Packing Episode from "Three Men in a Boat" - An Analysis

 

Packing Episode in Three Men in a Boat

by

Jerome K. Jerome

About the author

Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) was an English writer and humorist. He is known for his comic travelogue Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog). Jerome grew up in a poor family and struggled in school due to his dyslexia. He worked as a railway clerk, a schoolteacher, an actor, and a journalist.

Three Men in a Boat

In 1889, Jerome published Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), which became an instant bestseller. The book is a humorous account of three friends' boating trip on the Thames. It is full of Jerome's wit and observations on life. It has been translated into over 100 languages.

 

The Packing Episode

“The Packing Episode” in Three Men in a Boat is a humorous account of the three friends' attempts to pack for their boating trip. The three friends are Jerome, George and Harris. Jerome is the narrator. The episode begins with the men excitedly gathering their belongings. It quickly devolves into chaos as they start arguing about what to bring. Jerome volunteers to do the packing while his friends are just sitting lazy. He highlights their haphazard approach, their tendency to overpack, and their inability to agree on anything. For example, he describes how they pack their clothes "as if they were paving a street". Next, they argue over whether to bring a frying pan or a saucepan.

The narrator packs all their clothing in a Gladstone bag, “a suitcase with flexible sides on a rigid frame that opens flat into two equal compartments.” When he is done, he discovers that he had forgotten to put the boots in. He also cannot remember if he packed his own toothbrush. So he has to rummage through the bag to make sure. He eventually finds it in one of the boots.

Harris and George pack the food and cooking utensils into two hampers. It takes them two hours. In this process, they break a cup. They put heavy items on top of things that shouldn’t be squashed – like a tomato. Otherwise, they have to clean the mess out of the hamper. Harris sits on the butter and it sticks to him, and the two men have a difficult time finding it again. Montmorency, the dog, gets involved by putting his leg into the jam. All the while, the narrator merely watches this scene, amused. The episode gives us a good introduction to how the rest of the trip will proceed.

 

Oil and Cheese

            The men unanimously decide not to take paraffin oil and cheese for their journey. The narrator explains the reason behind their decision in a humorous way. Once, they had oil for their trip and the oil oozed and spoiled other goods and the boat and it was smelly also. Hence, this time, they decide to take methylated oil. Next the narrator explains how he brough the cheese purchased by his friend from Liverpool. During his train journey, the other passengers moved out of the compartment due to the bad smell. When he brought the cheese to his friend’s house, his wife went away until the cheese was disposed. Finally, the cheese was buried in the sea shore.  

Wit and Humour

“The Packing Episode” is a classic example of Jerome's wit and humour. He uses the episode to poke fun at the men's disorganization and their inability to agree on anything. However, the episode also serves a more serious purpose. It foreshadows the challenges that the men will face on their journey. The description of the oil, the process of purchasing and disposing cheese, the action of the dog create laughter. The men's disorganization and lack of preparation will make their trip more difficult, but it will also provide them with opportunities to learn and grow.

 

Conclusion

This “Packing Chapter” illustrates how packing can be a tiring and tricky job. If it is not done properly, the entire journey will be affected. The author presents the failings of the human beings with his minute power of observation and wit.

 

 

I Am a Cat by Natsume Soseki- Essay

 

I Am a Cat

-- Natsume Soseki

Introduction

Natsume Soseki is a famous Japanese writer. In the story “I Am a Cat’’ he describes the middle-class life from the perspective of a cat. This story is a beautiful synthesis of humour and pathos.

From birthplace to bamboo grove

The cat was born in a gloomy, damp place. The first human being met by the cat was a student. In the opinion of the cat, students are ferocious because they sometimes catch the cats, cook them and eat them. The student took the cat from its birthplace and threw him away in a bamboo bush. Thus, the cat was removed from its dear mother.

From bamboo grove to the school teacher’s house

The cat crawled through a hole in the bamboo grove and entered the house of a school teacher. The first person met by the cat in the house was Osan, the maid. She was worse than the student. She grabbed the cat by the neck and threw him outdoors. The cat could not endure hunger and cold. So he tried to enter the house again. The master told the maid to let the cat in.

Character of the school teacher

The school teacher was a man with a weak stomach but he ate large amount of food. He pretended that he was a voracious reader but he used to sleep whenever he opened the book and read two or three pages. Though his job was easy, he always told his friends that the teaching profession was a very difficult one.

Pathos

In the house of the school teacher, nobody except the master was nice to the cat. Wherever he went, he was kicked. The fact that they had not given him a name showed that they did not care for him. The cat used to sleep on the container in the mornings and on a charcoal-burning foot warmer in the evenings. When he tried to sleep on the bed with the children at night, the master gave him a terrible whipping. Though he suffered due to the cold atmosphere in the kitchen, he was not allowed to sleep inside the rooms. When he met Shiro, the female cat living in the house of a soldier, she told him that there was nothing inconsiderate as humans. Mike, who lived in the house of a lawyer, said that humans did not understand the rights of other creatures in the world.

The master’s attempts to become a creative artist

The master wrote haiku poems with many grammatical errors. He tried to acquire proficiency in archery, singing and playing on the violin but all his attempts ended as failures. He began to draw pictures. No one could understand what he had drawn. His friend referred to the words of Andrea del Sarto, the famous Italian painter: “To draw, you have to interpret nature in its original form.” The following day, the master tried Andrea del Sarto’s theory by using the cat as a model. When the master completed the painting, the colour of the cat was neither yellow nor black. It was only the smearing of many tones. The strange thing was that the cat had no eyes in the painting!

Conclusion

This story, narrated by the cat, is a satire on the behaviour of human beings. The style is simple, direct and clear.

 

Still Another View of Grace by A.K. Ramanujan- An Analysis

 

Still Another View of Grace

                                                          -A.K. Ramanujan

About the Author
            A. K. Ramanujan (1929–1993) was an Indian poet, translator, folklorist, and scholar. He wrote both in English and Kannada. He is celebrated for his ability to bridge Indian traditions with modern sensibilities. His poem often explore memory, culture, sexuality, morality, and identity. He was deeply interested in the tensions between tradition and individual desire.

About the Poem
       The poem “Still Another View of Grace” appeared in Ramanujan’s first collection The Striders (1966). This volume established his reputation as a major Indian English poet. The poem’s central idea is the conflict between moral upbringing and bodily desire. It also shows how desire can overpower inherited notions of purity, sin, and social order. Further, the poem deals with the themes of sexuality, transgression, rebellion, and cultural guilt.

Analysis
          At the beginning of the poem, the speaker confesses an inner struggle: “I burned and burned.” This metaphor of “burning” suggests suppressed desire or passion. The thought he catches is personified as a woman with “screams of her hair.” This imagery conveys both attraction and danger. The speaker warns against “gentleman’s morals” and advises her to marry within social approval—a priest or even “any beast in the wind.” It highlights his own conflict between societal respectability and basic instinct.

Next, the speaker’s Brahmin background is described. He has been raised among “singers of shivering hymns.” In his household, desire is policed and suppressed. He is trained to fear “hungers that roam the street.” However, his desire/lust breaks through. The turning point arrives when the woman “stood upon that dusty road on a night lit April mind” and looks at him. Her presence dismantles all commandments. Here, the speaker recalls his father’s moral failures. Desire is embodied in her “tumbled hair.” Her hair feels as “silk” in his hand. So he “took her behind the laws of my land.” Here, the poet admits that he yielded to his lust against his religious and social prohibitions.

Conclusion

Thus, the poem “Still Another View of Grace” portrays the triumph of physical desire over inherited morality. Grace here is not divine, but the grace of yielding to passion, a human and forbidden grace. Further, this poem talks about the sexual freedom in a constrained world in the name of family tradition.