How do irony and humor make "The Open Window" by Saki interesting?

It
can be argued that the only humor in "" is
ironic humor. If one were to analyze Framton Nuttel's escaping flight at the end
as humorous, it would be at the expense of (1) ignoring Vera's possibly unkind motives as an
enfant terrible (young person intentionally bent on harming weak adults)
and (2) ignoring Framton's emotional and mental exhaustion that causes him to need a "rest
cure" (does she drive him completely mad and does she hope to?). Since these analytical
oversights would be serious ones, critics generally agree that 's humor is ironic
humor that is meant to satirize groups of
individuals (i.e., weak, foolish, and nervous adults) and society as a whole, which is largely
made up of foolish, weak, nervous adults.

Ironic humor is found in both
Framton's and Vera's remarks. In addition, the narrator expresses some of Framton's ironic
thoughts as well. Humor is defined as the quality of being amusing
(it's a quality in something). Ironic humor in literature is
defined as expressing thoughts contradictory to what seems intended for the purpose of adding
humor (i.e., amusement).

An example of this contradictory spirit of
humor in is expressed in Vera's first remarks to Framton. Her aunt, Mrs. Sappleton,
is occupied when Framton comes to call, so Vera says he will have to "put up with"
her. "Put up with" is anmeaning to make do with something inferior. Vera, this
"self-possessed young lady," has not the slightest notion of herself as inferior in
any way, yet she says he will have to "put up with her." This is ironic humor: she
means the opposite of what she says and intends it to be amusing; she has no expectation that
Framton will find her inferior.

"My aunt will be down
presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the
meantime you must try and put up with me."

There are
many such examples, like Framton wondering if Mrs. Sappleton "came into the nice
division," meaning he wondered if she would be unpleasant to know, yet the most significant
is arguably the last ironically humorous statement Vera makes by way of explanation of Framton's
sudden escape. We know that he has been terrified by Vera's ghost/corpse story into flight from
the hunters' return, yet Vera ironically supposes he bolted because of the spaniel, which
reminds of some event Vera is in the process of inventing. Of course, the only one amused here
is Vera and the readers since she and we are the only ones who know she means something quite
different from what she says.

"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 ... by a pack of pariah dogs ...."

Irony and its humor of contradiction add
interest by developing themes, such as the
theme of whether Vera is a playful though unthinking innocent or a malicious and spiteful
enfant terrible (wicked young person), through the introduction of
contradiction and curiosity. It also adds interest by allowing readers to know
secrets that characters don't know, such as the secret truth behind Vera's
explanation about "pariah dogs." This secret knowledge creates
situational irony in which readers know more than all or some
characters. It also adds interest by making the content intellectually
challenging because readers must sort out the contradictory real truth from the
apparent truth and the real motive and intent from the seeming motive and
intent.

What was the prize for the best storyteller among the pilgrims in The Canterbury Tales?

The
innkeeper of the Tabard Inn is absolutely delighted to have his hostelry patronized by so many
clients, most of them quite well-heeled. In medieval times, pilgrimages were big business, not
just for religious houses or hawkers of relics, but for anyone needing to cater for the needs of
pilgrims. The journey from London to Canterbury was quite an arduous one in those days; pilgrims
needed to be fed, watered and restedtheir horses too. So we can well imagine how lucrative the
pilgrimage is to the Tabard's innkeeper.

In gratitude for his windfall, the
innkeeper offers a lavish prize for the best story-teller among the pilgrims: a feast in their
honor once they have returned to the Tabard from Canterbury.

Imagine you are Walter in A Raisin in the Sun. You are informing Mr Lindner of your decision to move to Clybourne Park: "Well€”what I mean is that we...

Mr.
Lindner has come to pay a visit toand his family to tell them that he wants to buy their
newly-acquired property in order to stop them moving into their new neighborhood. Lindner
represents the Clybourne Park Improvement Association, which is uneasy at the thought of an
African American family moving into their all-white neighborhood.

Initially,
Walter...

In Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, does his dismissal of his pact with God make Crusoe a hopeless rebel? Even though Crusoe presumably had been raised...

In 's
, I don't know that Crusoe's change of heart towards God indicates that he
is a "hopeless rebel." I assume this term means that he cannot help but be a rebel.
Human nature may tend to push one naturally toward Crusoe's behavior. In the heat of the moment,
when fear is so overwhelming, the basic instinct of a human being is to do whatever is necessary
to survive.

After the fear has passed, it is also not unusual that promises
made under duress would be forgotten as quickly as they were made. Crusoe admits that this is
what happens to him. However, he does not wholly lose sight of his brief encounter with
God:

I found, indeed, some intervals of reflection; and
the serious thoughts did, as it were, endeavour to return again sometimes; but I shook them off,
and roused myself from them as it were from a distemper, and applying myself to drinking and
company, soon mastered the return of those fitsfor so I called them€¦

Crusoe speaks of God numerous times throughout the story. He
reports that when he first is washed ashore while everyone else perishes, he does not thank God
(we assume he infers "as he should have,") but runs about wringing his hands like a
madman until he collapses.

With the "miraculous" growth of corn on
the island, Crusoe once again "sees" God, but this, too, is temporary.

...and then the wonder began to cease; and I must confess my
religious thankfulness to Gods providence began to abate, too, upon the discovering that all
this was nothing but what was common...

A permanent
change eventually does come over the castaway. At one point, when he becomes
seriously illclose to dyingCrusoe begins to think about his lack of a
relationship with God, his father's prediction that rejecting his parents' wishes would not bode
well for him, and it might well be that God's hand is present in his current separation from
civilization:

I had no more sense of God or His
judgmentsmuch less of the present affliction of my circumstances being from His handthan if I
had been in the most prosperous condition of life.  But now, when I began to be sick, and a
leisurely view of the miseries of death came to place itself before me; when my spirits began to
sink under the burden of a strong distemper, and nature was exhausted with the violence of the
fever; conscience, that had slept so long, began to awake, and I began to reproach myself with
my past life, in which I had so evidently, by uncommon wickedness, provoked the justice of God
to lay me under uncommon strokes, and to deal with me in so vindictive a manner.

What began to work in Crusoe earlier in the story disappeared when
the threats were gone. He was, however, younger then, and as he himself concludes, this
independence from God is not unusual for a young man who believes all is well with his lifethat
he need depend on no one.

Human nature shows that when change is about to
come over us in whatever fashion, it may take several "life-altering kicks" before we
are aware that life is trying to get our attention. Crusoe was raised in a good home, and in
that he is growing as a personseeing how insignificant he is, alone in the universeI would not
assume that he is truly a hopeless rebel. I would think simply that he will stop fighting life
and look for a peace regarding his circumstances which will allow him to survive. Recognizing
that God has a hand in this disaster, he can see, too, the blessings Crusoe has
received.

In Sophocles' Oedipus the King, what does Oedipus say when he stabs his eyes?

In 'the King,
the title character discovers that he has killed his father, Laius, and married his mother, .
When Oedipus is on the verge of discovering the truth, Jocasta rushes back into the palace
because she realizes that Oedipus is about to learn his true identity.

After
Oedipus learns the truth, he also rushes back into the palace in search of Jocasta. When he
finds her, she has hanged herself. Oedipus then takes her down, removes the brooches that
Jocasta was wearing on her dress, plunges them into his eyes. When he does this, he cries out to
his eyes:

"You will no longer see

all those atrocious things I suffered,

the dreadful things I did!
No. You have seen

those you never should have looked upon,

and those I wished to know you did not see.

So now and for all
future time be dark!"

(A.S. Kline translation)

 

 

Compare perversity in "The Black Cat," "The Imp of the Perverse," and "The Cask of Amontillado."

"The Imp of the Perverse" is evidently intended as a scientific explanation
by Poe of the innate human tendency to do the wrong thingto perform some action simply because
we know it is improper, dangerous, or destructive. In Poe's description it sounds much like a
manifestation of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder). The other two stories to which you refer,
"" and "," show the horrifying results of this obsessive urge which Poe
analyzes in technical-sounding language in "The Imp of the Perverse."

In "The Black Cat," the narrator abuses and then murders Pluto not because
he hates him, but, as he tells us himself, precisely because the cat has loved him and done him
no harm. He describes himself in tears as he is slipping the noose round the cat's neck,
committing this cold-blooded act of sadism against his own will, as it were. In part, the
narrator attributes his cruelty to substance abuse, admitting that he is an alcoholic and
claiming that in...

How are Thaddeus Sholto and his home described? What is the purpose or possible effect of this description? - (Sign of four novel)

At the end
of chapter three, Holmes and Watson arrive at what the author calls a "questionable and
forbidding neighbourhood." Watson describes a line of dark brick houses, most of which are
uninhabited, illuminated only by the gaudy public houses on the street corner. They stop at the
only house with a light on and knock on the door.

In the next chapter,
entitled "The Story of the Bald-headed Man," they enter what Watson calls a
"sordid and common passage, ill-lit and worse furnished." They continue into another
room, Watson calls an apartment, which as he says "looked as out of place as a diamond of
the first water in a setting of brass." In comparison, to the hallway it is luxurious;
decorated in a fashion inspired by the east. Expensive tapestries, curtains, and tiger skins are
draped over the walls, oriental vases sit on sills, a huge hookah stands on a mat in the corner
and a dove-shaped lamp hangs from the centre of the room. Watson says the carpet is so soft that
his feet sink into it "as into a bed of moss."

Thaddeus Sholto is
standing up to greet them. Watson describes him as a small man with a line of red hair skirting
around a shining bald scalp and a set of irregular yellow teeth that he is so conscious of he
tries to hide them with his hand. Despite his appearance, Watson says he is only 30 years
old.

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