1.

about the author

2. about the book
3. theme of the book
4. intro of char.
5. chapter wise summary
6. conclusion
7.personal opinion
8.bibiliography

1.

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 30 November 1900) was
an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one
of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his
epigrams, his plays, and the circumstances of his imprisonment and early death.
EARLY LIFE:
Oscar Wilde was born at 21 Westland Row, Dublin (now home of the Oscar Wilde Centre,
Trinity College), the second of three children born to Sir William Wilde and Jane Wilde, two
years behind William ("Willie"). Wilde's mother, under the pseudonym "Speranza" (the Italian
word for 'Hope'), wrote poetry for the revolutionary Young Irelanders in 1848 and was a
lifelong Irish nationalist.[2] She read the Young Irelanders' poetry to Oscar and Willie,
inculcating a love of these poets in her sons.
His earnings, plus expected income from The Duchess of Padua, allowed him to move to
Paris between February and mid-May 1883. Whilst there he met Robert Sherard, whom he
entertained constantly. "We are dining on the Duchess tonight", Wilde would declare before
taking him to a fancy restaurant.[49] In August he briefly returned to New York for the
production of Vera, his first play, after it was turned down in London.
IMPRISONMENT:
Wilde was imprisoned first in Pentonville Prison and then Wandsworth Prison in London.
Inmates followed a regimen of "hard labour, hard fare and a hard bed", which wore very
harshly on Wilde, accustomed as he was to many creature comforts.[139] His health declined
sharply, and in November he collapsed during chapel from illness and hunger. His right ear
drum was ruptured in the fall, an injury that later contributed to his death. [140][141] He spent two
months in the infirmary.
Wilde was released on 19 May 1897, and though his health had suffered greatly, he had a
feeling of spiritual renewal. He immediately wrote to the Society of Jesus requesting a sixmonth Catholic retreat; when the request was denied, Wilde wept.
DEATH:
By 25 November Wilde had developed cerebral meningitis. Robbie Ross arrived on 29
November and sent for a priest, and Wilde was conditionally baptised into the Catholic
Church by Fr Cuthbert Dunne, a Passionist priest from Dublin[167] (the sacrament being
conditional because of the doctrine that one may be baptised only once[168] Wilde having a
recollection of Catholic baptism as a child, a fact later attested to by the minister of the
sacrament, Fr Lawrence Fox). Wilde was initially buried in the Cimetire de Bagneux outside
Paris; in 1909 his remains were disinterred and transferred toPre Lachaise Cemetery,
inside the city.

2. "The Canterville Ghost" is a popular short story by Oscar Wilde, widely adapted for the
screen and stage. It was the first of Wilde's stories to be published, appearing in the
magazine The Court and Society Review in February 1887. It was later included in a
collection of short stories entitled Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories in 1891.

Setting

The story of the Canterville Ghost was of an old English country house, Canterville Chase, which
has all the accoutrements of a traditional haunted house. Descriptions of the wainscoting, the library
panelled in black oak, and the armour in the hallway characterize the Gothic setting. Wilde mixes the
macabre with comedy, juxtaposing devices from traditional English ghost stories such as creaking
floorboards, clanking chains, and ancient prophecies with symbols of contemporary American
consumerism.

Plot

The story begins when Mr Otis and family move to Canterville Chase, despite warnings from Lord
Canterville that the house is haunted. Mr Otis says that he will take the furniture as well as the ghost
at valuation. The Otis family includes Mr and Mrs Otis, their daughter Virginia, the Otis twins (often
referred to as "Stars and Stripes") and their eldest son Washington. The other characters include the
Canterville Ghost, the Duke of Cheshire (who wants to marry Virginia), Mrs Umney (the
housekeeper), and Rev. Augustus Dampier. At first, none of the Otis family believe in ghosts, but
shortly after they move in, none of them can deny the presence of Sir Simon de Canterville (The
Canterville Ghost). The family hears clanking chains, they witness reappearing bloodstains "on the
floor just by the fireplace", which are removed every time they appear in various forms (colours). But,
humorously, none of these scare the Otis family in the least. In fact, upon hearing the clanking
noises in the hallway, Mr Otis promptly gets out of bed and pragmatically offers the ghost Tammany
Rising Sun Lubricator to oil his chains.
Despite Sir Simon's attempts to appear in the most gruesome guises, the family refuses to be
frightened, and Sir Simon feels increasingly helpless and humiliated. When Mrs Otis notices a
mysterious red mark on the floor, she simply replies that she does "not at all care for blood stains in
the sitting room". When Mrs Umney informs Mrs Otis that the blood stain is indeed evidence of the
ghost and cannot be removed, Washington Otis, the eldest son, suggests that the stain will be
removed with Pinkerton's Champion Stain Remover and Paragon Detergent: a quick fix, like the
Tammany Rising Sun Lubricator, and a practical way of dealing with the problem.

Wilde describes Mrs Otis as "a very handsome middle-aged woman" who has been "a celebrated
New York belle". Her expression of "modern" American culture surfaces when she immediately
resorts to using the commercial stain remover to obliterate the bloodstains and when she expresses
an interest in joining the Psychical Society to help her understand the ghost. Mrs Otis is given
Wilde's highest praise when he says: "Indeed, in many respects, she was quite English..."
The most colourful character in the story is undoubtedly the ghost himself, Sir Simon, who goes
about his duties with theatrical panache and flair. He assumes a series of dramatic roles in his failed
attempts to impress and terrify the Otises, making it easy to imagine him as a comical character in a
stage play. The ghost has the ability to change forms, so he taps into his repertoire of tricks. He
takes the role of ghostly apparitions such as a Headless Earl, a Strangled Babe, the Blood-Sucker of
Bexley Moor, Suicide's Skeleton, and the Corpse-Snatcher of Chertsey Barn, all having succeeded
in horrifying previous castle residents over the centuries. But none of them works with these
Americans. Sir Simon schemes, but even as his costumes become increasingly gruesome, his
antics do nothing to scare his house guests, and the Otises beat him every time. He falls victim to
trip wires, pea shooters, butter-slides, and falling buckets of water. In a particularly comical scene,
he is frightened by the sight of a "ghost" rigged up by the mischievous twins.
God gave a gift to the world when you were born
a person who loves, who cares,
who sees a person's need and fills it,
who encourages and lifts people up,
who spends energy on others
rather than herself,
someone who touches each life she enters,
and makes a difference in the world,
because ripples of kindness flow outward
as each person you have touched, touches others.
Your birthday deserves to be a national holiday,
because you are a special treasure
for all that you've done.
May the love you have shown to others
return to you, multiplied.
I wish you the happiest of birthdays,
and many, many more,
so that others have time to appreciate you
as much as I do.

Theme of the book:

The Canterville Ghost is a ghost story.
Ghost stories belong to the genre called horror literature, whose purpose is
to scare the reader with situations that cause horror or fear. The most
common technique is suspense, the slow insinuating of a doubt or of a
frightening revelation, which keeps the reader interested.
This story can be defined an inverted ghost story, because a lot of
elements are different from the traditional ones. The main difference is the
fact that Mr Otis is not scared by the ghost, while usually people should be.
Moreover, the Ghost itself is frightened by the Otis twins.
There is also comic relief bordering on farce, including buckets of water
balanced on half-open doors. But the story has a dark centre. The crime and
retribution which led to the haunting is ghastly, and this is really not a
comedy at all, but a tale of redemption through the power of love. The
innocent girl of the family, appropriately called Virginia, prays for the ghost
and endures terrifying if unnamed experiences to release the ghost.
Also, The Canterville Ghost is both a parody of the traditional ghost story
and a satire of the American way of life. Wilde obviously intends to satirize
American materialism, but he pokes fun at English traditional culture as
well.
American vs. British society: The Canterville Ghost is a study in contrasts.
Wilde takes an American family, places them in a British setting, then,
through a series of mishaps, pits one culture against the other. He creates
stereotypical characters that represent both England and the United States,
and he presents each of these characters as comical figures, satirizing both
the unrefined tastes of Americans and the determination of the British to
guard their traditions. Sir Simon is not a symbol of England, as perhaps
Mrs. Umney is, but rather a paragon of British culture. In this sense, he
stands in perfect contrast to the Otises. Sir Simon misunderstands the
Otises just as they misunderstand him, and, by pitting them against each
other, Wilde clearly wishes to emphasize the culture clash between England
and the United States.

Inrto of chars:
Main characters: The ghost, Virginia and Mr. Otis

Secondary characters: Washington, Mrs. Otis, the twins, Duke of

Lord Canterville, Mrs. Umney, gypsies an Rev

Chesire and

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.
The ghost: The ghost of the castle for centuries. He was Sir Simon de Canterville and
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: The father of the Otis family. He 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 doesnt exist, then, 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 Chesire: He is a handsome young scapegrace 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 English men of the most pounctilious honour.
Mrs.Umney: the old house-keeper of Canterville Chase is very terrified by the ghost and
tries to warn the family.