Describe the character of Vera in "The Open Window" by Saki.

All the characters in "The Open Window," like most characters in short stories and novels, were created by the author in order to suit the needs of his plot. They are not real people, so it is a mistake to try to analyze them too deeply, as if they were flesh-and-blood human beings. Saki needed someone to tell Framton a wild story about how three men were killed by being sucked into a bog while out hunting, and how Mrs. Sappleton, who lost her mind when that tragedy occurred, is still waiting for them to return home for tea after three years. Saki decided to have an adolescent girl tell the visitor the story. Framton is an ideal victim, or "patsy," because he is a complete stranger to the region and therefore will accept Vera's story at face value.

Vera is just young enough to want to engage in such mischief and just old enough to be convincing. She is described as being very "self-possessed." Being a Victorian girl, she has very little freedom. She is bored with hearing the same stories about shooting birds and bored with her aunt's conversation, which centers on the activities and interests of the three men in her life. Vera must spend a great deal of her time reading, since there is little else for her to do. Because the men dominate the household, it would seem that the library must contain many books on travel and adventure that would interest men. No doubt Vera has read many of these books and feels even more bored with her life because of the contrast between her reading material and her dull existence. Poor Framton Nuttel will become the victim of this girl's frustrations.

When the men return from shooting and Mr. Sappleton asks his wife, "Who was that who bolted out as we came up?", the self-possessed Vera comes up with an explanation she must have taken straight out of a book about adventures in India.

"He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve."

Vera is a character created to fit the plot of "The Open Window." She is smart, imaginative, self-possessed, bored with life, entering a stage of teenage rebelliousness, addicted to escapist reading, and secretly wishing she could create a little uproar in this stereotypical English country manor. She might be compared with thirteen-year-old Briony Tallis in Ian McEwan's novel Atonement.