In the book Three Men in a Boat the author Jerome K. Jerome wrote a lot of “funny” stories. Instead of saying the stories are funny, I think it’ll be better to say the stories are ridiculous. From these ridiculous stories, the author told us about human nature, like people who are faked. I think the story from chapter 8 in which they sang comic songs and the three men attending a high-class party is the funniest one. From this story, we can see that the three men are always making themselves look good in front of others. And also, it talks about people who don’t know themselves well and pretend they understand without knowing. However, the stories in this book contain many truths about human nature.
Either in this story or in the whole book, it’s quite obvious that the three men really pay attention to their clothing. They bring some clothes like a blazer. And they all think it’s a good fashion choice. Even though J. ridicules the women who are more concerned with good-looking, from this book, it shows a lot that J. and his friends are also concerned about their own perceptions. The story that they attended at the party shows how important it is for them to stay out. Because they all want to stay out and look great on the outside, they pretend they know German when Herr Slossenn Boschen sings a tragic German song. Then we can see that it’s not as embarrassing as to look not too great on the outside than inside.
People who don’t know themselves well will become a laughingstock to others. Harris is an example of this. He thinks he could sing a comic song on the ruin. But from what J. said we can know nobody thinks Harris sings well except Harris. Everybody else thinks he sings terribly. Because Harris doesn’t have a good sense of himself, and he and others think they’re cultured (even though they don’t), it’s quite funny when others talk about this. Just as J. said about when Harris tries to sing and forgets the lyrics, others usually laugh before he can get them out. And I think this “laugh” doesn’t mean people think it’s quite funny, but this means it’s very ridiculous. So, it’s better to have good knowledge of yourself.
One thing that is also really funny is that people are pretending they know even though they don’t. When the two German students suggest singing a German comic song, and they laugh at a practical joke, everyone else who attends the party laughs with them. This makes the singer, Herr Slossenn Boschen really mad. Even though J. and the others didn’t understand German, he still laughs along with the German students. From this, we can know J. and all the others are scared to be caught by others that they don’t know German and are afraid to be embarrassed. Instead of being embarrassed by letting others think you’re uncultured, it might be a better way to show what you really know.
To conclude, this story shows some very ridiculous parts of the three men who always pay attention to how they looked, people who don’t have clear self-awareness, and people who don’t know and pretend to know. We can learn a lot of ridiculous and bad human nature from this book which really happens in real life. Some people are faking and some people are hypocritical, and there are also some people who show other absurd human nature. When we know these things are not a good thing, we can try to avoid these things that make others feel that we’re silly.
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