- describe the major incidents in the first four chapters of canterville ghost?
In the story, it is the selfless love that Virginia feels for the ghost which helps him attain salvation. The underlying theme of the story is that without love, even death is unattainable. This is evident from the fact that the ghost had been doomed to Canterville Chase for eternity as a supernatural entity if someone pure of heart did not arrive who could have faith in him. The Canterville Ghost is more of a funny story than a scary story because it deals mostly with the plight of the ghost who feels as if he is under siege from human beings, that is, the Otis family and especially, the twins. Wilde plays upon the conventional images of how a ghost has been represented in popular imagination and literature to draw his portrait of the ghost. His work incorporates the stereotypical picture of the old manorial ghost in a suitably haunted house, playing on key elements from gothic and supernatural stories but also shows him as an egotistical artist interested in the art of scaring people. For the ghost, it is more of a performance than any real malevolent intention to scare people. The blood stain, the back-story of the ghost and usage of the tropes from this genre add to Wilde's object of stereotyping the ghost. In spite of the fact that the ghost had come to this state by murdering his wife, Wilde did not let the story become macabre or sinister. He maintained the humour by making the ghost an object of humour, the narrative offered by the ghost himself. The ghost was actually quite benevolent as is reflected by his treatment of Virginia.