SPOILERS
| Added | Thu, 26/04/2018 |
| Release date | 1887
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| Original title | The Canterville Ghost
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| Феномены | |
| References | Oscar Wilde, The Canterville Ghost (1906)
Ю. Кагарлицкий (Кентервильское привидение, Кентервильское привидение. Материально-идеалистическая история), 1960
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The Gothic-humorous novella by the Anglo-Irish writer Oscar Wilde "The Canterville Ghost" was first published in the London magazine "The Court and Society Review" in 1887.
The author was inspired by images from traditional English ghost stories and took from them the most frequent, already classic signs: creaking floorboards, ringing chains, ancient prophecies, etc.
This plot has been familiar to many since childhood, as it formed the basis of a large number of films, cartoons and musicals. The author took as a basis the classical ideas about English ghosts and popularized them, so do not underestimate his contribution to the modern image of the phenomenon.
Now the work is in the public domain, so it is easy to find it on the Internet for review.
Author of the Gothic-humorous novella "The Canterville Ghost" (1887) Oscar Wilde was inspired by images from traditional English ghost stories and took from them the most frequent, already classic signs: creaking floorboards, ringing chains, ancient prophecies, etc.
Canterville Castle, which is haunted by an ancient curse in the form of the ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville, who killed his high-born wife Lady Eleanor in 1575, is bought by the American ambassador to Great Britain Hiram B. Otis and settles there with his wife and children. The disturbed ghost tries to intimidate representatives of modern American civilization with sudden bloodstains, powerful thunderclaps, the ringing of rusty chains at night – but in vain. The ghost's first face-to-face encounter with members of the Otis family had two consequences: Mr. Ambassador offered the ghostly Sir Simon a bottle of engine oil to lubricate rusty chains; the young twin brothers, the younger offspring of Mr. Otis, threw pillows at the defenseless ghost. The enraged Sir Simon threatens to take terrible revenge, but in the next attempts to intimidate the hated family and smoke him out of the castle, the ghost himself gets injured trying to put on his old armor. Repeatedly waylaid at night, chased and chased by the indomitable twins, who stretched ropes in the corridors through which Sir Simon wandered, rubbed the parquet with slippery oil and poured water on the ghost, the old spirit finally became completely ill.
One day, Virginia Otis, the eldest daughter of Mr. Otis, a sentimental girl, accidentally discovers a hidden door behind which there is a hall in which a ghost lives. At the same time, she opens an old rhymed prophecy saying that the prayer of an innocent young creature for Sir Simon can save the soul of an unfortunate ghost, finally give him peace and heavenly salvation. The ghost is sick, insulted, and almost inconsolable in his sadness. Virginia decides to help him.
After the family discovers the disappearance of their eldest daughter, a frantic search for Virginia begins throughout the county. The father and Duke Cecil, the girl's fiance, lead the search in the town, while the twins turn Canterville Castle upside down. The suspicion that Virginia was abducted by gypsies seen in the neighborhood was not confirmed. By the evening, the search had to be curtailed, and the whole family is going to the castle in despair. Suddenly, at exactly midnight, Virginia appears in the hall of Canterville Castle, accompanied by thunderclaps. In her hands is a casket with antique jewels of the Canterville family, presented to her by the grateful Sir Simon.
The Otis find the decayed remains of Sir Simon de Canterville and bury them in consecrated ground. Life in the castle continues safely. Virginia marries the Duke she loves.
Phenomena in artwork: Ghost
Ghost in the work presented by sir Simon de Canterville, who killed his highborn wife, lady Eleanor in 1575, and cursed. His restless spirit is haunting the house and scaring the new tenants.
Interaction with characters with the Ghost of the piece is often enough. So, Lord Canterville, sell house, tells how Duchess of Bolton has changed, and suddenly her shoulders dropped two bony hands. The servants heard strange noises in the hallway and the library. The housekeeper told the following story:
You can see the blood of lady Eleanor of Canterville, murdered on this very spot in the year one thousand five hundred seventy-fifth year of her husband sir Simon de Canterville. Sir Simon survived her nine years and disappeared suddenly under very mysterious circumstances. His body was never found, but the spirit of the sinner until now it roams the castle. Tourists and other visitors to the castle with the same admiration view this eternal, indelible stain.
The appearance of the Ghost at the first meeting with the new owner of the house is described as:
Right in front of him in the ghostly moonlight, stood a man, looked horrible. His eyes glowed like burning coals, long grey hair hair hung down over his shoulders, dirty dress of antique cut were all in rags, his hands and feet shackled, hung heavy rusty chain.
The Ghost remembered following their actions:
The spirit remembered the Dowager Duchess, that is scared to death when she looked in the mirror, covered in lace and diamonds; of the four housemaids, which was hysterical when he merely smiled at them from behind the curtain in the guest bedroom; on the parish priest, who still is treated by sir William Galla from a nervous breakdown, because one night when he came out of the library, someone blew out his candle; and of old Madame de Tramoya that he woke up once at dawn and seeing in front of the fireplace sits a skeleton and reads her diary, took me out for six weeks with brain fever, reconciled with the Church and broke decisively with the well-known skeptic Monsieur de Voltaire.
He remembered the terrible night when the wicked Lord Canterville was found choking in dressing room with Jack of diamonds in my throat. Dying, the man confessed that with the help of this map he beat the Execution of Charles James Fox on the fifty thousand pounds that the map he is stuck in the throat, the Canterville Ghost.
He remembered each of the victims of the great acts from the Butler who had shot himself, barely green hand knocked at the pantry window, to the beautiful lady Stutfield, who had always to wear round the neck a black velvet to hide the prints of five fingers left on her white skin. She then drowned herself in a pond, famous for its carp, at the end of the königsallee.
Covered the feeling samoupoeniya, knows what every true artist, he tried to mind his best role, and a bitter smile twitched the corners of his lips as he recalled his last appearance as red Raben, or Baby udavlennika, his debut in the role Dibona Skin and bones, or Bloodsuckers with Backslash Topi; remembered how shocked audiences only to the fact that pleasant June evening om played skittles with their bones on the ground for lawn tennis.
In fact these lines are a compilation of descriptions of clashes of people with ghosts in English castles, frequently encountered in the oral stories of eyewitnesses of the time, and collections of folklore.
At a certain point of the narrative the spirit is going to turn into a black dog, which is a reference to stories about the famous English Ghost – the Black shack.
Also many references to the views of the time about ghosts contained in the plan of Simon de Canterville to intimidate the members of the Otis family:
His plan was this: first, he quietly slipped into the room Washington Otis and stand at his feet, muttering something under his breath, and then the sounds of mournful music thrice pierced his throat with a dagger. To Washington he had a particular dislike, since she knew that he took the custom to wash the famous Canterville blood-Stain by the Pinkerton Model Cleaner. Bringing this reckless and irreverent youngster to complete prostration, he would proceed then in the marital bedchamber, Ambassador of the United States and lay covered with cold sweat hand on the forehead of Mrs. Otis, whispering meanwhile her husband crepidodera terrible secrets of the crypt.
About a little Virginia, he there is nothing definite came up. It never hurt and was a beautiful and kind girl. Here you can do several deaf groans from the wardrobe, and if she doesn't Wake up, he pulled the trembling gnarled fingers over her blanket. But the twins he'll get it. First and foremost, it will sit on their chest, that they were swept by prividevshayasya nightmares, and then, as their beds are close by, harden between them as a cold, greenish corpse, and will so stand until they are necrotic from fear. Then he will reset the shroud and exposing their white bones, would start pacing the room, rotating one eye, as expected in the role of Dumb Daniel, or the skeleton of a suicide.
The moment where the Ghost is going to sit "on their chest, that they were swept by prividevshayasya nightmares" refers to characteristics relevant in the modern world to the family or, if we consider the more materialist – sleepy paralysis (also known as "sleepy stupor" or "old hags syndrome").
The rest of the Ghost are quite comical: he is afraid of other ghosts, may be laid up from colds, long selects an image for scaring carries paint to paint the "blood" spots under the stairs, etc. due to such attitude of the author of all stories of real-life stories about ghosts also begin to look ridiculous and unnatural.
Translated by «Yandex.Translator»
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