The Open Window Group

Question:

sara9
sara9
Student
High School - 10th Grade

What are his (Framton Nuttel's) feelings regarding this visit?

In Saki's "The Open Window."

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Posted by sara9 on Tuesday April 28, 2009 at 8:50 AM and tagged with saki, the open window, vera.

Answers:

  1. parkerlee
    parkerlee Teacher

    Nuttels is very nervous and jittery, even at the thought of taking a vacation. Implicit in his name is that he is "a nut case" just waiting to be cracked. Vera does this, indeed, when she destabilizes him with the hunting story: he is scared silly to see the huntsman returning home and takes to his heels without giving or getting further explanation.

    Sources:
    http://www.enotes.com/open-window/characters

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    Posted by parkerlee on Tuesday April 28, 2009 at 9:01 AM


  2. sagesource Teacher
    High School - 12th Grade

    Mr. Nuttel is in two minds about his visit to Vera and her aunt. On the purely rational level, he recognizes the need to make social connections in a district where he knows no one and has only a tenuous link through acquaintances of his sister. Nevertheless, the problem that has driven him to seek rest in the country at the same time disinclines him from being very social:

    Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much toward helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.

    As his sister has predicted, he is tending towards withdrawing from everyone else and "moping." He is not even tactful in his lack of enthusiasm for the visit that he is making at that moment:

    “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. (my emphasis)

    Mr. Nuttel thus sets himself up as a very understandable target for the imaginative talents of Vera. We can easily see that he is the sort of person she cannot possibly endure and will like to dispose of as quickly as possible, even if we have moral qualms about the way she will go about that disposal.

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    Posted by sagesource on Tuesday April 28, 2009 at 11:03 AM