The novel Three men in a boat is based on Jerome himself the narrator Jerome K. Jerome and two real-life friends, George who would become a senior manager at Barclays Bank and Harris who was the founder of a London printing business, with whom Jerome took boating trips. The funniest part of the story is that the three packed their luggage without reason or purpose before they set off. Every time they thought they had finished packing, they found that they had brought fewer things and repackaged them. They didn't think realistically about traveling by boat. They didn't bring the food and appliances necessary for daily life but packed a lot of gorgeous and impractical items. From this, their trip produced many funny things.
The ideal is full, but the reality is very skinny. The three men are full of unrealistic fantasies about traveling by boat. They hoped that London would be sunny, but it didn't work out. It rained and they got wet. They took a kettle with them, and planned to enjoy afternoon tea on the boat, and find that they can only make tea with dirty river water; They brought canned fruit but found that they had no knife to open the can. After failing to open the can, they threw it far away and pretended that they would never see it again. Because of their unrealistic dreams, those who should travel light carry much more food than they need. We must live a pragmatic life, not just by our own idealism and unrealistic imagination.
Self-contradictory attitudes toward life will blind you and make you escape from reality. In the novel, the protagonists are all in the middle class and have stable jobs living in the city. But on the one hand, they complain about the pressure brought by city life and physical diseases, so they are eager to return to natural life. On the other hand, they simply have no ability to adapt to the simple natural life. From the time they packed their luggage, it was revealed that they could not abandon city life, and what they brought were luxurious and impractical things. They do not have the ability to cope with basic natural life. Whenever their journey went wrong, they chose to turn a blind eye. What's more, when they arrived at their destination, they did not show the joy of returning to nature. They complain about the poor local living conditions.
People can maintain an optimistic attitude toward life, but they can not use spiritual victory to comfort themselves and escape from reality. A lot of unexpected situations happened during the journey of the three people, which made them exhausted. Finally, they decided to shorten the journey. But when they got ashore, they again ignored their dilemma during the journey, comforted themselves with the "spiritual victory method", and the journey was a great success. The three silly but funny men never face up to their stupid behaviors. They always are opinionated and show people their unreal success just like a proud peacock shows its beautiful feather by hiding its ugly butt.
To sum up, through a series of funny things that happened on the journey of the three men, this story reveals that the middle class at that time had no practical life goals, as well as their contradictory attitude towards life and avoidance of reality. For example, in the novel, J blamed his health problems on the busy and heavy city life. He would rather spend money to travel with friends than go to a professional doctor to face his health problems directly. Sometimes human nature is hard to understand, some people prefer to live an idealized life. But for me, I prefer to be real and live with a clear life goal.
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