Short Fiction · Chapter
IX: The Funeral Visitation explained
Aunt Margaret, terrified by the suspicious activities in the inn, witnesses a woman with a hammer and steel blade, then hides in a bedroom.
What happens
Aunt Margaret, terrified by the suspicious activities in the inn, witnesses a woman with a hammer and steel blade, then hides in a bedroom. Two men and the woman enter carrying a coffin, place it on the bed beside her, and she discovers a dead man instead of Winnie. She screams, faints, and later learns she entered the wrong room.
Themes in this chapter
Supernatural and the Uncanny
The chapter's dreamlike, terrifying sequence with a coffin and dead man in the bed evokes the uncanny and supernatural horror.
Guilt and Retribution
Aunt Margaret's unaccountable antipathy and the men's flight suggest a hidden guilt or retribution theme.
Characters to notice
- Aunt Margaret
The protagonist of the chapter, terrified by the events and mistaken room.
- Winnie Dobbs
Aunt Margaret's companion, who was not in the bed as expected.
- Nelly Carwell
The ugly woman carrying the steel instrument, involved in the funeral visitation.
Key passages
“She saw, sometimes the shadow of this woman, and sometimes the full light of the candle, still thrown upon the floor and walls at the end of the lobby, and dared not move.”
Aunt Margaret was frozen in place, watching the woman's shadow and candlelight flicker on the walls and floor at the far end of the hallway.
Highlights her paralysis and fear.
“The door opened, and two men came in, carrying a coffin, on the lid of which a kitchen candle was burning dimly; and the ugly woman, Nell, ... followed, carrying in her hand the steel instrument.”
Two men entered carrying a coffin with a dim candle on its lid, followed by Nell holding the steel tool.
Key moment of the funeral visitation.
“In her stead lay a dead man, with a white-fringed cap on, and a black, stubbed beard, the growth of some three or four days, and a little line of the white of one eye shining between its half-closed lids.”
Instead of Winnie, a dead man with a cap, stubbly beard, and a sliver of white eye visible lay beside her.
The shocking discovery that triggers her scream.