Other examples of text that reveal his characteristics to us, are that his full name is Albert Polly, he is 37 and a half years old, he enjoys walking, reading and playing with words. From the text, we have established that he is friendly, humorous, down to Earth, witty, hardworking, uses words loosely and laid back. He has previously worked in a department store, now runs his own business selling clothes. He has a wife called Miriam and lives above his shop in Fishbourne, Hampshire. He also suffers from indigestion as a result of Miriam’s cooking and his shop is failing.
Mr Polly hopes to turn his life around in a number of ways. He mentions in the text about his hopes and his reality. His hopes are that of breakfast with bacon, muffins for tea, walks in the country, to live for the moment, and to be happy. Instead, he has a moody and cross wife, no muffins, unwilling wife, his wife has no imagination, Miriam has no sense of humour, he doesn’t actually like his life and wife and in general, his life is going nowhere. Therefore he made a few drastic changes! He since forth left Miriam, and as a consequence, eats better with no more indigestion and is healthier. He has got rid of Uncle Jim, has learnt new skills (how to punt), has since leaving Miriam, set his mind at rest about her and he is no longer running the shop (he burnt it in a suicide attempt). He has also got a comfortable and relaxing job with no stress and now has a got a real friend.
As mentioned above, Mr Polly is a complex person with a number of strengths and weaknesses. His main strengths are that he is friendly…that being in his own way! What ties in with this is Mr Polly being polite, too; if he generally likes someone, he speaks highly of him or her. It is the irony; for example, the Larkins house was a mess, we know it was a mess from what the author said of it but Mr Polly ignored this and focused his attention on the Larkins.
Mr Polly is also quite a genuine guy as he will not start a fight but will be sure to finish it! He is also good-natured, conscientious and sociable.
His principal shortcomings are that I would consider him to be cantankerous, meaning he is argumentative. But he will not back down. An example of this is his ‘tiffs’ with Rusper and Uncle Jim. However, he is also cowardly as he ran away from Uncle Jim, but yet again, this is understandable as after all, he was being shot at! He is also un-organised, ill educated and irritable.
I would personally say that leaving Miriam was the most important event in his life as it set him free to leave Fishbourne and meet new people. He was given the idyllic rural setting for his nature, which meant he lost the responsibility of his shop, lost the aggravation over Miriam, and he lost his unfriendly neighbours.
In Mr Polly’s day there were only a limited amount of opportunities. We can work this out from the people he meets in the course of the book. He met a young girl who attends a boarding school. There were good schools for those who could afford it (Mr Polly’s parents could not) this indicates an economically divided society. Those who do not have money do not have access to many desirable things in life. Shopkeepers, like Mr Polly, lived reasonably. Some shops survived. This means the shops were making enough of a profit to sustain the owners. None of the owners had a lavish lifestyle, however, which indicates that there was not much profit.
The Larkins lived in a small, crowded, cramped house. This was presumably the best they could afford. Only one of the girls had a job-in a factory. At the funeral of Mr Polly’s father, Uncle Penstemon asks if they have gone “into service” (i.e. Working as maids). Mrs Larkins is indignant as she feels they are above this. Because the best alternative to “going into service” is working in a factory, we can deduce that there was not much opportunity.
When Mr Polly proposed to Miriam, they were all very happy even though Mr Polly was unemployed. The modest amount of money he had and his experience as a shop assistant still made him an attractive respect.
When Mr Polly returns to the Tea shop, Miriam’s first thoughts were about how they will repay the insurance (i.e. financial implications) she will not be able to continue with her modest little business.
The fact that her sister is running the business with her also tells us something, namely that is better than sitting at home doing nothing.
All this suggests, too, that Mr Polly and others of his class tried their hardest to move up on the world, to an upper class. In those days, you were born into a class which determined your education, what job you will get and how much money you will make.
In Mr Polly’s case, he was often unemployed due to poor schooling as parents could not afford the education but he didn’t do anything wrong to deserve this. His shop was not really profitable, but he still managed to keep it going for five years so therefore, it couldn’t have been that bad and other shopkeepers were in the same position.
The only job vacancies there were was 100-150 years ago were
- Army
- Navy
- Policeman
- Factory worker
- Blacksmith
- Builder
- Carpenter
- Tradesman
- Baker
- Butcher
- Shoemaker
- Minor
- Farmer
- Shoe shiner
- Banker
- Street sweeper (labourer)
- Nurse/doctor
- Teacher
Also, they didn’t have the luxuries we have today like mobile phones, televisions and the National Health Service.
Mr Polly often makes life difficult for himself by doing foolish things. This means he has even more to overcome in order to achieve happiness. For starters, Mr Polly new from the beginning before he married Miriam that it is not what he wanted so that in its self was a foolish thing to do. Not only that but he needed money to support her and she didn’t help out in the shop nor did she tidy the house. She also caused him stomach upset, as she could not cook which led to Mr Polly suffering from indigestion. Miriam also wasn’t pleasant towards him, was always complaining, always unhappy and often criticised his reading books saying it is a waste of money.
I believe that he shouldn’t have bought the shop in fishbourne either because it was unprofitable. He should have listened to his knowledgeable and informed cousin, Johnson, as his advice was also free. The trouble is that Mr Polly didn’t listen as, like most people, he saw the advice as being worthless as it was for free.
Mr Polly had no determination, no set career plan and just went with the current. This was all until the suicidal arson attack he set upon himself, this set his head straight to decide that he can change things and be the architect of his own future. This didn’t turn out so good when he got in trouble over fraud from burning his shop! People who do not know Mr Polly can see this seen as somewhere in between being anti-social, unfriendly and a menace to society.
The main factors which contribute to Mr Polly’s happy state at the end of the book are that he meets the “fat women”, he settles himself in an idyllic rural place to live, looses responsibility of the shop, is happy at the Potwell inn and is rid of ex-wife Miriam. He always said that he would like to walk in the country, have muffins for tea and have nice neighbours and so the main change that occurred in his life was leaving Miriam and leaving Fishbourne for new friends.
Some things happened as a result of direct action taken by Mr Polly and some were the result of luck. Chance factors consist of him meeting his newly founded friend, the fat women as he didn’t know she was going to be there. Also, I think the place where he lives is a bit of both as he didn’t know it was exactly what he had hoped but then again, if he hadn’t of left Miriam with slight determination, then he would never had found that out. Surviving his ordeal or trying to commit suicide was by chance as he intended on dying but by luck, he survived and I think he is glad that he did survive.
Based on determination, he stood his ground at the Potwell Inn and decided to stay there despite Uncle Jim. Leaving Fishbourne was a definite sign of determination as he didn’t have to leave he just knew it would benefit his life if he did. And obviously, leaving Miriam, the shop and his unfriendly neighbours took determination; however, it didn’t take much to persuade him as he was unhappy.
In the end, the most important factor is in my opinion, leaving Fishbourne and as such I believe he deserves his happiness. My reason being for this is that although he was a menace to society, he just needed to find himself and where he would be happy which meant leaving Fishbourne. If seeing him before he left Fishbourne, my approach to this would be different and I would almost certainly say that he did not deserve his happiness, as all he was doing was being a nuisance. Whereas now that he is happy, away from Fishbourne, I believe he does. From my knowledge, I would imply that Mr Polly did these foolish things like marrying Miriam, burning his shop in an attempt to commit suicide and generally not being self-organised, to bring excitement or something interesting into his life as he was depressed living in Fishbourne. It is quite possible that his father’s death may account for his unhappiness. All in all, he overcame this and withstood Uncle Jim and other opposition to come out on a possitive note of which, he deserved.
C:\My Documents\Mr Polly, kelly Duggan.doc 20th May 03