Short Fiction · Chapter
The Purple Pileus explained
Mr.
What happens
Mr. Coombes, a small shopkeeper trapped in an unhappy marriage, walks into the woods in despair after a Sunday row with his wife and her friend Jennie. Contemplating suicide, he notices a strange purple fungus, eats it on a rash impulse, and experiences a sudden, euphoric transformation. He resolves to return home and share the fungus with his family, leading to a decisive change in his life.
Themes in this chapter
Love and Marriage
Explores the misery of a mismatched marriage and the social trap that prevents escape for the lower middle class.
Ambition and Failure
Mr. Coombes's failed hopes and his desperate, impulsive act to change his life reflect the theme of thwarted ambition.
Nature and the Unknown
The mysterious purple fungus, with its transformative and mind-altering properties, represents the unknown and dangerous forces of nature.
Characters to notice
- Mr. Coombes
The protagonist, a pale-faced little man with a black moustache, sick of his unhappy marriage and driven to despair by his wife's friend Jennie.
- Mrs. Coombes
Mr. Coombes's wife, who scorns him and calls him 'a little grub'; she encourages Jennie's Sunday visits.
- Jennie
Mrs. Coombes's loud, showy friend who plays banjo tunes on Sunday and brings a male guest, provoking Mr. Coombes's anger.
- Tommy Byles
Brother Tom, who meets Mr. Coombes after the transformation and remarks on the fungus, though he does not understand its significance.
Key passages
“Mr. Coombes was sick of life. He walked away from his unhappy home, and, sick not only of his own existence but of everybody else’s, turned aside down Gaswork Lane to avoid the town, and, crossing the wooden bridge that goes over the canal to Starling’s Cottages, was presently alone in the damp pine woods and out of sight and sound of human habitation.”
Mr. Coombes, utterly weary of life, left his miserable home and wandered through Gaswork Lane, over a canal bridge, into the lonely pine woods.
Sets the scene of despair and isolation that leads to his encounter with the fungus.
“He tasted a little piece, a very little piece indeed—a mere crumb. It was so pungent that he almost spat it out again, then merely hot and full-flavoured: a kind of German mustard with a touch of horseradish and—well, mushroom.”
He nibbled a tiny crumb of the fungus; it was sharp at first, then pleasantly hot and savory, like mustard and horseradish with a mushroom taste.
Describes the initial sensory experience of eating the purple pileus.
“He got up and stood unsteadily, regarding the universe with an agreeable smile. He began to remember. He could not remember very well, because of a steam roundabout that was beginning in his head. And he knew he had been disagreeable at home, just because they wanted to be happy. They were quite right; life should be as gay as possible.”
He rose unsteadily, smiling at the world, his mind spinning like a merry-go-round; he now felt that his earlier anger at home was wrong and that life ought to be joyful.
Shows the euphoric, mind-altering effect of the fungus on Mr. Coombes.