2.The Open Window

2.The Open Window 【字体：大中小】【打印】

一、Main points

"The Open Window'' is Saki's most popular short story. Saki's wit is at the height of its power in this story of a spontaneous practical joke played upon a visiting stranger. The practical joke recurs in many of Saki's stories, but "The Open Window'' is perhaps his most successful and best known example of the type. Saki dramatizes here the conflict between reality and imagination, demonstrating how difficult it can be to distinguish between them. Not only does the unfortunate Mr. Nuttel fall victim to the story's joke, but so does the reader. The reader is at first inclined to laugh at Nuttel for being so gullible. However, the reader, too, has been taken in by Saki's story and must come to the realization that he or she is also inclined to believe a well-told and interesting tale.

二、Essential words and phrases

Words:

1）annoy使生气，使烦恼

2）affect 影响

3）tremble 颤抖

4）relief 缓解，救助

5）scarcity 短缺，不足

6）muddy 泥泞的，粘满了泥巴的

7）sympathetic 同情的，怜悯的

8）extraordinary 不一般的，非凡的

9）graveyard 墓地

10）creature 生物，通常指动物

Phrases

（1）go through 经历，经受

（2）a number of 许多，大量

（3）make a statement 叙述，声名

（4）apologize for 因---道歉，就---道歉

（5）on the matter of 就---来说，在---方面

（6）lose one’s nerve 失去勇气，吓倒了

（7）make up 虚构，杜撰

三、Summary on the text:

"The Open Window" brilliantly portrays how one's nerve affects his/her personality. As Framton embarks on a trip intended as a "nerve cure," he finds himself in an unfamiliar situation that ultimately has a negative effect on his seemingly nervous personality.

四、Difficult points on text

1.You must try to bear my company.

2.He was supposed to be going through a cure for his nerves, but he doubted whether these polite visits to a number of total strangers would help much.

3.You will lose yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever through loneliness.

4.But there was something of a man in the room.

5.Somehow, in this restful country place ,sorrows seemed far away.

6.Here the child’s voice lost its calm sound and became almost human .

7.He made a great effort, which was only partly successful, to turn the talk on to a more cheerful subject.

8. Framton trembled slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to show sympathetic understanding .

五、TEXT

"My aunt will come down very soon, Mr. Nettle," said a very calm young lady of fifteen years of age; "meanwhile you must try to bear my company."

Frampton Nettle tried to say something which would please the niece now present, without annoying the aunt that was about to come. He was supposed to be going through a cure for his nerves, but he doubted whether these polite visits to a number of total strangers would help much.

"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to go away into the country; "you will lose yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever through loneliness. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice. "

Frampton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was bringing one of the letters of introduction, one of the nice ones.

"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she thought that they had sat long enough in silence.

"Hardly one," said Frampton. "My sister was staying here, you know, about four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here."

He made the last statement in a sad voice.

"Then you know almost nothing about my aunt?" continued the calm young lady.

"Only her name and address;" Frampton admitted. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was married perhaps she had been married and her husband was dead. But there was something of a man in the room.

"Her great sorrow came just three years ago," said the child. "That would be after your sister's time."

"Her sorrow?" asked Frampton. Somehow, in this restful country place, sorrows seemed far away.

"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, pointing to a long window that opened like a door on to the grass outside.

"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Frampton; "but has that window got anything to do with your aunt's sorrow?"

"Out through that window, exactly three years ago, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting. They never came back. In crossing the country to the shooting-ground they were all three swallowed in a bog. It had been that terrible wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years became suddenly dangerous. Their bodies were never found. That was the worst part of it. "Here the child's voice lost its calm sound and became