Washington Irving's The Adventure of My Aunt: A Detailed Summary and Literary Analysis

One of the classic tropes of Gothic fiction is the haunted portrait: the dusty painting of a grim figure in old-fashioned garb, whose eyes gleam in candlelight and seem to follow—or even blink at—the viewer from the shadows. Originally a feature of early Gothic novels, it later became a favorite device among writers of horror and weird fiction: Edgar Allan Poe (“The Oval Portrait”), E. Nesbit (“The Ebony Frame”), Oscar Wilde (The Picture of Dorian Gray), H. P. Lovecraft (Charles Dexter Ward, “The Picture in the House,” “Pickman’s Model”), Sheridan Le Fanu (“Strange Disturbances in Aungier Street”), Bram Stoker (“The Judge’s House”), and Nathaniel Hawthorne (“Edward Randolph’s Portrait”), among many others.

Haunted portraits are a time-honored Gothic motif used for a variety of purposes: sometimes they suggest the lingering sins of past generations; sometimes they symbolize our tendency to cling to old patterns and resist change; and at other times, the mere idea of a painted face that moves, watches, or alters its expression is chilling enough in itself.

In this brief tale, Irving approaches the convention from a different angle—one that blends suspense with irony aimed at the excesses of Gothic sensationalism. Rather than plunging headlong into terror, he invites the reader to question appearances, even as he carefully builds an atmosphere of unease. The result is a story that plays with expectation as much as it satisfies it, using familiar imagery to explore both fear and human folly. With that in mind, the reader is well prepared to enter a dimly lit chamber where a portrait hangs—and where something, perhaps, is not quite as it seems.

SUMMARY

The second of a series of anecdotal ghost stories shared in the "Strange Stories by a Nervous Gentleman" segment from Tales of a Traveller, this episode is one of several exchanged by a group of hunters holed up at their host's country manor. Kept inside by a massive storm, they turn their efforts toward entertainment, with each attempting to outdo the others with tales of the strange, humorous, or supernatural.

The story begins with a humorous sketch of the narrator’s aunt and uncle. The aunt is described as “a lady of large frame, strong mind, and great resolution,” while the uncle is “a thin, puny little man” who steadily declines under her overpowering care. In one of the story’s sharpest satirical lines, he dies not from neglect but excess attention, becoming one of those “matrimonial victims, who have been killed with kindness.” This opening establishes Irving’s tone: mock-serious, gently ironic, and critical of exaggerated domestic virtue.

After her husband’s death, the aunt performs grief with theatrical devotion. She spares no expense in mourning, wears an oversized miniature portrait of her husband, and keeps his full-length likeness in her bedroom. Society praises her extravagantly, even concluding that “a woman who behaved so well to the memory of one husband, deserved soon to get another.” This detail foreshadows her quick remarriage and undercuts the sincerity of her mourning.

The central episode begins when the aunt relocates to a gloomy country house in Derbyshire, surrounded by bleak hills and ominous scenery, including “a murderer hanging in chains on a bleak height.” The servants are terrified by the setting, filling the house with “hobgoblin stories,” and establishing the classic Gothic atmosphere. Despite this, the aunt proves practical and vigilant, personally securing the house and keeping valuables in her room.

One night, while preparing for bed, she notices something uncanny: a sound behind her, followed by a strange echo of her sigh, and finally the alarming perception that one eye of her husband’s portrait has moved. Watching its reflection in the mirror, she becomes convinced that “it seemed to give her a wink.” Though briefly chilled, she regains composure with remarkable self-control—continuing her routine calmly, even humming to herself.

Rather than succumbing to fear, she acts decisively. Pretending not to have noticed, she innocuously slips out of the room, then rushes off to draft the servants into a make-shift army: arming them with whatever they can find—a rusty blunderbuss, heavy whip, a chopping knife, even a pair pf bottles—and leads them back to confront the apparition, herself wielding a red-hot poker ("and, in my opinion, she was the most formidable of the party") and declaring, “Ghosts!… I’ll singe their whiskers for them!” This moment highlights her courage and practical intelligence, contrasting with the servants’ superstition.

Upon returning to the room, they confront the portrait. When ordered down, it emits a groan, heightening the tension. However, the mystery is quickly resolved: behind the painting is a hidden recess containing a would-be thief, “a round-shouldered, black-bearded varlet” known to be a professional perjurer and suspected of having unwholesome designs for the buxom aunt. The soundrel admits he had cut a hole in the eye of the portrait, and was planning to rob her once she had fallen asleep.

The supposed haunting is thus exposed as a trick, deflating the supernatural suspense in classic Irving fashion. Justice, however, is comically unconventional: since the crime is not legally capital, the aunt punishes him herself, ordering him dragged through a horsepond and beaten dry with sticks. He is later exiled, likely to the Australian penal colony at Botany Bay.

The tale concludes with a final ironic twist: rather than becoming more fearful, the aunt remarries quickly, explaining that “it was a dismal thing for a woman to sleep alone in the country.” The framing audience expresses mild disappointment that there was no real ghost (and that the culprit escaped a good hanging), reinforcing the story’s playful subversion of Gothic expectations.

ANALYSIS

And so, once again, Irving lets the day be carried by a fearlessly practical woman. In some respects, this is precisely the kind of tale needed after the indistinct gloom of the uncle’s story: it jolts us out of brooding contemplation and enlivens us—as Irving so often prefers—with a dash of humor. The deceased husband—initially suspected of returning from the grave—proves, of course, far too weak-willed for so vigorous an effort, and it is his formidable widow who rises to the occasion, rallying her household to confront what appears to be a supernatural threat but resolves into something far more tangible. Though Irving delighted in the trappings of ghosts, hobgoblins, and spectral illusions, he never quite surrendered his native skepticism. This tale, then, reads as a gentle corrective to overheated imaginations: a reminder that not every shadow conceals a spirit, and not every mystery demands a supernatural explanation. In this sense, the story gestures toward a principle akin to Occam’s Razor, urging us to favor the simplest explanation and to keep our wits about us even in moments of apparent terror. Yet Irving’s restraint here is strategic—the cool rationality of this episode only sharpens the contrast with what follows, preparing the reader for a return to the uncanny where skepticism may not prove so easily rewarded.

You can read the original story HERE!

And you can find our annotated and illustrated edition of Irving's best supernatural fiction HERE!