46 pages • 1 hour read
George Grossmith, Weedon GrossmithDiary of a Nobody
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1892A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 15-19Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Pooter is anxious about having invested some money on Lupin’s advice, as did Cummings. Cummings and then Gowing drop by, and when Cummings criticizes his abrupt cancellation of the dinner party, Gowing lies and says that he sent a letter to each of them the morning of his departure and he will invite them another time.
The Pooters go for a drive in Lupin’s pony-cart, and Lupin shocks his father by trying to pass other drivers, shouting at people to get out of his way and provoking a gang of roughnecks. Pooter nervously asks Mr. Perkupp for advice about Lupin’s behavior and is told that the son of “such good parents” (140) couldn’t possibly turn out badly. Lupin, meanwhile, cannot see Daisy while he is banished from her house, but Frank drops by with a friend named Murray Posh. Gowing correctly links Posh to a firm called Posh’s Three-shilling Hats, to which Mr. Posh replies that he takes no active part in the business. Posh’s conversation reveals a prior relationship with Daisy.
Chapter 16 Summary
Lupin says that the chlorates he advised his father to invest in have collapsed, but that he could get back one-tenth of his investment. His boss, Job Cleanands, has been missing from the office. When Gowing subsequently asks how much Lupin lost in the investment, Lupin replies that he didn’t invest himself. Gowing has persuaded Cummings to take most of his shares, and when Cummings rings the bell, both Lupin and Gowing climb out the window. The news carries the story that Cleanands has absconded.
Lupin receives a letter from Frank Mutlar announcing Daisy’s engagement to Murray Posh. His only consolation is that he persuaded Posh to invest a large sum in the chlorates business.
Chapter 17 Summary
The happiest day of Pooter’s life arrives when Mr. Perkupp offers to take Lupin into the office. When he tells Perkupp he is a good man, Perkupp replies, “No, Mr. Pooter; you are the good man” (151-52). Pooter is so overcome with joy he nearly cries. Pooter daydreams that after Lupin works in his office, he may take an interest in helping around the house.
Chapter 18 Summary
Gowing calls with an invitation to the East Acton Rifle Brigade ball, which the Pooters accept. The ball is an expensive cab ride from their home, and the only person Pooter recognizes is Mr. Padge, Gowing’s disagreeable friend. Happy to find anyone he knows, Pooter sits with Padge and a woman named Lupkin with whom Carrie talks.
They eat and drink well, urging their companions to do the same, and as they are leaving the table Pooter is presented with a bill and told the invitation didn’t include food and drinks. After paying all he can scrape up, Pooter takes a cab and then remembers he has no money. The cabman calls Pooter names and pulls his beard, and Pooter and Carrie must walk the remaining two miles home in the rain. To add insult to injury, what they think is an invitation to Mrs. Lupkin’s seaside home turns out to be a suggestion to visit her hotel as paying guests.
Cummings has another accident, falling backward down the stairs. He reproaches Pooter for not inquiring after him since the accident was mentioned in the Bicycle News. Carrie, meanwhile, sees a lot of her friend Mrs. James, and Pooter disapproves of the way Mrs. James constantly tries to introduce new fashions, such as manicures, to his wife.
Chapter 19 Summary
Pooter runs into an old schoolfellow, Teddy Finsworth, and accepts an invitation to dine with this friend and the uncle with whom he is staying. Pooter accidentally criticizes a portrait of the uncle’s late sister-in-law, then comments that life doesn’t seem to trouble the jolly-looking man in another portrait—the uncle’s late brother. The family dog pounces on Carrie’s skirt and then snaps at Pooter’s boots under the table at dinner. A second dog licks all the blacking from the boots as the uncle’s wife placidly looks on.
Chapters 15-19 Analysis
Lupin, who succeeds in escaping the bonds of social conventions, provides much of the action and humor in these chapters, especially with his employment and romantic situations. Lupin does not share the same social aspirations as his father. Notably, he has no desire to rub shoulders with elites or snub tradesmen to feel more secure in his social location. Rather, he wants to make significant amounts of money, find love, and engage in pleasurable behaviors such as drinking alcohol.
Lupin often laughs at his father’s social aspirations, but he also reveals the theme of Taking Oneself Too Seriously. While Pooter deludes himself in most aspects of his life, Lupin’s short-sightedness is only applied to his interests. In chapters 15-19, his rudeness as he proudly drives his new pony-cart positively shocks his father. He also displays blindness toward his employer’s risky speculation schemes and to Murray Posh’s interest in Lupin’s fiancée, believing he knows best in these matters. Pride always goes before a fall for the Pooter men, and the Grossmiths foreshadow the consequences Lupin will face at work and romantically.
Mr. Perkupp’s view of Lupin is another example of The Discrepancy Between Self-Perception and the Perception of Others. Mr. Perkupp’s kindly insistence that the son of good parents cannot possibly turn out badly has already been belied by Lupin’s bad behavior on multiple fronts. However, his words also foreshadow Lupin’s eventual redemption as he finds better matches in work and love.
Two social events in these chapters, the East Acton Rifle Brigade Ball and the visit to the Finsworths’ home, are key examples of The Absurdity of Social Aspirations. At the ball, Pooter—unfamiliar with the protocol for this type of event—lavishly dines and drinks, inviting others to partake, then must pay the bill. At the Finsworths, he is troubled by unruly dogs and “unfortunately”—the Grossmiths’ code word signaling that one of Pooter’s errors is coming—criticizes portraits of beloved Finsworth family members.
Unlike characters in realist novels of the Victorian era, Pooter does not learn from his social mishaps; nor does Lupin. While the story arc of father and son takes different shapes, both will ultimately find happiness in the same way: through their positive qualities rather than the result of a personal transformation.
Pooter’s concern for his son in these chapters reflects the authors’ well-rounded portrait of him as a lovable man who nonetheless has flaws. He shows a mixture of genuine fatherly love for Lupin and a keen desire for his son to represent him well and embody his middle-class and aspirational values.
