The History of Mr Polly - HG Wells.

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H.G. Wells

H.G Wells makes us sympathetic towards Mr Polly in many aspects. He reveals this through what he says, what Mr Polly says and what Mr Polly does in the text.

 This continues throughout the conversation. Wells added that Mr Polly stated that Miriam’s “conscientious disorder” was intensely reminiscent! This clearly states Miriam’s characteristics of being an un-tidy, un-organised, and generally, messy person.

   The second statement of authorial comment is that of page 177, by saying that not only did Mr Polly have “remorse and anxiety for Miriam” but this is also repeated further down when he continues to add that “what perplexed him was his recent remorse and tenderness for Miriam.” This suggests that he had been thinking about her and that if anything had happen to her, that he had to find out for himself, then he would feel guilty and somewhat responsible.

  There is also a small statement on page 176 where Mr Polly implies that “things didn’t seem so bad with Miriam.” And this follows the suggestion from above.

   The final piece is from page 178, lines 16 to 23; this implicates that although Miriam runs a tearoom, she cannot produce a decent egg! This, as well, reveals that Miriam does not seize to change at all- everything is still in a mess and Miriam still can’t cook, yet Mr Polly now has no indigestion and therefore as Miriam cant cook, his indigestion was due to Miriam’s cooking. Yet, Mr Polly felt he had to make sure she was okay, only to find out she is absolutely fine. In fact, the house and tea-room may be a mess, but the Larkin’s always seem to be somewhat proud of their house as the mother of the three sisters added at Mr Polly’s Father’s funeral. 

   

   The second way in which H.G. Well creates sympathy is through Mr Polly’s own words. He says many things that tell us a lot about him. This shows us a number of facets on his personality.

To begin with, the narrator tells us things more or less directly. Some examples of this authorial comment are found in the text that of such when he says “can I have tea?” and Annie replies

“You can. But our tea room’s upstairs… my sister’s been cleaning it out-and it’s a bit upset.” This obviously suggests that things don’t appear to change at the Larkins household and that Mr Polly’s kind and considerate gesture of visiting them was completely un-necessary. But it does suggest that Mr Polly went out of his way to see how the Larkins are and it turns out that nothing at all has changed.

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  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 ...

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