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Transcript

PARSON'S PLEASURE

by Roald Dahl

Analysis of a Short Story

Laura Lazdupa

The Story

Parson's Pleasure (1958)

The Author

Mr Boggis works in the antique furniture business. Every Sunday he travels around the country buying up antiques at a very low price and manages to make a good profit selling them. He is doing very well till one Sunday he discovers really rare and antique commode.

Roald Dahl

He was born in South Wales in 1916 to Norwegian parents and lived till 1990.

Characters

The Antagonists

The Protagonist

Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, screenwriter, and pilot during the Second World War.

Rummins, Bert and Claud

Mr Rummins and his son Bert are local farmers; Claud their neighbor who had dropped in on Rummins in the hope of getting a piece of pork. They are suspicious about Mr Boggis interest in furniture, but still Mr Boggis tricks them into a selling of a rare commode only for £20 by saying that it is worthless.

Mr Cyril Boggis

He is an antique furniture seller, who pretends and dresses up as a priest so that people would trust him and allow him to enter their houses to look at their furniture. He also tricks the owner of the house into selling him valuable furniture very cheaply by making them to think that the piece of furniture is worthless.

Notable works:

  • Charlie and the Chocolate Factory;
  • Matilda;
  • The Witches;
  • Fantastic Mr Fox;
  • Tales of the Unexpected.

"Excellent. Not many of his Sunday sections had a nice elevation like that to work from."

"The serpentine front was magnificently ornamented along the top and sides and bottom, and also vertically between each set of drawers, with intricate carvings of festoons and scrolls and clusters. The brass handles, although partly obscured by white paint, appeared to be superb."

"We are just in time! (..) Here he comes! "

Point-of-view - the story has been told from third persons point of view. Story teller doesn't interact in the events.

Setting - it is Sunday, the usual time when the main character goes to his trips.

Language - the author uses a lot of descriptions of furniture with the aim to make rich visual illustration for the reader.

The author plays with the morphology.

For example: “Mr. Boggis....”

(Boggis- bogus)

The author has left the final opened to let the readers think about their own interpretations.

My Opinion

Plot

Climax

Mr Rummins agrees to sell the commode for £20.

"I'll make you one final offer, and then I must go. Twenty pounds.

I'll take it - Rummins snapped. -It's yours."

Falling Action

  • Mr Boggis goes to get his car.
  • Mr Rummins is worried that Mr Boggis car might be to small and he will back out from the deal.

"How can a thing like that possibly go in a car?"

Rising Action

  • I enjoyed reading this short story. The plot is very exciting and it cough me at all when Mr Boggis found the commode.
  • The author has very well built the characters of this story. Their descriptions and personalities reveal the main idea of this story - greed and lies. If Mr Boggis hadn't been so greedy, he still would made a great profit from selling the commode.
  • Mr Boggis personality and ambitions lead to a very socking ending. I couldn't imagine that story will end like this.
  • Mr Boggis offers £10 for the commode and says that he will only use its legs for his coffee table.
  • He uses different tricks to show Mr Rummins that the commode isn't very old and is worthless. Mr Rummins starts to believe.

Thank you for your attention!

Resolution

Mr Rummins decides to cut off the legs of the commode and makes the rest of the furniture into a firewood.

"Cut 'em close, - Rummins said. -Don't forget he's going to use 'em on another table."

Mr Boggis is an antiques dealer. He buys valuable furniture cheaply from country people while pretends to be a priest.

Inciting Incident

Exposition

Mr Boggis sees a very rare Chippendale commode what would cost in the market about £20,000.

"From now on, every Sunday, he was going to be a nice old parson (..) And who in the world was going to kick him out when they heard that one?"

"And there it was! Mr Boggis saw it at once,and he stopped dead in his track and gave a little shrill gasp of shock. (..) "

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