The Canterville Ghost was written in part to comment on the growing number of wealthy Americans coming to England in the late nineteenth century with practical know-how and a complete disregard for British traditions.
The Otises are such a family. They are not at all intimidated by the ancestral ghost who haunts Canterville Hall. Instead, they wash out the blood stain it leaves in the library with a brand new detergent, and the young twins, Stars and Stripes, play practical jokes on the hapless specter. These jokes include setting up a fake ghost to scare it, putting down butter slides so it will slip and fall, shooting at it with their pea guns, and setting up a pail of water on the top of a door to drench the poor ghost.
In a comic reversal of the typical ghost story, the humans terrorize the ghost rather than vice versa. But the young Virginia also helps send the ghost to his final rest, so the Americans do good deeds as well.
In The Canterville Ghost, the twins play a number of tricks on the ghost. Here are some examples:
In chapter 3, the twins attack the Canterville ghost with their pea shooters. Later in this chapter, the twins build a fake ghost, which they call the Ye Otis Ghoste, designed specifically to frighten the Canterville ghost (which it does).
In chapter 4, the Canterville ghost suffers a "severe fall" after treading on a butter slide that the twins construct between the Tapestry Chamber and the staircase. Later, the twins position a jug of water above the doorway of the Blue Bed Chamber, which succeeds in drenching the ghost with cold water. The twins also cover the ground of numerous passages with nutshells in the hope that the ghost will step on them and hurt his feet. It is only the ghost's refusal to appear that saves him from this additional injury.
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