Chapter-1
The plot: This chapter is the presentation of the general situation of the story. Mr Hiram Otis, an American minister, buys an old castle in England, the Canterville Chase, even if the previous owner told him that the castle was haunted. Here, we discover the story of the Canterville ghost, Sir Simon. He feels guilty because he killed his wife, Lady Eleanor. He died, and reappears before the death of any family member. Now, he haunts the manor and terrifies people. At the end of the chapter, the atmosphere is tense because at night, after the presentation of the family, they see a mysterious blood stain on the floor; the housekeeper, Mrs Umney, says that the stain mustn’t be touched, because the ghost left it there.
But Washington, the son of Mr Otis, cleans it with an American detergent and, some time after, a fearful peal of thunder makes them all start to their feet. Mrs. Umney faints. It starts to rain. Fear is omnipresent in the house.
Comments
In chapter 1 there is the presentation of each character and of the setting. The story is set in the Canterville Chase, an old English castle. The characters can be divided into three classes:
Only Mr. Otis belongs to the first group, because he is the one that appears in the whole text.
The second group is composed of Mr. Otis’s wife, Mrs Lucretia Tappan, Lord Canterville, who was the owner of the chase, and Washington Otis, the son of
Mr. Otis.
In the last block of people there are the housekeeper, Mrs Umney, and the rest of the American family, two twins and a girl, Virginia, who is fifteen.
Chapter-2
The plot: The second chapter starts when Mr.Otis sees the stain of blood on the floor, and he thinks that the ghost really exists. Mrs. Otis wants to call the Psychical Society; but the day after the family don’t speak about the ghost.
One night a noise wakes Mr. Otis, exactly at 1 o’ clock.
He goes out with the Lubrificant and sees an old man. He is the ghost of Sir Simon. In this moment the twins go out of their room and……………………..….. they throw the pillow to the ghost. The poor Sir Simon is very humiliated and thinks to his honourable career.
Comments:
In conclusion this chapter is very significant because we can know that the ghost nature is not pernicious and also that Mr. Otis is very strong and rational because he isn’t afraid when he sees the ghost.
Chapter 3
The plot: This chapter is very striking because there are some very interesting situations. The beginning of this chapter is set in the kitchen, here the family are having breakfast and speaking about the first apparition of the ghost. We know that the apparition didn’t cause any fear and for this reason the ghost is very angry and humiliated because the twins had thrown pillows at him.
For his second appearance, Mrs Otis makes fun of him when she offers a remedy against indigestion.
For the rest of the week the ghost didn’t appear but the blood stain has changed colour several times and even became emerald-green which made Virginia cry. In the meantime the ghost selected the day – Friday 17th of August- for his second appearance, and chose the best clothes in his wardrobe. To teach the twins a lesson, the ghost wants to scare them a last time going to their room at night but they trap him they made a fake ghost and, in the end, it was the real ghost to be scared by them! However the ghost realizes his error when he sees the message in the library.
Comments:
In chapter 3 the situation is inverted because it’s the family who frightened the ghost and he’s depressed, so it’s original by the author to change typical horror story. The Otis family embody the typical mentality of the American society that is based only on reason and rationality and usually don’t’ believe in the traditions of the mysterious phenomena.
In this chapter we can also see how the author describes the situations comically. The situations overturn. In fact, in a point of the chapter the ghost is frightened by the twins and not the Otis family are frightened by him. The behaviour of the twins is funny because they are young and they are ridiculising the, normally, terrified ghost. We can compare this event to the modern American film “Scary Movie”. A film in which the plot is the same as in our book. Also in this case the situations overturn: this time there isn’t a ghost but there is a man that wears a strange mask (maybe the mask of death).
But in our opinion, it’s a kid’s story. Moreover, the ghost has some characteristics of human beings. Indeed, he can be sick and depressed, that’s why we can say that this short story is really special.
Chapter 4
The plot: The ghost stops renewing the bloodstain and stayed in his room for five days. The ghost feels weak and tired. In a final attempt to scare the twins, he visited them as a Headless character but a bucket of water falls on him when he opens the twin’s bedroom door. They have played another trick on him. The ghost is more and more depressed. He is so angry that he decided to take his revenge. Sir Simon’s state of mind is obvious. He has a nervous breakdown because the family keeps on him; thus he doesn’t manage to frighten them anymore, so he gives up the idea of brightening the American family. They think he has gone away for good. The ghost remembers he is one of the young Duke’s relatives, but he’s too frightened to go and appear to him.
Comments:
This chapter is so funny because the ghost is always tricked. Indeed he doesn’t want to give up. The twins are very naughty with the ghost. We’ve never read of a ghost who doesn’t frighten people, that’s why it’s so hilarious. In this chapter, the ghost is more and more depressed.
Sir Simon is in a pitiful state of mind whereas the twins are in a happy state of mind. Finally we think roles are reversed because the ghost undergoes tricks by the twins. Normally, the ghost should frighten them.
The twins’ attitude is very funny, because their jokes make this story more exciting, and a little less boring.
For the twins the ghost deserves the jokes, because they think that it is right to ridicule the ghost, since now the Canterville chase is theirs, and no more of the ghost.
According to us, the ghost would not deserve that, because it is his castle, and he lived in the Canterville Chase for a long time. The ghost is not able to frighten the Otis family because, the Otis are an American family, and the American people usually don’t believe in the traditional storie of mystery, but they believe in other values, such as science, progress and technology.
Chapter 5
The plot: The chapter starts when Virginia comes back home and in a small room of the Chase, she sees sir Simon, the ghost! The ghost is in extreme depression and Virginia is pity for that. She tries to comfort him.
Virginia and the ghost start to chat ,and sir Simon says that he hates her family because the otis don’t fear him.
When Virginia hears this she becomes angry and reproaches the ghost . In the room sir Simon reveals to Virginia his secret : he hasn’t slept for three hundred years. Simon says that he will be able to sleep only in the garden of death, the only place of peace for himself in the garden. He hopes Virginia will go with him in this place . Only Virginia can pray to the angel of death to save the soul of sir Simon , Virginia is frightened , but accepts. In this chapter we can see different moods in the characters, in particular Virginia. In the end, she becomes the best friend of the sir Simon while in the beginning she is afraid of him.
Chapter 6
The plot: When the family were having tea, at tea time of course, Virginia wasn’t with them. So, Mr Otis went to find her, but he failed. However he remembered that Virginia, at that time used to go to the garden for picking up the flowers. After an hour Mr Otis began to worry really and he searched for Virginia in all the rooms of the Chase. But also this time he failed. The family was very agitated, and the little Duke of Cheshire went with the family searching of Virginia. Mr. Otis thinks that the Gypsies kidnapped Virginia but he’s wrong!
He sent a telegram to the police where he said that his daughter might be kidnapped by the gypsies and he gave them some clues to find her. When Mr Otis couldn’t find Virginia any more and thought that his daughter was dead, she came back home with a little casket in her hands. Virginia explained to her family that she had helped Sir Simon die in peace. And the casket was a gift given by Sir Simon to Virginia to thank her for her help.
Comments:
This chapter introduces the end of the novel. We can see that in all the comic stories there is a point where there is a sad moment and this is the point in this book. We can feel a different atmosphere while reading this chapter; it’s much darker than the other chapters. With the other chapters we all thought that this story was only humorous and absolutely not a ghost story. Now we can understand that the author wanted to keep the ghost story as a ghost story. Sir Simon finally died so we can understand that nothing much will happen. Maybe the story could have ended with this chapter, with the death of the ghost. We may think that Chapter 6 actually makes Chapter 7 useless. If we give a general evaluation of this book, we can say that it’s a very attractive and exciting and amusing book and one of the reasons is because it underlines the differences between the American people and English people, the New and the Old World. In fact in many points of the book, this difference is very evident and it produces a very humorous effect.
Chapter 7
The plot: The chapter begins with the magnificent funeral of the ghost; in this event all the Otis family participated: the housemaids and Lord Canterville. After the service, Lord Canterville offered the jewels to Mr. Otis, and they had a discussion, because he couldn’t accept them as he was not a Canterville family’s member. However, in the end Lord Canterville convinced him to accept the jewel-case. After that in 1890 Virginia married the Duke of Cheshire, and her jewels were the universal theme of admiration.
The Duke and the Duchess, after their honeymoon was over, went down to Canterville Chase and they walked to the lonely churchyard by the pine-woods. Cecil asked Virginia what happened when she was locked with the ghost, but she didn’t reveal her secret.
Comments:
We think that this chapter is very different from the others because it’s sentimental and romantic; and also it’s sad because we like the ghost and we didn’t want him to die. But in conclusion, it’s a happy ending, because it finished on a promise of love. This story taught us that love is stronger than life and death.
List of Characters
Main characters: The ghost, Virginia and Mr. Otis. Secondary characters: Washington, Mrs. Otis, the twins, Duke of Cheshire and Lord Canterville, Mrs. Umney, gypsies and Rev Augustus Dampier. If we consider this story as a fairy tale, we can define the characters by means of their functions, the typical ones of the traditional stories according to the famous categories devised by Propp and the structural literary analysis.
Descriptions of the characters
The ghost: The ghost of the castle for centuries was Sir Simon de Canterville who died in 1584. His spirit still haunts the Chase. His aspect is very terrible. He is an old man, his eyes were as red burning coals, long grey hair fell over his shoulders in matted coils, his garments, which were of antique cut, were soiled and ragged, and from his wrists and ankles hung heavy manacles and rusty gyves.
Mr. Otis: Mrs. Otis is a middle-aged American minister; he is determinated, inflexible, rational, practical and pragmatic, in conclusion a true American. In fact at the beginning he believes that the ghost doesn’t exist. When he personally meets him, he is indifferent. He has more important things to do, making money, for example.
Virginia: She is a little girl of fifteen, lithe and lovely as a fawn, and with a fine freedom, in her large blue eyes. She is a wonderful amazon. In respect to her family she is kind and with weling heart. The daughter is the only one in the family who is scared by the ghost. She never speaks except to the ghost, at the end of the story.
Washington: The Otises’ oldest son. He is a fire-haired rather cood-loooking young man; gardenias and peerage are his only weaknesses.
The twins: They are usually called the stars and stripes; they are delightful boys and the only true republicans of the family. These children always play tricks on the ghost and make him depressed and desperate. All along the story, they imagine jokes and even dress up as ghosts.
Mrs Otis: The mother isn’t scared of the ghost and even asks him if he wants a remedy for his stomach. She is a very handsome middle-aged woman with fine eyes and a superb profile. She has a magnificent constitution and a wonderful amount of animal spirits.
Duke of Cheshire: He is a handsome young lad desperately in love with the fifteen-year old Virginia Otis. However, his guardians pack him off to Eton, and he must wait to marry. When Virginia vanishes, he insists on being part of the search party. As soon as she reappears, he smothers her with kisses. His devotion is rewarded, and Virginia consents to become the Duchess of Cheshire.
Lord Canterville: A respectable descendent of the Canterville family, that was the owner of the Canterville Chase. He is an Englishman of the most punctilious honour.
Mrs. Umney: The old house-keeper of Canterville Chase is very terrified by the ghost and tries to warn the family.
Gypsies, Rev. Augustus Dampier: there isn’t any description because they are only nominated.
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