The History of Mr. Polly · Chapter
VII: The Little Shop at Fishbourne explained
Mr.
What happens
Mr. Polly has been a shopkeeper in Fishbourne for fifteen years, a period that felt both tedious and fleeting. He and Miriam live in cramped, inconvenient rooms behind the reluctant little shop, which barely pays. Miriam is earnest but practically incapable, and she grows to think Mr. Polly lazy. He spends his time reading books—old, dusty volumes he hides from her—which transport him from the dreary routine of shopkeeping to worlds of adventure and beauty. He reads travelogues, novels, and histories, dreaming of far-off lands, but finds no kindred spirit to share his joy. The chapter captures his growing discontent and his hunger for vivid experience.
Themes in this chapter
Discontent and Escape
Mr. Polly's fifteen years of tedious shopkeeping are marked by a deep discontent, which he escapes through voracious reading of travel and adventure books.
Imagination vs. Conformity
Mr. Polly's imaginative life, fed by books, stands in stark contrast to the dull conformity of his marriage and shopkeeping routine.
Marriage and Domesticity
The marriage between Mr. Polly and Miriam is characterized by mutual misunderstanding, practical incapacity, and a lack of shared interests.
Characters to notice
- Mr. Polly
Now thirty-seven, fattish, and discontented, he has spent fifteen years as a reluctant shopkeeper in Fishbourne, finding escape only in reading.
- Miriam
Mr. Polly's wife, earnest but practically incapable, who thinks him lazy and disapproves of his reading habit, hiding books under the counter.
- Rusper
The ironmonger; Mr. Polly tries to share his joy in Waterton's Wanderings with him.
- Wintershed
Owner of the bicycle and gramophone shop, who plays the organ in church.
- Little Clamp
Owner of the toy shop, who serves as pew opener and so forth.
- Gambell
The greengrocer, who waits at table while his wife cooks.
Key passages
“For fifteen years Mr. Polly was a respectable shopkeeper in Fishbourne. Years they were in which every day was tedious, and when they were gone it was as if they had gone in a flash.”
Mr. Polly spent fifteen years as a shopkeeper in Fishbourne, a period that felt both endlessly dull and, in retrospect, fleeting.
Opens the chapter, summarizing the long, monotonous stretch of his life.
“He sat on the stile above Fishbourne and cried to the Heavens above him: 'Oh! Roo-o-o-tten Be-e-astly Silly Hole!'”
Sitting on a stile above Fishbourne, he shouted in frustration at the sky, calling the town a rotten, beastly, silly hole.
Illustrates Mr. Polly's profound discontent with his life.
“The books he read during those fifteen years! He read everything he got except theology, and as he read his little unsuccessful circumstances vanished and the wonder of life returned to him”
Over those fifteen years, he read voraciously—everything except theology—and the books made his small, failed life disappear, bringing back the wonder of existence.
Highlights how reading serves as his primary escape from reality.