Packing by Jerome K. Jerome
Prepared by: Afzal Sir
“Packing” is an excerpt from Jerome K. Jerome’s immensely popular Victorian novel “Three Men in a Boat”. This is a funny story in which chaos and mess are created by people who are not talented in packing what they believe. It uncovers the clumsiness of the three real-life friends – Jerome, George, and Harris. They believe themselves as talented in the art of packing but in fact, every one of them has little expertise in working in an organised way. They make things very exciting and laughable. To the great amusement of the reader, the little job of packing is done by them with numerous jank and jolt. Let’s now see the summary of the story.
Meaning of Packing
Packing can be described as a coordinated arrangement of getting products ready for transport, warehousing, deal, and trip etc. It is the science, art and innovation of encasing or ensuring items for circulation, storage and use. Packing also refers to the way toward structuring, assessing, and creating packages.
Summary of “Packing”
There are three human characters in the story. These are the author and his two friends. The author’s name is Jerome K.Jerome Jerome and the names of his two friends are George and Harris. In addition to these three people, there is one more character but this one is not human but a dog and its name are Montmorency.
Jerome is Proud of His Packing
Jerome, Harris and George are three companions who are preparing themselves for a holiday trip. The story starts with the task of packing stuff for this trip. Jerome, the narrator, overestimates his packing abilities and advises his companions to give him a chance to deal with everything without anyone the help of anyone. His actual goal is to impress George and Harris to do the packing under his watch and direction. But, his friends accept his recommendation seriously and to his incredible stun, stretch themselves serenely, abandoning him deliberately to irritate him. Although Jerome is vexed with their attitude, he still gets engaged with packing. After a long-drawn packing session, he at last ties up the pack.
Jerome Forgets to Pack Shoes, Toothbrush and other things
The two of his friends watch him discreetly and when he is finished with packing, Harris states that the shoes have been left unpacked. The sack must be opened again to pack the shoes. As soon as Jerome finished packing the shoes is helped to remember his toothbrush. Uncertain about having stuffed his toothbrush, Jerome has to empty the pack and search through the entirety of its things to find the toothbrush. After a lot of endeavours, he finds the brush in one of the boots! At last, the sack is stuffed and chained once more.
The following inquiry originates from George with respect to the soap. Jerome is so aggravated at this point he doesn’t considerably make a big deal about this query and lashes up to the pack. However, the exact next minute he needs to unpack it again as he had stuffed in his spectacles by the mix-up. Finally, it is past ten when the packing is at last done.
George and Harris Choose to Pack Themselves
Considering the duration of time taken by Jerome to pack the sack, George and Harris choose to pack the hampers themselves and show Jerome the real talent of packing. Nonetheless, they are similarly awkward and break a glass at the very beginning. This is trailed by squashing a tomato, treading on the butter and crushing the pies by putting overwhelming things on them. Salt flies all over the things while they are packing.
Harris Sits on Butter and Starts Searching It
In the wake of stripping the butter off George’s slipper, they attempted unsuccessfully to press it into the kettle. In the end, they scrape it and put it down on the seat. Harris sits on it and the butter sticks to his back. At that point, both these men begin searching for the butter all around the room. Afterwards, George finds it in Harris’ back and now it is packed in the tea kettle.
Montmorency Contributes His Bit to Packing
Montmorency, their pet dog, contributes his bit to this activity of packing by sitting on things, moving into the and smashing lemons as if they were rates.
Finally, Packing is Finished
At last, the packing is finished by 12.50 at might. This is trailed by a dialogue on the ‘wake up’ time and George is tired to the extent that he sleeps off even before the time is settled on. Jerome and Harris choose that 6.30 early morning would be the ideal time to get up and after that, they too head out to sleep.
CHARACTERS OF PACKING
Jerome is the narrator of the story and the whole array of events are delineated from his perspective. He is arrogant and rates his packing talent a bit too high. He is also self-important and anticipates that his companions will complete the repetitive piece of packing while he kicks back and passes orders. His companions, in any case, don’t consider him important. Lastly, he needs to battle while endeavouring to gather the pack. Jerome is both cumbersome and absent-minded. He initially neglects to pack the shoes and they can’t review of he has put in his toothbrush or not. He unpacks the sack twice cumbersomely to oblige the missing things. At the point when his companions mishandle while packing the hamper, he sits at the edge of the table and watches them since now the ball is in his court to have a great time to their detriment. In any case, he is a conventional kid who disregards the inadequacies of his companions similarly as he overlooks his own.
George and Harris
George and Harris are the friends of the author, Jerome. Both of them are cumbersome, not well composed, careless and easygoing as Jerome. They commit mistakes even while doing common tasks and continue repeating their missteps. Like Jerome, they too are mixed up about their ability to pack stuff and are arrogant about their execution. They harm or ruin numerous things like cups, pies, tomatoes, butter and lemons while packing the hamper. Their activity delights the reader, particularly when they lose the butter and look for it everywhere. Some way or another, despite making a fool of themselves, while packing for the trek, they don’t believe in any blame game and avoid every others’ oversights.
Montmorency: the pet dog
Montmorency is the naughty pet dog of the three friends-Jerome, George and Harris. He is a harmful pet and knows no limits on his conduct. His animal trait to test everything makes his lords annoyed. He desires to become part of all exercises going on in the house and gets eager to see the young men packing things. He wouldn’t mind being shouted at and does not react when they endeavour to move him away from the packing stuff. He is a super invigorated pet that even scolding to him ignites his enthusiasm. He may be poorly trained, dangerous and meddlesome yet he is cherished by the readers as much as his lords. His essence in the story makes it additionally fascinating and entertaining.
Textbook Questions of “Packing“
Packing is the first Chapter of class 9th textbook. The questions of the chapter are answered as below:
Question 1: How many characters are there in the narrative? Name them.
Answer: There are four characters in the story namely Jerome, George, Harris and the dog named Montmorency.
Question 2: Why did the narrator (Jerome) volunteer to do the packing?
Answer: Narrator was of the opinion that he was the best packer than any other person living. He was proud of his packing and wanted to show his talent to others.
Question 3: How did George and Harris react to this? Did Jerome like their reaction?
Answer: George and Harris agreed to Jerome because they wanted to loaf around while Jerome would do the packing.
Jerome did not like their watching while he was doing the packing. It vexed him.
Question 4: What was Jerome’s real intention when he offered to pack?
Answer: Jerome’s real intention was to show off his talent at packing the things. He wanted to win praise.
Question 5: What did Harris say after the bag was shut and strapped? Why do you think he waited till then to ask?
Answer: After the bag was shut and strapped, Harris asked Jerome if he forgot to pack the boots. He waited till last because he wanted Jerome to realise his weakness and ridicule his packing skills.
Question 6: What “horrible idea” occurred to Jerome a little later?
Answer: The horrible idea that occurred to Jerome was that he was not sure if he packed his toothbrush or not. In the past also he had similar mishaps with packing or unpacking of toothbrush. The toothbrush always haunted him and made his life a misery.
Question 7: Why did Jerome have to reopen the packed bag?
Answer: After packing the bag Jerome realized that he packed his tobacco pouch inside, so he had to reopen it once again.
Question 8: What does Jerome say was Montmorency’s ambition in life? What do you think of Montmorency and why?
Answer: Montmorency’s ambition in life was to disturb people. The beast always made a mess of everything in a playful mood.
Question 9 : Of the three who do you think is the best or worst packer? Support your answer from the text?
Answer: In spite of forgetting certain things to pack or getting befuddled about a few things, Jerome is by and large the best packer out of the three friends. He packs things the manner in which they ought to be. He at least knows what to pack first and what to keep last. He doesn’t make a wreck all around.
It is hard to choose the worst packer from Harris and George. Harris crushes tomato while packing the bottle over it. George steps on butter and makes a wreck all around. Then he attempts to place the butter in the pot. After this Harris sits on the butter kept on the chair. Harris sits on it and it sticks to his back. Both of them begin searching it.
Moreover, they put lighter things at the bottom and heavier things at the top. They put like potatoes over tomatoes. Both George and Harris are equally loathsome in packing.
Question 10: How did Montmorency contributed to the packing?
Answer: Montmorency did not contribute anything good to the packing. He made mess of everything. He would disturb others’ lives and be abused by them. Whenever anything was to be packed he came and sat on the things.
Q. Do you discover this story amusing? What are the humorous elements in it?
Answer: This is an very amusing story. To begin with, the language itself is very funny. The revelation of toothbrush inside a boot is amusing. George’s stepping on butter is an entertaining occurrence. The list continues endlessly, like Harris’ sitting on butter, packing of jam over tomato, packing of heavier thing over lighter things. The disturbance by the dog acquires its very own amount of fun in the story. Even at the end, their contention about correct wake-up time is also loaded with humour.
Question : Where did Jerome finally find the toothbrush?
Answer: After searching through everything Jerome found the toothbrush inside a boot.
Question 8: What did George and Harris offer to pack and why?
Answer: George and Harris offered to pack the bag which would contain edible items. They also wanted to show off their packing skills.
Question 10: While packing the hamper, George and Harris do a number of foolish and funny things. Tick the statements that are true.
(i) They started with breaking a cup.
(ii) They also broke a plate.
(iii) They squashed a tomato.
(v) They stepped on a banana.
(vi) They put things behind them, and couldn’t find them.
(vii) They stepped on things.
(viii) They packed the pictures at the bottom and put heavy things on top.
(ix) They upset almost everything.
(x) They were very good at packing.
Answer: (i) Yes, (ii) No, (iii) Yes, (iv) Yes, (v) No, (vi) Yes, (vii) Yes, (viii) No, (ix) Yes, (x) No
Note: All the notes of this chapter named Packing are thoroughly checked by the subject experts.
