Something Fresh and P. G. Wodehouse

The Custody of the Pumpkin

Q&A

P. G. Wodehouse

THE CUSTODY OF THE PUMPKIN

Lord Emsworth P.G. Wodehouse is quite well-known for his portrayal of eccentric, snobbish and socially-parasitic aristocrats in his different chronicles.Lord Emsworth is the main character of the Blandings Castle Books, which are based out of the fictional Emsworth estate, of which he is supposed to be the head. Lord Emsworth is a great sample of a "Wodehouse type", which are characters that bear the unique and funny characteristics that make them so awkward. Lord Emsworth: a man whose great rank and position in the highest class of society is juxtaposed to his lack of intelligence and common sense.

A typical Wodehouse character would have a very unique or ridiculous name, imitating the very long and historical names of the old English powerhouses. Notice the employment of multiple consonants in the name for the purpose of accentuating an imperious name the way that the aristocrats would have done back in Wodehouse's society. Although Emsworth is an older man, he does not possess any of the attributes of age and maturity: He is absent-minded, prone to long sleep, and basically clueless about what goes around him with the exception with the very specific things that he loves which are his animals and his flowers. Yet the most important attribute of an Wodehouse character is their use of language. Wodehouse mixes the younger generation's Eton jargon with aristocratic snobbish words and creates a unique language for his characters. Lord Emsworth, who is an easy-going but conservative peer is characterized for his kind speech to others and his consistent use of the phrase "dash it" as his way to curse when he is mad. The qualities of ignorance and idleness are the keypoints upon which Wodehouse focuses in order to make the story a parody of the lives of the upper-class British society members. Lord Emsworth represents the idle upper-classes who live off their family names and fortunes, who attend Oxford or Cambridge merely to say that they have gone there, and who later in life become the epicenter of a shallow social circle of estate balls, hunting, or many other forms of mindless entertainment. Like his peers, Lord Emsworth is clearly a man with lots of money and very little ideas about what to do with it.

Parly due to his idle and unintelligent condition, Lord Emsworth employs endless hours into the tending of his beloved award-winning and massive pumpkin whom he named "The Hope of Blandings"; a lead competitor at the Shrewsbury plant show. Emsworth's equally worthless son, Freddie, has been around the house flirting with the daughter of Emsworth's top gardener, McAllister, thus infuriating the latter to the point of quitting his job at Blandings. The whole plot is designed to make Lord Emsworth and his son completely devoid of reason or imagination. Compared to the common folk, such as McAllister and Mr. Donaldson, the aristocrats stand out for their silliness in behavior and thought.

Also, notice how the upper-class men seem unable to do anything without the help of the common man. Lord Emsworth cannot raise his pumpkin without the intervention of his gardener, and Freddie does not seem to be able to make any useful form of employment until Mr. Donaldson shows up.

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Therefore, the story presents the lifestyles of the rich in Post World War I England in all of its glamour and its stubborn adherence to old traditions; all this while the world outside the walls of Blandings are undergoing major social changes that, eventually, would affect the aristocrats, as a whole. McAllister and Donaldson represent that world outside the Blandings estate which can survive on their own, and is strong enough for change. Lord Emsworth and his son, contrastingly, represent the weakening upper classes who are slowly but surely deteriorating precisely for their lack of social survival mechanisms.

The key to understanding Wodehouse is comparing his characters to typical, everyday upper-class men of the earlier generations. Wodehouse extracts the essence of the silliness and emptiness of aristocratic heritage and adds to it sarcasm and ridiculous situations that are what make Emsworth and his peers so funny and easy to like.

Thoughts about “The Custody of the Pumpkin” by P.G Wodehouse

The Custody of the Pumpkin by P.G Wodehouse is quite a different short story than what i have read previously in class. It is one of the first comedic short stories I have read that is written in the early years of the 20th century. The short story is almost like a slapstick comedy, and it starts off with a very appealing description of the setting it was in, at Blandings Castle, where the “morning sunshine descended like an amber showerbath… lighting up w/ a heartening glow…”. Everything so far had seemed normal, that the short story is probably one of those which just takes up 10 pages to describe how good the protagonist’s life has been so far. Yet, the comedy kicks in at the 5th paragraph. I’m going to have to admit that, w/o Mr.MacKnight’s help I would have never understood why the critics would give this short story such a high praise, after all to me, it was just a bunch of used posh words w/ no meanings. But I was soon to find out, that behind the fancy language unraveled a very simple and comedic story about a noble, Lord Emsworth, and his idiotic journey towards winning the pumpkin competition.

The story started off w/ Lord Emsworth not knowing how to use a telescope, since he doesn’t realize that there was a cap covering it. After his most humble servant reminds him to take the cap off, he actually uses it to spy on cows. Below is one of my favorite part to this short story.
‘Beach,’ said Lord Emsworth. ‘M’Lord?’ “I’ve been swindled. This dashed thing doesn’t work.’ ‘your lordship cannot see clearly?’ ‘I can’t see at all, dash it. It’s all black.’ The butler was an observant man. ‘Perhaps if I were to remove the cap at the extremity of the instrument, m’lord, more satisfactory results might be obtained.’ ‘Eh? Cap? Is there a cap? So there is. Take it off, Beach.’ ‘Very good, m’lord.’ ‘Ah! There was satisfaction in Lord Emsworth’s voice. he twiddled and adjusted and the satisfaction deepened. ‘Yes, that’s better. That’s capital. Beach, I can see a cow.’

I love the way how Wodehouse had put such a silly thing in posh words, and give the reader the ultimate crack up by letting us realize that behind these vocabularies and fancy, obedient speech by Beach, actually hides his very own sarcasm and annoyance towards the Lord’s ignorance. This part also shows Wodehouse’s sarcastic attitude toward the British ranking systems with all the “Lord”s, “Knight”s, and others. What makes this funnier is that, we’d be expecting a person w/ such a supposedly high level educated mind like a Lord should’ve gotten to look at a beautiful scenery at least, despite of the “cap incident”, yet Lord Emsworth was looking at a COW. Another playful undermine by Wodehouse towards the stereotypical image of the ranked people.

Another example of mismatch b/tw fancy language and what is being described is when the stories continues to the point of where the Lord is basically finally bored w/ his spying of cows. Wodehouse still
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manages to put such a simple and idiotic thing to mention into something seemingly deep and complicated:

Presently, the cow’s audience-appeal began to wane. It was a fine cow, as cows go, but, like so many cows, it lacked sustained dramatic interest. Surfeited after a while by the spectacle of it chewing the cud and staring glassily at nothing, Lord Emsworth decided to swivel the apparatus round in the hope of picking up something a trifle more sensational. Originally, Wodehouse could have simply put in the sense of ” After awhile, Lord Emsworth found looking at cows boring and turned his telescope away,” yet he chose such a language form to put in, and it is indeed very effective. Full use of irony and sarcasm for the Lord’s intelligence was included in this quote, where he put “the cow’s audience-appeal” where in fact it is just Lord Emsworth’s fascination towards cows. “Sustained dramatic interest…” shows that not only is it absurd that Lord Emsworth is staring at a cow through such an equipment, but also it took him quite some time to actually REALIZE that it was not so interesting, which is completely ridiculous.

Afterwards, he sees that his son, Frederick, was kissing a girl, and soon to find out that it was the daughter of Angus McAllister, his gardener. Again, the irony of hierarchy has been shown, since Lord Emsworth has been previously shown as a person not so bright, yet people that actually has common sense still has to follow each and everyone of his demands, something that Wodehouse had made fun of in “The Custody of the Pumpkin” very often. McAllister left, since it was his only other choice than to send his daughter away. Another funny quote has shown up now, it was a thought of Lord Emsworth after McAllister had left:

With Angus McAllister gone, how would the pumpkin fare?

Again, making fun of the nobles, here Lord Emsworth was portrayed as a person who doesn’t care about important things, but is extremely obsessed w/ this pumpkin fare his pumpkin was going to attend. This humor would once again be mentioned when his son, Freddie, bumps into him outside of the Castle after he’s been grounded, yet the Lord still takes his word of ” I came out to see you” lie naively. His son was about to tell him something important, yet he immediately associates it w/ something that has happened to his most beloved pumpkin.

There are so much more quotes to include, and so much more points to cover, but none would express the enlightenment and cracking up I first had when I read it, it is such an enjoyable classic, and would crack anyone up anytime most definitely.

Theocritan shepherd

Humour

The Greek poet Theocritus (ca. 310-250 BCE) was the most famous exponent of pastoral poetry, which presents an idyllic world of nymphs and shepherds in contrast to the corruption of city life. Blandings itself, and this story in particular, could be seen as a notable example of the influence of the pastoral ideal in English literature.

In his story “The Custody of the Pumpkin,” P. G. Wodehouse creates humor in a variety of ways. The story describes (among other things) Lord Emsworth’s frustration that his ne’er-do-well son, Frederick, has been flirting with the daughter of the estate’s gardener. Early in the story, the following passage, which is typical of the story’s humor, appears:
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"Frederick!" bellowed his lordship.

"Lovely day, what?"

The villain of the piece halted abruptly. Sunk in a roseate trance, he had not observed his father. But such was the sunniness of his mood that even this encounter could not damp him. He gamboled happily up. "Hullo, guv'nor," said Freddie. He searched in his mind for a pleasant topic of conversation, always a matter of some little difficulty on these occasions.

His lordship was not to be diverted into a discussion of the weather. He drew a step nearer, looking like the man who smothered the young princes in the Tower.

Themes:

• Use of the very forceful verb “bellowed,” especially when that verb is followed by the words “his lordship.” We don’t usually think of dignified English aristocrats as bellowing, and so this combination of words is funny partly because of the comic incongruity of the verb and the noun. The phrase would be far less amusing if it had been written “bellowed Emsworth” or even “bellowed the lord.” The words “his lordship” are especially cultivated and thus seem out of place when following “bellowed.” • The description of Frederic as the “villain of the piece” is also amusing. Frederick is not evil or dangerous or malign. Thus Wodehouse uses comic exaggeration here and elsewhere. • There is a comic contrast between the angry Emsworth and the love-smitten Freddie, who is still “[s]unk in a roseate trance.” As the phrase just quoted illustrates, the humor of the story dependence in part on comic overstatement. It would not be nearly so amusing if Wodehose had written that Freddie was “still thinking of his beloved.” The phrase “roseate trance” is a splendid example of ostentatious hyperbole. • Use of comic verbs, as in “gamboled,” which implies a light-heartedness totally in contrast to the mood of Lord Emsworth. • Use of comic slang, as when the son of an English aristocrat speaks to his father as if he were a cockney ("Hullo, guv'nor"). Such speech, designed to diminish his father’s anger, is only likely to increase it, thus providing an example of comic irony. • Finally, one more aspect of the humor of this passage deserves attention: the use of a comic simile, when Emsworth is described as looking “like the man who smothered the young princes in the Tower.” This phrase is humorous for several reasons: it is exaggerated; it is vivid; it catches us by surprise; and it is highly inventive. (Imagine how different the effect would be if Wodehouse had merely written “like a man full of anger.”) • Wodehouse, then, uses a variety of standard techniques for achieving humor, most of which depend, in one way or another, on incongruity. The contrast between “Frederick” and “Freddie” is just one of many examples of the incongruous in this passage and in the story as a whole.

The humor of this passage depends on a number of factors, including the following:

• obsession, Ambition,priority • social class difference • humuiliation • prejudice
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• materialism • arrogance • sarcasm and humour • Ways that creates the humour:

• Use of similes:(like an elderly leopard, like a fish, like a setter… etc.). It helps to understand the characters better by indirect characterization. Character’s actions and emotions are explained. It also creates the tone and mood. • Narration: Third person omniscient limited. It is useful for characterization. We can easily understand Lord’s attitude towards son. It creates the protagonist and it helps us to understand Lord’s thoughts and effects on the other characters better. • Diction: showing the class difference. It is useful for characterization. The category difference between the characters are outstanding. Repetition and exaggeration is also used to create the humuor. • Setting: It changes throughout the story. (Imagery) With the help of diction and imagery, setting is created. Imagery is used here because ıt helps to understand and think about the story better. • Tone/Mood: As the tone and mood is humorous, it creates the humour. It is created by character’s actions. • İrony: Ironies also help the reader to think about the story, to feel the story and to feel the humour.

Title

The title of P.G. Wodehouse's short story "The Custody of the Pumpkin" is justified by the author by making the tending and care of an award-winning pumpkin the sole focus in the life of Lord Emsworth at that point. A rare and massive specimen of its kind, the pumpkin is named by Lord Emsworth and his gardener Angus McAllister as "The Hope of the Blandings". This alone is comical considering that the Blandings constitutes a very rich and powerful estate for which really there is no need for "hope". Moreover, the obsession of Lord Emsworth for the pumpkin's well-being is part of the satirical traits that Wodehouse brings out about the aristocrats of his time. The actual importance of the pumpkin is simply that it would make Lord Emsworth happy to win the competition. Considering that he has no other interests in life (with the one exception of his huge, prizewinning pig), winning the contest is, in his eyes, a huge feat. The title of the story is somewhat ironic. The first hint is that “custody” usually refers to children, not pumpkins. In the story, Lord Emsworth seems to care more about his prize-contending pumpkin than his own son, whom he has “little use for." The “fluffy-minded” Earl of Elmsworth has trouble prioritizing (p. 43). He seems to care about his garden and his prize pumpkins, and he is more concerned about his gardener quitting than his son’s desire to marry the gardener’s cousin. Reason, so violently expelled, came stealing timidly back to her throne, and a cold hand seemed suddenly placed upon his heart. (p. 49) Uh oh! There’s no one to take care of the pumpkin. The pumpkin will definitely not win any prizes under the care of the “deputy head gardener” who is “not up to the job of preparing his precious pumpkin, "The

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Hope of Blandings", for the Shrewsbury Show” (enotes Wikipedia page). This is ironic because he is concerned about the pumpkin, not the son.

Class System as Prejudicial and Punishing

In P.G. Wodehouse's "The Custody of the Pumpkin", Lord Emsworth and his son Freddie represent the aristocratic society of post World War I England. This social stratum is interesting because it was made mostly of old, titled English families who strongly wished that the order of things remained as it did before the war: Aristocrats would have all the courtesies and privileges, while the "others" would have to work for what they want. Lord Emsworth, then, would be the head of one of those still-titled and still wealthy old families, whose power was becoming overpowered by a growing and very needed middle and upper-middle classes; these groups were made mostly of people who worked for a living, built enterprises, and literally changed England forever. This being said: Notice how "The Custody of the Pumpkin" shows exactly this in the way in which Wodehouse juxtaposes his characters. Lord Emsworth has money and prestige, but lacks intelligence and talent; as a result, he is completely dependent on his gardener, Angus, to do what he loves most, which is to tend to his award-winning colossal pumpkin. His son, Freddie, also rich, is lazy and has no direction in life. As a result, he is dependent on Mr. Donaldson's offer of a position to get his father's blessing after having hastily married the gardener's "sort of cousin", Aggie. In these two cases, Lord Emsworth was prejudicial because, even though his son, Freddie, is a good-fornothing, Lord Emsworth still could not consent that he married a lesser-class woman like Aggie, especially, when Aggie is related to his gardener. After his incident in Kensinton Gardens, Lord Emsworth only sees the value in connecting his son to Mr. Donaldson when he realizes that only this man can help his goodfor-nothing son turn into something and leave Lord Emsworth alone for good. However, Wodehouse also shows that the class system is also punishing. This is because this system prevents people from exercising their freedoms; why would there be a problem with Freddie and Aggie getting married if it had not been because of the class system? Why would Lord Emsworth have so much time in his hands with nothing to do (while the rest of the world is hard at work), if it had not been due to the particular class system in which he was raised? Therefore, the class system can be both punishing and prejudicial in a society in which family names and their history hold a tremendous value. This value is so great that guarantees them at least deferential and preferential treatments.

Relationship of Freddie and Lord Emsworth

In P.G. Wodehouse's "The Custody of the Pumpkin" we find a recurring topic in the Wodehouse's treatment of the filial relationships between aristocratic fathers and their sons. This tendency is to portray them as foils of each other, and as each other's arch-enemies to an extent. This is because Wodehouse usually awards the elder aristocrats the same characteristics: Absent-minded, quirky, not very bright, too much time in their hands, too much money to spend, and a lot of power and titles.
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However, the younger aristocrats fare differently. They, as a reflection of their nay-doer rich parents will also share the traits of not being too bright nor creative. However, Wodehouse goes one step further by showing them as lazy drone-types who spend their lives in limbo attending social events, having fun at the men's social club, and living off the riches of their families.

This is the exact case with Lord Emsworth and his 26 year old bachelor son, Freddie, who

[..] with the passage of the years that youth had become more and more of a problem to an anxious father. The Earl of Emsworth, like so many of Britain's aristocracy, had but little use for the Younger Son. And Freddie Threepwood was a particularly trying younger son. In true Wodehouse fashion, the description of what Freddie means to his father is quite funny. It basically says that the father has tried to marry off Freddie to an heiress in order to basically find him "something to do". Moreover, Freddie is so useless that his father actually does better without his company. He is not that son of whom every father boasts about as the future of the family. Not at all. Freddie is literally a waster and his father is the first to acknowledge it as well as the rest of the family. This is because Freddie would always get in trouble, runs debts, and causes all kinds of crazy mischief when he visits London

There seemed, in the opinion of his nearest and dearest, to be no way of coping with the boy. If he was allowed to live in London he piled up debts and got into mischief; and when hauled back home to Blandings he moped broodingly. It was possibly the fact that his demeanor at this moment was so mysteriously jaunty, his bearing so inexplicably free from the crushed misery with which he usually mooned about the place that induced Lord Emsworth to keep a telescopic eye on him. Some inner voice whispered to him that Freddie was up to no good and would bear watching.

So Freddie and his father do not have a good relationship at all. It is all because Lord Emsworth sees his son as a waste of time and money, and because Freddie really does not do much to change that opinion of him at all. In P.G.Wodehouse’s “Custody of the Pumpkin” the author writes about how Lord Emsworth as a father treats his son and vice versa. Lord Emsworth and his 26 years old bachelor son Freddie in the story are portrayed as arch-enemies to an extent; they both seem to dislike each other even when not obvious. Lord Emsworth is clearly crossed with his son in the story. He does not enjoy the company of his son and always keep an eye on him if possible as Lord Emsworth believes. It seems that every time Emsworth sees his son he knows something bad is going to happen “…a sudden frown marred the serenity of Lord Emsworth’s brow…”(pg.120). In fact Freddie had become such a bother to him, he wished Freddie was someone else’s son “...and had been the son of somebody else living a considerable distance away…”(pg. 120). he grew so paranoid towards him that even his inner voice would tell him that Freddie wasn’t to do something good “Some inner voice whispered to Lord Emsworth that this smiling, prancing youth was up to no good”(pg.120). But in a way his predictions end up to be true.

Adding on, Lord Emsworth does not approve of his son’s decisions. One of these decisions was marrying the cousin of Angus McAlister the head gardener. This was because he demanded Freddie to be what he
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envisioned. Like a father he demanded his son to be prefect but did not do much if not nothing to change him, but the fact he was imperfect bothered him and made him grow a sense of dislike or hatred towards his son. But he later changed his mind as he had a conversation with the bride’s father. Yet, he agreed just to get his son doing something and to get him away from Lord Emsworth. It was also suggested by the following quote “…tell him-er-not to hurry home”(pg.131) that he hoped not to see his son’s face for quite a while. In literal he hated his son so much, he hoped Frederic not to come back home to bother him ever again.

In the other hand, Frederick Threepwood acknowledges what the father thinks about him, but alike his father he does nothing to change his attitude. He knows he is a trouble maker, useless to his father runs debts and so on. He just doesn’t care. In fact, he didn’t really care about anything the father said, he would only inform him but not take his opinion in mind. He acted freely and broke several rules including not trespassing into London. He knew it would upset his father but not care. He obviously did not respect his father nor care about him.

Mocking the Social Class System of Britain

In his short story “The Custody of the Pumpkin,” P. G. Wodehouse mocks the system of social class in Britain almost immediately. Examples simply from the first few pages of the story include the following: Lord Emsworth can’t see anything but blackness when he looks into his newly-purchased telescope; it is his butler who notices that the telescope’s cap is still attached. The butler, although inferior in social status, is clearly the more observant – and perhaps also the more intelligent – of the two. Lord Emsworth, having ordered the butler to fetch his lordship’s hat, has the butler put the hat on his lordship’s head – as if he is too grand to do so himself, or perhaps too used to having others do even the most basic chores for him. Lord Emsworth’s attitude toward his younger son, Freddie, is compared unfavorably to the attitude of a codfish toward its numerous spawn – a comparison that inevitably makes Lord Emsworth seems an object of humor. Freddie, although from an aristocratic family, seems incapable of managing his money effectively; he gets into debt whenever he goes to London. Freddie in general is presented as shallow and fatuous. His life of leisure and privilege has given him little incentive to develop very much as a mature human being. Freddie’s way of speaking seems fashionably colloquial; he does not sound like a serious person, and this lack of seriousness is again probably attributable to the all-too-comfortable life he has led because of his lofty status in the system of British social classes. Lord Emsworth’s anger when he learns that his son has become engaged to a commoner suggests the extent to which money, rather than love, is most important to his view of marriage. Lord Emsworth’s gardener, though described as a man who seems both honest and intelligent, is Emsworth’s social inferior simply because Emsworth has more money and a longer pedigree: Honesty Angus McAllister’s face had in full measure, and also intelligence . . .

Emsworth's son seems neither especially honest nor especially intelligent, but he outranks Angus McAllister in social class.

How the Writer is able to make Colorful Characters
Wodehouse uses irony, tone, repetition, hyperbole, contrast, and benign conflict in creating Lord Emsworth and Angus so that they are as interesting and colorful as they are. irony often underpins the
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occupations of Lord Emsworth. For instance, he may be described as being "in conference," which is a serious occupation. The subject of the conference is then revealed as something so greatly elevated as that of sweet peas. This strategy creates irony. Irony of this sort, which is mixed with a playful narratorial tone, lends color to the character involved.

The narrator's tone, which is richly filtered through the author's voice (similar to the way Austen's narratorial tone is marked by her own voice), is light and playful--almost lilting. This tone is developed through employing literary techniques of assonance and repetition. Lord Emsworth's and Angus's names are demonstrative of assonance. Lord Emsworth's proper title is Earl of Emsworth; both parts begin with / e/, which produces assonance. Angus's name is Angus McAllister; the /a/sounds produce assonance. At times, when describing Angus, Emsworth, in indirect narratorial dialogue, will employ repetition by repeatedly saying of Angus that he is "looking Scotch." The narrator adds hyperbole through such ironic comments as describing Emsworth as a "sensitive employer." Since we know that often Angus disturbs Emsworth's tranquility over conferences involving weighty topics such as sweet peas and pumpkins, we think of Emsworth more as a persnickety employer. Hyperbole enters with any exaggeration or overstatement, for instance, when Emsworth is described as the "castle's owner and overlord." Contrast adds to colorful characterization, for example, the contrast of having a conference in a potting shed. A significant technique in creating colorful characters is the benign conflict between them: their conflict is over sweet peas, pumpkins and gardening technique. 'The Custody of the Pumpkin' is a short story by a British comic writer , P.G Woodhouse. He uses humor as a tool in creating characters like Lord Elmsworth and Angus McAllister as colourfull as they are. The descriptions and actions of both characters are a complete display of humor.The main protagonist , Lord Elmsworth is described as ''fluffy minded and aimiable, old gentleman with a fondness for new toys''.In the beginning of the story, he is shown with a telescope along with Beech, the butler. He is unable to figure out how to use a telescope when the butler advices him to remove the cap. ''Eh Cap?Is there a cap?So there is.Take it off Beech''. Lord Elmswoth is basically portrayed as a selfish yet the stupid earl in order to create humor in the story. The butler helps him remove the cap of the telescope and then he starts viewing the cow in the meadows.One usually buys a telescope to study the stars or moon but Elmsworth here uses it to simply look at a cow. He is fascinated by this ordinary creature and describes it as ''remarkable''.

The writer has further tld us about Lord Elmsworth's obssession which is a Pumpkin. ''Although the main interest of his life was his garden'' Now this is again very unusual for some one to be obssessed with 'pumpkins'.This is also a satire against the British elite class.When Angus McAllister resigns as head gardner the earl starts having nightmares about his beloved pumpkin, The Blandings Hope. ''in the corner of the frame was a shrivelled thing, the size of a pea''. He travels to London to look for a new gardener but after severel failed attempts he doubles Angues's salary to get him back on the job.This obssession here is gain part of humor.

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