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.
Character Analysis
Charles Pooter
Charles Pooter, the protagonist, is a lower-middle-class Victorian Londoner who thinks of himself as a gentleman. His work as a clerk in the City is never clearly delineated; he might be in banking or accounting. He seems to enjoy his work, although he finds the younger clerks disrespectful, and they in turn enjoy teasing him. He is an easy target, as he is clumsy, conceited, and frequently makes bad puns that he laughs at and repeats endlessly.
His friends and acquaintances take advantage of him at every turn, dropping by uninvited for meals, offering him tickets to a show that turns out to be worthless, and inviting him to a ball for which he must pay for his own food and drink, among other transgressions. Even dogs and children abuse him: the Finsworths’ dog licks all the blacking from his boots, and little Percy James kicks him in the shins. He is also cowardly, repeatedly failing to stand up to insults and instead writing “determined” letters to everyone from a newspaper that misspells his name to the laundress.
Pooter constantly strives to associate with people above his class, and much of the novel’s humor derives from how his hopes are dashed, as when he tries to speak to a “grand” lady just as a gust of wind blows his hat into the mud. He deludes himself about his aspirations, believing himself to be happy because he is “not ambitious.”
Pooter has three redeeming qualities, however. The first is his genuine love for his wife, Carrie, who—while putting up with his pretensions (and his puns)—also praises and expresses affection for him. In addition, his employer, Mr. Perkupp, thinks highly of him and consistently praises his values, hard work, and character. Finally, he is honest—too honest to lie about where he lives to gain early entrance to a pub and honest enough to return three pence to a laundress. These qualities help to round out his portrayal as a kind of Everyman.
Lupin Pooter
Carrie and Charles Pooter’s son, William “Lupin” Pooter, is 20 and has been living and working for a bank some distance away when he first enters the story in Chapter 6. He promptly announces that he has dropped his given name, William—a name from Pooter’s side of the family—in favor of his middle name, Lupin, which comes from his mother’s side. The name change sets the stage for the many ways Lupin disappoints his father.
Lupin has lost his job and must move in with his parents. He is lazy, drinks heavily, finds it hard to hold a job, has taste in friends and women others find dreadful, and is prone to theatrical pronouncements, especially after he joins the Holloway Comedians. His behavior and engagement to the older Daisy Mutlar cause many of the disagreements between Pooter and Carrie. For most of the novel, he exhibits the behavior of a scoundrel, which was popular in fiction at the time.
His blithe disregard for convention, so irksome to his parents, works in his favor when the firm he has recommended to one of his employer’s clients hires him. His heartbreak over Daisy deserting him for a wealthy friend, Murray Posh, is also vindicated as he becomes engaged to Murray’s sister.
Carrie Pooter
Carrie is a wife and mother, subject to Pooter’s misplaced snobbishness and Lupin’s laziness. She nonetheless supports both men, praising Pooter for being a “philosopher” and expressing concern for Lupin’s love woes. When she is provoked to anger, as when Pooter drinks too much champagne and Lupin is reluctant to have his fiancée meet Pooter’s friends, she eventually returns to her usual placid temperament.
She enjoys dressing well, a hobby greatly encouraged by her friend Mrs. James, to the distress of her husband. He often criticizes her clothing, as when she puts on a hat “as big as a kitchen coal-scuttle” (67). Mrs. James is something of a bad influence, as she also encourages Carrie to take place in séances. However, Carrie’s assertions of independence, as when she tells Pooter that since she puts up with his friends, he must put up with hers, demonstrate her autonomy and sense of self throughout the novel.
Gowing
Gowing, Pooter’s old friend, is a character whom the protagonist cannot see for who he truly is—a character type often seen in serialized novels such as Dickens’s David Copperfield and Thackeray’s Vanity Fair.
Gowing frequently oversteps the bounds of good taste as Pooter defines them. For instance, he sings a verse of a comic song that he “might have omitted” (49). He can be cruel and thoughtless, as when he deserts Pooter at the pub after lying about where he lives. He also lies to his friends about having written to them to cancel a planned dinner at his house. He can be insulting as well, as when he asks Pooter why his trousers are so short. Pooter wonders why he bothers putting his friend’s insulting observations in his diary at all, demonstrating the challenging friendship the two characters have.
Cummings
Cummings, Pooter’s other best friend and married neighbor, is more trustworthy and upstanding. At the same time, he is rather uninteresting, as Carrie points out to Pooter. He is an avid bicyclist with a penchant for falling and injuring his back, mishaps that are written up in a journal called Bicycle News.
Cummings is, however, important as a foil to Pooter’s frequent spinelessness. When Gowing laughs at one of Cummings’s recent illnesses, Cummings quietly says that he feels ill, “not that I suppose you care” (134). He also pronounces Gowing a scoundrel and a cad after the latter leaves town without notifying his dinner guests. Cummings can see through Gowing in a way that Pooter cannot do.
