There is a rather striking similarity between Saki's "The Open Window" and Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Both Framton Nuttel and Ichabod Crane are victims of their own morbid imaginations. There really isn't anything physically wrong with Nuttel. His ailments are all imaginary. Otherwise all the doctors he consulted could have found something to treat. Ichabod Crane is a schoolteacher, yet he is extremely superstitious. Just as Vera uses Nuttel's imagination to frighten him out of the house, so Brom Bones uses Crane's imagination to frighten him away from the home of the beautiful and wealthy Katrina van Tassel, the girl they are both courting. Both stories end with a chase scene. Framton Nuttel believes he is being pursued down the country road by three ghosts armed with guns. Ichabod Crane believes he is being pursued by the legendary "Headless Horseman," who is really Brom Bones carrying a pumpkin which is supposedly his head. Bones throws the pumpkin at Crane and frightens him out of his wits. He will not be coming a-courting at night again. Saki may have gotten his inspiration for "The Open Window" from "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." Washington Irving was a much older writer. He was born in 1783 and died in 1859, Saki (H. H. Munro) was born in 1870 and died in 1916.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
The statement "Development policy needs to be about poor people, not just poor countries," carries a lot of baggage. Let's dis...
-
"Mistaken Identity" is an amusing anecdote recounted by the famous author Mark Twain about an experience he once had while traveli...
-
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
De Gouges's Declaration of the Rights of Woman was enormously influential. We can see its influences on early English feminist Mary Woll...
-
As if Hamlet were not obsessed enough with death, his uncovering of the skull of Yorick, the court jester from his youth, really sets him of...
-
In both "Volar" and "A Wall of Fire Rising," the characters are impacted by their environments, and this is indeed refle...
No comments:
Post a Comment