She is able to make a very sound –
believable tell tale to anyone that it is said that romance at a short time is
her specialty after all. Plus combine with Framton Nuttel’s nervous disease is
a perfect combination which made him an easy target for Vera’s Romance.
