انطباعات، Symbolism

[بثينة محمد]

The Open Window for H. H. Munro, is a short story mainly considered about criticizing Romance. He portrays his opinion throughout the style of a story inside a story. The main story talks about a nervously ill man who goes to the country side in order to rest. However, he meets with a young lady called Vira who ironically plays with his nervous and causes him to run away. Vira in the story resembles the romance that Munro criticizes. Romance here not as emotions but as exaggeration. Vira, a lonely teenager lives in the country with an old family. She is bored so she invents stories to enjoy herself. Her cruelty in deceiving a sick man via exaggerated imagination mixed with horror portrayed in the ghosts mentioning is exactly the kind of romance that the author criticizes.
Sitting : The country side.
Themes : Romance, appearance vs. reality, and sanity vs. insanity.
Narrator : Third person.
Symbols : The window for Mrs. Sappleton stands for pain and hope in the same time because she waits every day for her beloved ones to come back from death through the open window .
For Vira, the window resembles fun because she is using it as a supporter for her deceit.
To Mr. Framton, it symbolizes fear. In general, the window resembles deceiption.