Published: 1905
Category: society
Text: Read Book Online
Summary:
A young man, on discovering his fiancée has left him, commits suicide with the help of the village idiot.
Analysis:
This story is somewhat deceiving in its simplicity. It is an example of the Classical Greek Unities as described by Aristotle in that it occurs in one place (the Queen's Arms at Moorthorne), over a short period of time (a few hours), and involves one incident (a suicide).
The title implies the story involves an idiot and there is an idiot in the story; the village idiot, Daft Jimmy
"Someone had told him [Daft Jimmy] the ancient story of the fool and his boots, and, with the pride of an idiot in his idiocy, he had determined that it should be related of himself."
I'm not sure which "ancient story" Bennett is referring to but the above statement appears to be telling us that this particular idiot is not the titular idiot.
Another candidate for the idiot is the protagonist himself, William Froyle; suicide may be viewed as an idiotic thing to do; however, on closer reading, we can find clues to a third, and perhaps bigger idiot than both Daft Jimmy and William Froyle combined, namely, the society they live in.
William Froyle, we are told "... was a man about thirty years of age, with a serious and thoughtful, rather heavy countenance." who "commanded and received respect" from the whole village where "He was known for a scholar..." and, as such, had been given "the proud position of secretary to the provident society styled the Queen's Arms Slate Club" yet we are also told that "...everyone wondered that so sedate and sagacious a man should have seen in Susie a suitable mate." and that William, the scholar, did not fully understand the meaning of the word "nominee", and that he looked with disdain on the Chairman of the Queen's Arm Slate Club because the man had "signed the [club] rules without the use of capitals."
So William had evinced poor judgment in selecting his fiancée, was somewhat dense when it came to understanding language and looked with disdain on those having authority over him. Given all these shortcomings, one might wonder at the level of intelligence in the village of Moorthorne, after all, they had claimed him to be wise. Perhaps they could learn from Daft Jimmy, who came to his senses about his boot size:
'Them shoes!' the idiot ejaculated suddenly. 'Well, I be an idiot, and that's true! They can take the measure from my feet, and I never thought on it till this minute!'
Could it be that the villagers took the measure of William Froyle from the measure of their own intelligence and so they are really The Idiot referred to in the title?
Notes:
Bennett did a few other interesting things in the story with respect to the suicide itself. He tells us of an impending calamity "He [William] felt suddenly the near approach of a frightful calamity..." . The fiancée's surname is Trimmer, reminding one of the phrase "trimming one's sails" , something is to be curtailed. And then, in the lead up to the suicide itself, he uses language that evokes hangings: legs dangling, weighted chains, a little hanging cupboard, the hanging lamp.
There is also Bennett's choice of the surname Froyle. Froyle sounds like foil, while there is a town of Froyle also known as The Village of the Saints so William Froyle may be acting as a foil to a joke about village saints.
This story is recommended as a reading exercise in A Handbook on Story Writing by Blanche Colton Williams, 1917, p18.
