What do we learn from the lesson the open window?
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For all we know, Framton could have kept on running until he had run all the way back to London. He has learned the lesson that life is just as stressful in the country as in the big city. Or, to put it another way, people are just as crazy in the English countryside as they are in London.
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The Open Window by Saki
The Open Window book cover
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What is the lesson in "The Open Window"?
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WILLIAM DELANEY eNotes educator | CERTIFIED EDUCATOR
A short story does not necessarily have to teach a lesson. It is a work of art, and as such it should convey what Edgar Allan Poe called an "effect." He meant something like a "feeling," a "mood," or an "emotional effect." The "effect" Saki seems to have been trying to achieve in "The Open Window" is one of amusement or sardonic laughter. However, if we are looking for a "lesson" in the story, it would seem to be based on what is foreshadowed in the second paragraph.
Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
The poor man is a nervous wreck because of the stresses of life in the big city and has come to the peaceful English countryside for what he calls a "nerve cure." He finds himself in a zany household where a young girl tells him a ghastly story and her aunt appears to be insane. Then three men carrying guns appear in the dusk headed towards the open window, and they are undoubtedly walking dead--ghosts of the men who were sucked into a bog three years