The Open Window

“The Open Window” is a frequently anthologized short story by Hector Hugh Munro, or H. H. Munro, whose penname was Saki. This short story, like many of Saki’s works, satirizes Edwardian society. By utilizing a story within a story, or an embedded narrative, Saki uses satire to explore themes like the absurdity of etiquette, escapism, control, and appearance versus reality.

Saki originally published “The Open Window” in the Westminster Gazette on November 18, 1911, and later included it in a collection of his short stories called Beasts and Super-Beasts (1914).

“The Open Window” begins in media res, or in the middle of things, as an unnamed 15-year-old girl entertains the protagonist, Framton Nuttel, while awaiting her aunt, Mrs. Sappleton, who is his proper host. Nuttel is an anxious man visiting the area for a “nerve cure.” His sister gave him letters of introduction to people she knows in the area, including Mrs. Sappleton.

The young girl, who is introduced as “the niece,” begins to question Framton, attempting to determine how much he knows of the countryside and her aunt. Upon learning that the little information he has is four years old, the niece begins to tell Framton about the tragedy that unfolded for Mrs. Sappleton three years prior—something about which he could not know.

According to the niece, the large French window that opens to the home’s lawn is kept open even in chilly weather. She explains that three years earlier her aunt’s husband and two of her brothers, along with the family’s spaniel, left through the window to hunt snipe on the marsh. While they were hunting, she says, they crossed a bog that was made treacherous by rain and were all swallowed by it.

The niece shares this information with emotion, and she informs Framton that the bodies of the hunting party were never recovered. She tells him that her aunt, apparently deeply afflicted by her loss, keeps the window open until dusk every day regardless of the weather because she is certain that one day the men will walk back through the open window. She tells Framton that her aunt often talks about the coat her husband carried over his arm as he left and the song her youngest brother sang to annoy her. As the niece concludes, she confides to Framton that sometimes she has the disquieting feeling that the hunting party will return.

Mrs. Sappleton enters, meeting Framton and revealing the name of her niece, Vera. She then mentions the open window to Framton and explains that she expects the hunting party to enter that way. Framton, already nervous, finds the situation and conversation ghastly and, in an attempt to change the subject, tells his hostess about his doctor’s orders to avoid any exercise or excitement that might worsen his nerves.

Suddenly, Mrs. Sappleton cries out that the hunting party is returning. When Framton turns to Vera to share a sympathetic glance, he sees instead that she is looking in horror toward the open window. Framton, filled with nerves, turns to look, too, and sees three figures and a little dog coming toward the open window appearing exactly as Vera described them leaving three years prior. In a fit of anxiety, Framton throws social custom to the wind and bolts from the house before the three men, presumed ghosts, can enter.

Here, it becomes clear that Mr. Sappleton and his brothers-in-law are very much alive. They are curious about who bolted from the room upon their entrance. Vera provides the adults with the information they seek. She informs them that the spaniel with the hunting party likely scared away their visitor. According to Vera, he told her he was afraid of dogs because once a pack of dogs chased him into a cemetery and trapped him in a freshly dug grave overnight.

The story concludes with a one-sentence denouement, or unknotting: “Romance at short notice was her specialty” (Paragraph 29).