Three men in a boat

Dwivedi’s production

• Character Sketches• Summary• Chapter 1• Chapter 2• Chapter 3• Chapter 4• Chapter 5• Chapter 6• Chapter 7• Chapter 8• Chapter 9• Chapter 10• Chapter 11• Chapter 12• Analysis

CONTENTS

Character Sketches

JThis person is the narrator of the book and is a young, single, middle-class man living in London. A funny and lively man, who treats about everything as a joke, lives the life the way it takes it to. He has no practical thinking. He just tries to do everything the way he is asked. He has a dog. He loves food and hates work.

HARRIS This person is a young single character with a fondness for drink. At one point, this person manages to get fairly drunk one night and imagines being attacked by swans. He is a nostalgic person, does whatever he wants. He doesn't care about the people around, is keen at his own decisions. He seems to love music but people hate him sing.

GEORGE This character is a bank clerk who works on Saturdays. It is this person's idea to take the river trip. He has practical approach to life, is mature enough for his age to be, works well , experimental good cook.

Three Men in a Boat, published in 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford.The book was initially intended to be a serious travel guide, with accounts of local history along the route, but the humorous elements took over to the point where the serious and somewhat sentimental passages seem a distraction to the comic novel. One of the most praised things about Three Men in a Boat is how undated it appears to modern readers — the jokes seem fresh and witty even today.

SUMMARY

The three men are based on Jerome himself (the narrator J.) and two real-life friends, George Wingrave (who went on to become a senior manager in Barclays Bank) and Carl Hentschel (the founder of a London printing business, called Harris in the book), with whom he often took boating trips. The dog, Montmorency, is entirely fictional but, "as Jerome admits, developed out of that area of inner consciousness which, in all Englishmen, contains an element of the dog.” The trip is a typical boating holiday of the time in a Thames camping skiff. This was just after commercial boat traffic on the Upper Thames had died out, replaced by the 1880s craze for boating as a leisure activity.

• George, William Samuel, Harris, Jerome and Montmorency were sitting in a room and discussing how bad they were from medical point of view.

• After sometime Jerome went to a library and he discovered that he had the symptoms of all the diseases except housemaids knee.

• He sat for a while and thought that he was an interesting case from a medical point.

CHAPTER 1

• Jerome followed his directions and thought that his life was preserved.

• After an hour they all met again. They sat there and started describing each other their maladies.

• The matter with all of them was overwork. Harris suggested that they need some break.

• Jerome suggested that they should seek out some old world spot, far from the madding crowd.

• Harris suggested that they should go for a sea trip, which was objected by Jerome. Jerome started to give an example of several people in his objection.

• They pulled out the maps, and discussed plans.• George and Jerome wanted to camp outside.• Harris warned both of them on the plan of

camping outside as the rain was forecasted.• They finally decided to camp out on fine nights

and in a hotel or an inn when it was wet.

CHAPTER 2

• Jerome was worried about Montmorency. He was worried of the fact that how could Montmorency survive with them.

• Jerome recalled those days when Montmorency first came to live on his expenses.

• He discovered that Montmorency idea of life was to march around the slums with the most disreputable dogs.

• They settled the arrangements for the things that they had to take with them.

• Jerome described Harris as the one who is ready to take the burden of everything himself and put it on the backs of other people.

• Jerome felt that Harris would grow up to be like his uncle.

• So Jerome took up the responsibility to do things himself than to give it to Harris.

CHAPTER 3

• They made a list and then remade another list.• George said that they were on a wrong track

altogether. He sensibly helped to make the list.• They planned to take a boat with cover instead

of a tent and also planned other essential amenities.

• Then they discussed on the food question.• Based on their previous experience they all

agreed not to take oil stove with them, as oil tends to get on everything and makes a sooty, smelly mess.

• Similarly, they decided their food stocks should not contain any cheese.

CHAPTER 4

• Jerome told an amusing story of a time he volunteered to carry some large chesses for a friend on a train journey

• All of them gathered the items they intended to take, pushed aside the furniture, and piled everything in the center of the room. Jerome volunteered to pack and was dismayed when George and Harris seemed to take no interest in the packing.

• At the end when the packing was done they all went to sleep.

• The next day began with the housekeeper, Mrs. Poppets waking the men at 9:00 in the morning, each blaming the other for not waking them all up sooner.

• After breakfast, Harris and Jerome moved the luggage outside and waited for a cab.

• As they waited for the cab, a group of boys gathered around and started teasing the men. The group got larger and the teasing continued.

CHAPTER 5

• By that time, quite a small crowd had gathered, and people were asking each other what the matter was.

• An empty cab finally arrived and took them to Waterloo

• They reached Waterloo station at eleven to catch the eleven five train.

• When they got to Kingston they found their boat waiting for them and so they finally set of for their journey.

• They finally reached Kingston.• Jerome told about a boy who used to study at

their school.• His name was Stivvings and was often called

Merton.• He liked to study, but he used to get ill about

twice a week so that he couldn’t go to school.• During the great cholera scare of 1871, their

neighbourhood was singularly free from it. There was only one reputed case in the whole society: that case was young Stivvings.

CHAPTER 6

• He had to stop in bed when he was ill, and ate chickens and custards and hot house grapes.

• The men were rowing past Hampton court.• Harris described of getting lost at Hampton

court maze.• He told that he had gone to show somebody else

the way but he lost the way. Later more people followed him and got lost following him.

• Harris thought it was a very fine maze. The men agreed that they would try to get George to go into it on their way back.

• The men reached a river.• The people near the riverside were brightly and

prettily dressed and enjoying as well as relaxing on Sunday.

• Harris wanted to see a funny tomb which was with Mrs. Thomas.

• He was thinking something when a man approached him.

CHAPTER 7

• Harris was annoyed with him and told him to go away.

• The man burst into tears.• Harris consoled him and went to see his tombs.• Harris was angry with George that why he

couldn’t come and do some work.• Harris climbed over the seat to pick the bottle of

lemonade, but it was right the bottom of the hamper, so he leaned further and further, and, trying to steer at same time he crashed the boat into the bank.

• Jerome and Harris stopped under the willows of the Kempton Park, and had their lunch.

• When they started eating, just then a gentleman came.

• This made Jerome very angry and wanted to kill the man. Finally, the man ran off.

• Jerome recalled those days when Harris was asked to sing a comic sing in a party.

CHAPTER 8

• Harris started singing and he mixed two songs.• The pianist got nervous and ran from that place.• A new pianist was called and the song was started

all over again.• Speaking of comic song and parties, Jerome

recalled another incident.• They rowed to reach Weybridge, where they saw

George .• Jerome and Harris saw that George had a parcel

in his hand.

• Harris and Jerome wanted George to do some work, so they gave him a towline to tow the boat.

• He told experiences of people who had worked with towline earlier and fell in some sorts of trouble. George got the line right, and towed them steadily to Penton Hook.

• Jerome remembered those days when he went with his cousin to Goring in boat.

CHAPTER 9

• They reached Benson’s lock and Jerome told his cousin that they were just a mile and a half from the next lock i.e. Wallingford lock.

• After a mile or so they saw a boat.• Jerome enquired the men in the boat and they

told him that there wasn’t no Wallingford lock then.

• They wanted to have their supper and wanted to go to bed.

• They decided that before having supper, they would first put the canvas as it was getting dark.

• George and Harris entangled themselves in the boat cover. Jerome and Montmorency just watched because they were told not to help.

• George finally asked for a help.

CHAPTER 10

• Jerome disentangled them, and they weren’t really happy.

• After an hour, they finally sat down for their dinner and ate in total silence.

• They finally lay back wondering why life couldn’t be peaceful.

• Jerome was uncomfortable as a part of the boat kept digging in his spine.

• He got up and went out to admire the glorious night.

• George told Jerome about that morning when got up very early.

• Once his watch went out of order and the time it showed was quarter-past eight.

• Mistakenly, he woke up at three and rushed to get ready for work.

CHAPTER 11

• Only when a policeman told him that it was just three o'clock in the morning, he realized that his watch was showing the wrong time.

• Jerome went to wake up Harris.• George, Harris and Montmorency kept away from

the water as it was too cold.• Harris proposed to prepare scrambled eggs for

breakfast. • He had some trouble in breaking the eggs and

getting them into the frying pan. • The lovely morning made Jerome mention about

King John who had slept at Duncroft Hall.

• They went over to Magna Charta Island, and had a look at the stone which stood in the cottage there.

• There were the ruins of an old priory in the ground of Ankerwyke House and it was round about the grounds of this old priory

CHAPTER 12

• Jerome expressed the irritation and awkwardness one feels when is in the same house with a pair of lovers.

• George asked Jerome whether he remembered their first trip up the river, and when they landed at Datchet at ten o’clock at night.

• George draw out a tin of pine-apple and they all brighten up. they were unable to open the tin so, Harris threw the tin into the river.

• Jerome considered sailing a task that made one part of the nature.

AnalysisThe story "Three men in the boat" by Jerome K. Jerome presents that three men with a dog stayed at the village. The action centers after their decision to stay at one of the ship lake islands for a night. Then, they decided to make a supper, using all the ingredients and remains of food they have. They enjoyed an excellent supper. The climax of the story is episode when dog brings a water-rat and friends decided whether they will put it in the Irish stew or not.   

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