Three Men in a Boat is a humorous novel that was supposed to be a travel guide, written by Jerome K. Jerome. It was published in 1889 and tells a story about Jerome, George, and Harris taking a two-week boat trip. The funny thing is, the route they went on through the River Thames, started at Thames, then through Kingston and Oxford, and then back again. At first glance there is nothing wrong with the route they’re taking until you notice that they’re going against the river’s current. This event is not the only one that features irony as there are many more scattered throughout every chapter, after all, the author intended to make the people of the eighteenth century laugh with this book.
Though there are plenty of examples resembling irony throughout this book like Jerome’s friend and the slice of cheese, and Jerome’s uncle and the picture frame, we are only going to use one. This story was first told to the reader very early in the book, in Chapter 1. The chapter had initially started with the three men complaining about how work has taken a toll on their mental and physical health, despite all 3 of them being perfectly healthy.While they joked about their illness, Jerome is reminded of the time when he had attracted a harmless hay fever. Despite the fact he wasn’t very ill, he still went to the British Museum to read about his illness.
At the museum, Jerome flips through an encyclopedia on sicknesses and through reading the symptoms, he comes to the conclusion that he had every single illness except for “housemaid’s knee.” Once coming to this conclusion, Jerome said that he would be a wonderful resource for doctors and medical students as they could study any disease they want. He saw this as very beneficial for others as they could do it all through one person, without having to search for more resources. While thinking about this, he walks to his doctor’s office where his doctor gives him a prescription after hearing Jerome’s story. Confidently, Jerome then goes to a chemist to get his prescription where he gets rejected because the doctor had written nothing about medicine.
If Jerome were to live in the modern world at the time this book was written, Jerome wouldn’t have gone to the British Museum. Instead he would stay at home and probably use google to read up on his disease. As long as his search is specific enough, Jerome would most likely not go off track and learn about more than 100 other diseases. But chances are, he would still somehow get side tracked and find multiple other diseases. On top of that, google, unfortunately, is probably just as unreliable as the encyclopedia when used by someone who doesn’t know a thing about health or medicine.
Through this summary and comparison of Three Men in a Boat, Chapter 1, we can see the example of an irony. It’s as if the author knew that the human mindset wouldn’t change even after 135 years. And despite the fact that Three Men in a Boat was written and placed in the year 1889, we can still see some similarities to the modern world. Although none of us in 2024 would ever go to a museum to research about a disease, the situation would be the same. If we were to be placed some time in 1889, we would have probably gone to the museum just like Jerome did and most likely got carried away and diagnosed ourselves with some crazy disease.
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