Questions for discussion:

1. What kind of girl is fifteen-year-old Vera? What does the author mean when he says that her
specialty is “romance at short notice”? is this a common characteristic of girls of her age?

2. Why did Vera ask Mr. Nuttel the question: “Then you practically nothing about my aunt?”

3. At what point did you catch on to what Vera was doing? Why does she do this sort of thing?
Did it amuse you to watch to watch her at work on Mr. Nuttel?

4. Why does the author choose to make Vera’s victim a person who is suffering from a bad case
of nerves?

5. What was Mr. Nuttel’s reaction when Mrs. Sappleton mentioned the open window and the
men who would be coming through it? What do you suppose Vera was feeling and thinking at
that moment?

6. What do you think was Vera’s reaction to Mr. Nuttel’s headlong flight from the ghastly
scene?

7. What was your reaction during the story? At the end of the story?

How, for instance, did you feel when Mrs. Sappleton said: “One would think he (Mr. Nuttel) had
seen a ghost”?

8. Would you say that this is a story in which something happens to a character or in which a
character makes something happen?

9. When you looked at the title “The Open Window”, did you see a picture in your mind? Did
you wonder why the window was open? What part it would play in the story?

For composition

1. How did Framton Nuttel feel about his experience? How would he talk about it to his sister?
Imagine that you are Framton, writing a letter to her. “Dear Alice” you might begin - “You can’t
imagine what happened to your dear Sappleton just a year after you left here.”

2. How would Vera tell the story. Imagine that you are Vera writing her diary. Recount the
experience as she might write it.