By Saki
“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 some day, 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 to-day, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you men-folk, 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 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 an 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 good-bye 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 their nerve.”
Romance at short notice was her speciality.
vrijdag 24 oktober 2008
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Algemene informatie
Tijdbalk
700 - 1066 Old English
1066 - 1500 Middle English
1500 1660 Renaissance (renaître)
1660 - 1789 Classicism/age of reason
1789 – 1832 Romanticism
1832 – 1900 Victorian age
1900 – Now Modern English period
Soorten sonneten
Italian sonnet 4 – 4 – 3 – 3
English/Shakespearean Sonnet 4 – 4 – 4 – 2
Rijmschema’s
Italian sonnet:
a, b, a, b c, d, c, d (wending) e, f, g e, f, g
English/Shakespearean sonnet:
a, b, a, b c, d, c, d e, f, e, f (conclusie) g, g
700 - 1066 Old English
1066 - 1500 Middle English
1500 1660 Renaissance (renaître)
1660 - 1789 Classicism/age of reason
1789 – 1832 Romanticism
1832 – 1900 Victorian age
1900 – Now Modern English period
Soorten sonneten
Italian sonnet 4 – 4 – 3 – 3
English/Shakespearean Sonnet 4 – 4 – 4 – 2
Rijmschema’s
Italian sonnet:
a, b, a, b c, d, c, d (wending) e, f, g e, f, g
English/Shakespearean sonnet:
a, b, a, b c, d, c, d e, f, e, f (conclusie) g, g
Achtergrondinformatie over de renaissance
Kenmerken:
- herleving van de klassieken
- nadruk op aardse realiteit naast het hiernamaals
- nadruk op het individu (je hoort niet meer bij een groep)
- boekdrukkunst werd uitgevonden: Middeklasse kan nu ook beschikken over de literatuur
- veel poëzie en drama
- Sonnet is belangrijk
- Metafysica: dichters die gedichten schrijven met veel wetenschap erin:
- conceits (wetenschappelijke en ingewikkelde vergelijking)
- comparison (my love is like a red rose)
Voorbeeld conceit: Women are but mens shaddowes - Ben Jonson:
gaat vergelijking aan en gaat wetenschappelijk na of het klopt
Meer weten?
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance
- herleving van de klassieken
- nadruk op aardse realiteit naast het hiernamaals
- nadruk op het individu (je hoort niet meer bij een groep)
- boekdrukkunst werd uitgevonden: Middeklasse kan nu ook beschikken over de literatuur
- veel poëzie en drama
- Sonnet is belangrijk
- Metafysica: dichters die gedichten schrijven met veel wetenschap erin:
- conceits (wetenschappelijke en ingewikkelde vergelijking)
- comparison (my love is like a red rose)
Voorbeeld conceit: Women are but mens shaddowes - Ben Jonson:
gaat vergelijking aan en gaat wetenschappelijk na of het klopt
Meer weten?
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance
1 opmerking:
Title:
De titel van dit korte verhaal is ‘The Open Window’. Het verhaal heet zo omdat het nichtje van Mrs. Sappleton een verhaal verzint over dat de tuindeur (french window) altijd open staat.
Plot:
Framton Nuttel is overspannen en gaat om tot rust te komen voor een tijdje naar het platteland. Zijn zus heeft allemaal brieven meegeven om mensen voor te stellen aan hem. Het verhaal begint als hij Mrs. Sappleton bezoekt. Zij is er in het begin nog niet, maar haar nichtje Vera is er al wel. Zij verteld de tragedie van haar tante dat precies 3 jaar geleden haar man en twee broers gingen jagen, maar nooit meer terug zijn gekomen. Omdat haar tante nog steeds geloofd dat ze terug zullen komen staat de tuindeur altijd open. Dan komt Mrs. Sappleton binnen die het continu over haar man en broers heeft. Framton voelt zich hier ongemakkelijk bij en probeert van onderwerp te veranderen. Maar dan komen de man en broers van Mrs. Sappleton terug en Framton rent vlug weg. Mrs. Sappleton vindt het raar dat hij wegrent en Vera zegt dat hij bang is voor de hond die met de mannen mee terug kwam.
Characters:
De personages Vera, Framton Nuttel en Mrs. Sappleton komen aan bod in dit verhaal. Vera is een type en kan heel goed kan liegen, dat is ook het enige dat ze doet het hele verhaal. Framton is overspannen en voelt zich niet op zijn gemak door de verzinsels van Vera, uiteindelijk rent hij zelfs bang weg. Emotioneel is Framton niet echt stabiel en hier wordt gebruik van gemaakt door Vera. Mrs. Sappleton is een gastvrije vrouw die Framton op zijn gemak wil stellen.
Setting:
Het verhaal speelt zich af in het huis van Mrs. Sappleton in het platteland.
Point of view:
Je ziet bijna alles vanuit het oogpunt van Framton. Zo kom je zijn gedachten te weten. Aan het eind van het verhaal, als Framton al is weggerend, bekijk je het verhaal vanuit het hij/zij perspectief.
Theme:
Het thema van het verhaal is volgens ons de waarheid. Dit omdat verzonnen elementen en elementen die niet verzonnen zijn door elkaar heen lopen in het verhaal. Tot het eind weet je ook niet hoe alles in elkaar zit.
Style:
de schrijver gebruikt af en toe moeilijke woorden en zorgt ervoor dat de lezer niet gelijk alles weet. De point van het verhaal wordt pas op het eind duidelijk.
Personal opinion:
Dit verhaal vonden wij erg verrassend, omdat je niet verwacht dat Vera alles bij elkaar heeft gelogen. Wat ons ook opviel was dat Vera=waarheid betekend en Nuttel misschien van Nuts=gek zou kunnen komen. Vooral de naam Vera is opvallend, omdat jij juist degene is die alles bij elkaar liegt. Kortom, dit verhaal heeft misschien niet zoveel diepgang, maar is wel grappig bedacht.
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