READ the following notes and make a copy in your notebooks.
QUESTIONS:
1) Consider the characterization of Vera: would you say she is a manipulative, mean girl, or is
she just playing a silly, innocent game?
How is she a good actress as well as a good story-teller?
>> Focus on her age and lifestyle.
Fifteen-year-old Vera not only has a vivid imagination and mischievous (= espiègle, malicieux =
espiègle et taquin, mais pas forcément méchant) nature, but she has a wild (= unbridled = débridé, déchaîné) sense of humor. Her purpose in making up the story (= inventer l'histoire) is to create the reaction she evokes in the visitor. She is probably just bored and craves (= a très envie de) a bit of entertainment (= divertissement).
Her age: she is 15 = She is mature enough to be credible when she appears to be "self-possessed" and calm, and she is also young enough to be terror-stricken (= terrified). She really is young enough to still want to play pranks (= jouer des tours).
2) Telling stories - Gothic literature and Fantasy:
Focus on the last line: “Romance at short notice was her speciality.”, line 95.
>> cf. all the elements of Gothic literature in the last paragraph.
‘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 any one lose their
nerve.’
3) How does Saki deceive his readers?
First, we may be tricked in the same way as Framton, by Vera.
Second, there are elements in the narrative, that manipulate the reader:
>> consider the names:
Vera for veracity
Nuttel for nuts, crazy
Sappleton for simpleton and sappling
>> Show how we have insight into Framton’s state of mind about the situation.
Lines 55-56: "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 purpose of the writer here is to make Framton seem to be a lucid and reliable character. If
he sees a ghost, then there must be a ghost!
BONUS QUESTION for Thursday: What can you say about the symbolism of the open windows?
QUESTIONS:
1) Consider the characterization of Vera: would you say she is a manipulative, mean girl, or is
she just playing a silly, innocent game?
How is she a good actress as well as a good story-teller?
>> Focus on her age and lifestyle.
Fifteen-year-old Vera not only has a vivid imagination and mischievous (= espiègle, malicieux =
espiègle et taquin, mais pas forcément méchant) nature, but she has a wild (= unbridled = débridé, déchaîné) sense of humor. Her purpose in making up the story (= inventer l'histoire) is to create the reaction she evokes in the visitor. She is probably just bored and craves (= a très envie de) a bit of entertainment (= divertissement).
Her age: she is 15 = She is mature enough to be credible when she appears to be "self-possessed" and calm, and she is also young enough to be terror-stricken (= terrified). She really is young enough to still want to play pranks (= jouer des tours).
2) Telling stories - Gothic literature and Fantasy:
Focus on the last line: “Romance at short notice was her speciality.”, line 95.
>> cf. all the elements of Gothic literature in the last paragraph.
‘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 any one lose their
nerve.’
3) How does Saki deceive his readers?
First, we may be tricked in the same way as Framton, by Vera.
Second, there are elements in the narrative, that manipulate the reader:
>> consider the names:
Vera for veracity
Nuttel for nuts, crazy
Sappleton for simpleton and sappling
>> Show how we have insight into Framton’s state of mind about the situation.
Lines 55-56: "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 purpose of the writer here is to make Framton seem to be a lucid and reliable character. If
he sees a ghost, then there must be a ghost!
BONUS QUESTION for Thursday: What can you say about the symbolism of the open windows?