Part one
Framton Nuttle has travelled to the country hoping to cure his nerves. His sister gives him the details of some families in the area and tells him to look them up. Framton visits Mrs Stapleton, and gets talking to her niece. The niece plays a joke on him and says that the window is always open because her uncles died three years preiously, and her aunt still trusts they will return.
Frampton believes Mrs Stapleton to be crazy but then he sees the men walking, headed for the house, with their dog. He believes they are ghosts, and hurriedly exists the house.
Mrs Stapleton is confused by his exit, and when the men enter, she tells them about Frampton. The niece tells everyone, again without reason, that Frampton was scared of dogs since being attacked by dogs in India.
The main theme of this story is Appearances vs. Reality.
Part two
Within this context, the word "Romance" means invented tales of a crazy or unlikely type. This connotation of the word dates back further than the contemporary overtone of being in love. At the time this story was written, it was relatively usual to tell a person they were “romancing” if they made up a far-fetched or unlikely story.
At this point in “The Open Window” Vera has scarcely completed inventing and telling a lengthy, extravagant ghost tale in order to frighten Frampton. She, of course, is aware that her uncles will be returning to the house shortly, so she makes up that they have been killed and that the ghosts frequent the family home. So obviously, when they do return, Frampton believes them to be ghosts and escapes the house, extremely frightened.
Vera justifies his abrupt exit by saying to her family that Frampton left as he was scared of the dog that was with the men. She says that Frampton has a “horror of dogs” as a result of an awful event in India. She has invented this tale with only a couple of seconds and, therefore, she is clearly skilled in “Romance at short notice."
Romance: an extravagant or absurd fictitious account of something.
Marsh: soft wet ground.
Mental excitement: over stimulation.
Bound: move energetically.
A literary genre is a category of literary composition.
Fiction genres are categories of writing which are made up stories, whereas non-fiction is based on fact.
The characters in “The Open Window” include Frampton, Vera, Mrs Stapleton, and the Uncles. The story is set entirely within Mrs Stapleton’s house. It is fairly typical for a short story to have only one setting, but this one is set in only one room of the English country home. Though no exact dates are revealed in the narrative, it is presumed to happen in the early twentieth century, most probably in the reign of King Edward VII. The main plot of the story is that Frampton is a nervous man who has travelled to the countryside in order to improve his health. However, on his first attempt at socialising, he has his nerves shattered by a young girl who makes up fanciful stories.
References:
Munro, H. H. The Open Window. Online Literature. Retrieved from http://www.online-literature.com/hh-munro/1851/
