The Open Window by H.H. Munro (Critical Analysis of the Essay for ADP/B.Sc English Students)

"The Open Window by H.H. Munro" for ADP/B.Sc English Students

Critical Analysis of the Essay 

 "The Open Window" brilliantly portrays how one's nerves affects his/her personality. Humphry House says in one of his critical analysis on the literary works of  H.H. Munro (Saki) , “He dramatizes the conflict between reality and imagination, demonstrating how difficult it can be to distinguish between them”. 

The Open Window'' is Saki's most popular short story. It was first collected in Beasts and Super-Beasts in 1914. Saki's wit is at the height of its power in this story of a spontaneous practical joke played upon a visiting stranger. The practical joke recurs in many of Saki's stories, but "The Open Window'' is perhaps his most successful and best known example of the type. "The Open Window" shows us just how fine the line can be between sanity and insanity.  Not only does the unfortunate Mr. Nuttel falls victim to the story's joke, but so does the reader. The reader is at first inclined to laugh at Nuttel for being so gullible (easy to be befooled). However, the reader, too, has been taken in by Saki's story and must come to the realization that he or she is also inclined to believe a well. In  “The Open Window” the main character, Framton Nuttel, goes to visit the Sappleton House. He is seeking a cure for his nerves and calls on the lady of the house to discuss this matter with her. The story revolves around Mrs. Stapleton, who leaves the window open for her husband and brothers, who she believes to be coming home any moment from a hunting trip. While outside of her delusion, the men were all killed in a shooting accident three years before.

Frampton Nuttel suffers from a nervous condition and has come to spend some time alone. His sister sets up introductions for him with a few members of the community. His first visit is to the Sappleton house where he meets fifteen-year-old Vera, the niece of Mrs. Sappleton. Vera keeps Nuttel Company while he waits. Upon hearing that Nuttel has not met the Sappletons, Vera tells Nuttel some information about the family. Vera says that three years ago to the date, Mrs. Sappleton's husband and two younger brothers went on a hunting trip and never returned. Vera goes into detail about the clothes they were wearing, the dog that accompanied them, and the song that Mrs. Sappleton's brother sang upon their return. Vera says that her grief-stricken aunt watches out the window expecting their return. When Mrs. Sappleton enters, she tells Nuttel that she expects her husband and brothers to return at any moment. Nuttel listens, thinking that Mrs. Sappleton has in fact gone crazy. Suddenly, Mrs. Sappleton brightens as she tells Nuttel that they have returned. Nuttel turns only to see the "dead" hunters. He becomes frightened and leaves in a rush. Mrs. Sappleton doesn't understand Nuttel's strange behavior, but Vera replies that he is deathly afraid of dogs.

Not until the end of the story does the reader realize that Vera has tricked Mr. Nuttel. This is revealed with the last line of the story: "Romance at short notice was her [Vera's] specialty."

The main character is Framptom Nuttell. He suffers from nervous problems, and loves talking about his illnesses. He is also very timid, and easily deceived as we see from how readily he believes Vera's story.

Vera is the other main character. She is clever, quick-witted, very inventive and has a cruel, ironical sense of humour. She enjoys terrifying Frampton (whose doctors have warned him not to get into frightening situations.) She is also a good actress - she manages to make Frampton believe that she is also terrified of the "ghosts", for instance. Her art of narration sounds credible. She narrates the story of her uncle’s death in a very convincing manner. It is punctuated with grief and sympathy. Mr Nuttel and the reader do not doubt the credibility of the Versa. The surprising end of the story puts every one to horror and the reader is surprised. Mr Frampton feels uneasy when Mrs Sappleton appears and he bolts the door. It is known to the reader that Vera has told a lie and she has invented the story to suit the situation. This is revealed with the last line of the story: "Romance at short notice was her [Vera's] specialty." So it is rightly said that romance at a short notice was her specialty.

Mrs Sappleton is kind, polite but quite absorbed in her own concerns. She isn't very interested in her visitor, but tries to be kind to him. We can guess that she is also fooled by Vera.

Mrs Sappleton's husband, and Frampton's sister, don't really appear enough in the story for their characters to be established.

Though it is a remarkably short piece of fiction, "The Open Window" explores a number of important themes, including the difference between appearances and reality. It is no surprise that Mrs. Sappleton's niece tells a story that is easy to believe. She begins with an object in plain view, an open window, and proceeds from there. The window is obviously open, but as for why it is open, the reader is completely at the mercy of Mrs. Sappleton's niece's explanation, at least while she tells her story.

“ The open window becomes a symbol within this story-within-a-story, and its appearance becomes its reality”.

When Mr. Nuttel and the reader are presented with a contrary reality at the end of the story, the result is a tension between appearance and reality that needs to be resolved.

Deception provides another key theme in the story. The action and irony of the story revolve around the apparent deception practiced by Mrs. Sappleton's niece. It remains to be seen, however, whether this deception is a harmless prank or the result of a sinister (disturbing) nature. If the niece's deception is cruel, then the reader must question the motives behind the deception practiced by all tellers of stories, including Saki himself.

Mr. Nuttel's susceptibility (weakness) to be deceived is no different from that of the reader of the story. Yet Mr. Nuttel is insane, and the reader, presumably, is not. To maintain this distinction, Saki forces his reader to consider the nature of insanity and its causes.

The first literary device that can be found in this short story is symbolism. The symbol in “The Open Window” is the open window itself. When Mrs. Sappleton’s niece, tells Mr. Nuttel the story of the lost hunters, the open window comes to symbolize Mrs. Sappleton’s anguish and heartbreak at the loss of her husband and younger brother. When the truth is later revealed, the open window no longer symbolizes anguish but the very deceit itself. Saki uses the symbol ironically by having the open window, The next literary device is irony. Mr Nuttel first came to Mrs. Sappleton’s house was to find “peace” or to find cure for him. However, instead of finding cure, his condition got worse when he was deceived by Vera that her aunt is grieving over her dead husband and younger brothers. That she still leaves the window open so that they may walk back through it. Mrs. Sappleton then arrives and introduces herself and tells Mr. Nuttel that she is waiting for her husband and brothers. Mr. Nuttel looks through the window and comes to find that there are three men walking towards that window, looking exactly how the neice described them. A voice from one of the men yells out to Mrs. Sappleton and Mr. Nuttel rushes out of the house.  The final literary device is personification. The personification is defined as a representation of a non-living things or objects which have human’s attributes or qualities. The personification in this short story is found in the phrase "a treacherous piece of bog". A bog is defined as a soft, wet ground. And in this short story, the bog is called as treacherous because it is where Mrs Sappleton husband and brothers were missing and can never be found as it has “engulfed” them. 

The lesson that we can learn in this short story is we must check the validity of a story before we trust it completely. Even the person who tells us about the story itself is a teenager like Vera, but we cannot assume that they will tell us the truth. Maybe their body is small and younger than us, but who knows what they have in mind.

 So, no matter wherever we are and whoever the person or society that we lived in, we must ensure the truth of a story before we believe them and make our own opinion about the story.