At the end of "The Canterville Ghost," Virginia intercedes with prayers the ghost can't pray and tears he can't shed so that he can finally die in peace and no longer have to haunt Canterville Hall. As a reward, Virginia gets the ancestral Canterville family jewels, which neither she nor her all-American family wants, but which the present Lord Canterville insists that she keep. Virginia then marries the Duke of Cheshire and is presented at the...
At the end of "The Canterville Ghost," Virginia intercedes with prayers the ghost can't pray and tears he can't shed so that he can finally die in peace and no longer have to haunt Canterville Hall. As a reward, Virginia gets the ancestral Canterville family jewels, which neither she nor her all-American family wants, but which the present Lord Canterville insists that she keep. Virginia then marries the Duke of Cheshire and is presented at the royal court wearing her jewels. Everybody insists she looks lovely in them. At the very end, she tells her husband that she owes the ghost a great debt for he taught her the meaning of life and death, and why love is stronger than either one.
The story parodies the "invasion" or rich Americans coming to England to buy ancestral estates and find aristocratic husbands for their daughters, but it also communicates the importance of treating the "other," even if it is a ghost, with compassion.
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