Crome Yellow · Chapter
V explained
The party visits the Home Farm, where Henry Wimbush shows them the pigs, sow, boar, and bull.
What happens
The party visits the Home Farm, where Henry Wimbush shows them the pigs, sow, boar, and bull. The group debates breeding, life, and cruelty, with Gombauld advocating for multiplication, Mr. Scogan prophesying a future of state incubators and free love, and Mary reacting with shock. Denis scratches the boar and reflects on kindness. Old Rowley, a dignified labourer, comments on the pigs.
Themes in this chapter
Intellectual vs. Physical Life
Mr. Scogan's abstract, futuristic discourse contrasts with the visceral, physical reality of the farm animals and Gombauld's celebration of crude life.
Social Class and Farming
The aristocratic party's detached, philosophical observations of farm labor and animal breeding highlight class distinctions, with old Rowley embodying dignified rural wisdom.
Love and Sexual Repression
Mr. Scogan's prophecy of dissociating love from propagation and the debate on breeding touch on themes of sexual freedom and societal control.
Characters to notice
- Henry Wimbush
Leads the farm tour, pointing out the sow's litter of fourteen and the aging boar and bull, advocating practical breeding and slaughter.
- Mr. Scogan
Delivers a discourse on dissociating love from propagation via technology, predicting state incubators and the end of the family system.
- Denis
Scratches the boar's back with his walking-stick, finding pleasure in the simple kindness, and observes the group dynamics.
- Gombauld
Passionately argues for life and multiplication, urging everyone to have children and thumping the bull with his stick.
- Anne
Expresses sympathy for the animals, calling the farming 'indecency and cruelty,' and listens to the debate with half-shut eyes.
- Mary
Shocked by the sow's fourteen piglets, attempts to argue birth control but is silenced by Mr. Scogan's speech.
Key passages
“Fat him up and slaughter him”
Fatten and then kill the animal.
Mr. Scogan's clinical pronouncement on the aging bull, reflecting the farm's utilitarian ethos.
“Rightly is they called pigs.”
They are rightly named pigs.
Old Rowley's dignified comment on the swine, admired by Mr. Scogan for its wisdom.
“With the gramophone, the cinema, and the automatic pistol, the goddess of Applied Science has presented the world with another gift, more precious even than these—the means of dissociating love from propagation.”
Modern technology allows us to separate love from reproduction.
Mr. Scogan's key argument for a future of free love and state-controlled birth.