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The Open Window

The short story "The Open Window" by Saki is only three pages long but tells a story with subtle details. It introduces Framton Nuttel, who has come to the countryside to settle his nerves at his sister's suggestion. He meets Mrs. Sappleton and her niece Vera, who spins a tale that convinces Framton he has seen the dead husband and brothers of Vera, though in reality they arrive home alive. Vera is a "fiction-master" who enjoys playing with the different perceptions of the characters through her web of lies.

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971 views2 pages

The Open Window

The short story "The Open Window" by Saki is only three pages long but tells a story with subtle details. It introduces Framton Nuttel, who has come to the countryside to settle his nerves at his sister's suggestion. He meets Mrs. Sappleton and her niece Vera, who spins a tale that convinces Framton he has seen the dead husband and brothers of Vera, though in reality they arrive home alive. Vera is a "fiction-master" who enjoys playing with the different perceptions of the characters through her web of lies.

Uploaded by

Kk Kk
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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This symbol is an example of eternity and full vitality.

The Open Window is one of Saki’s short stories, and that’s saying
something. Few of his perfectly crafted and deliciously written tales
exceed four or five pages in length.
But The Open Window, at barely three pages, outstrips even ‘The Lumber-
Room' or Tobermory for verbal economy. It is so brief it has almost the air
of a parable about it, except that it’s far from clear what the ‘moral’ of the
story is, or even if there is one. Saki uses language so deftly and to such an
effect.
In summary, is this: a man, who has the glorious name of Framton Nuttel,
has newly arrived in a ‘rural retreat’, to help him settle his nerves. His
sister, worried that he will hide himself away there and ‘mope’, thus
making his nerves worse, has given him the names and addresses of all the
people she knows in the area, and told him to go and introduce himself to
them.
Back at the house, Mrs Sappleton remarks that Mr Nuttel was an odd man
– all he could do was talk about his ailments, and then he ‘dashed off’ as
soon as the men arrived. Vera suggests that he was scared of dogs, and the
sight of the spaniel caused him to run off. The final sentence of the story
refers to Vera: ‘Romance at short notice was her speciality.’
As for me, The Open Window is an amusing little story. Note that Framton
is not presented as a gullible fool, and if he is, we as readers are
encouraged to be gulled, too, for we are supposed to be taken in by Vera’s
lie about the dead husband and brothers as well.
And she convinces him that she should be believed by a number of subtle
details: the spaniel that accompanied the men on their apparently ill-fated
trip, for instance, and the white waterproof coat which the husband was
carrying over his arm when they left. Vera obviously saw the men leaving
with the dog and coat, and weaves them into the narrative she feeds to
Framton, so that when the men return – with the dog and the coat, as
described – the idea that Framton is seeing dead men walking is all the
more powerful.
But, conversely, Mrs Sappleton, unaware that her niece has been spinning
their guest a web of lies, has a different perception of him, too, believing
him to be an odd man who has an excessive reaction to the sight of her
male relatives. Vera, the fiction-master (and thus the author-surrogate in
the story), is the only one who knows both sides and can enjoy playing
these two characters, with their partial glimpses of the whole story, off
each other. Although Saki’s style and approach are very different from
someone like Virginia Woolf, the preoccupation with ‘fiction’ and
‘perception’ is the same – only Saki’s take on this issue is funnier.
For me, this is the most important thing, no matter what.

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