Tuesday 15 May 2012


Oscar WILDE (1891) The Canterville Ghost, The Happy Prince and Other Stories, Penguin Classics 2010
By Alicia Pliego Mendieta, 2º Bachillerato EFL

The Ghost of Sir Simon de Canterville has been living in Canterville Chase since 1584. He murdered his wife because she was plain and ugly and a bad housekeeper. He is extremely tired because he hasn’t slept for three hundred years and the only thing that he wants is to die and rest in peace in the Garden of Death. He has been frightening everyone who is in the house (because that is what he is supposed to do) and everyone is afraid of him.
         Despite the villagers warning people not to buy the house because of the ghost, the American Ambassador decided to buy it and he moved in with his family: his wife, his oldest son Washington, his lovely fifteen year old daughter Virginia and the twins, who loved playing tricks. None of them were afraid of the ghost and they mocked it whenever he tried to scare them. The ghost failed to frighten the family, even when he planned a perfect haunting.
         One day he talked to Virginia, confessing that he was fed up of her rude, nasty family. She told him that what he was doing was not right, either. He admitted that he wanted to be dead and Virginia was the only one who could help him...
         I enjoyed this story a lot because I thought it was going to be about ghosts, and therefore scary, but, on the contrary, it was quite funny. The moment when I laughed the most was when the Canterville Ghost spent a day planning and preparing his appearance to really frighten the family once they had gone to bed. The ghost was moving in silence when, suddenly, facing him, he found a large ghostly figure with a shinning, hairless head! Sir Simon had never seen a ghost before and he was terribly frightened! He had been tricked by the family when he was trying to frighten them!!!
         I would recommend it to everyone because it is funny and entertaining. 

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