Parson’s Pleasure

Roald Dahl was born in 1916 in Cardiff, Wales; his parents were Norwegian immigrants. His school experiences, recorded in his autobiography Boy: Tales of Childhood, inspired many of his later works, including Matilda, The Witches, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. During the Second World War, Dahl joined the Royal Air Force (RAF): his experiences there, as detailed in his second autobiography Going Solo, ultimately culminated in him being sent home to the UK. He was then sent to Washington, DC on behalf of the British Embassy; there, he began to publish short stories for the first time. He quickly became known for his children’s writing: his first children’s book, The Gremlins, draws on his experiences in the RAF as well. He is known for some of the most beloved English-language children’s books, including The BFG and James and the Giant Peach. He also wrote short stories for adults and screenplays. Dahl was also a well-known philanthropist, especially for children’s causes: he promoted measles immunizations, advocated for literacy campaigns, and donated to medical charities for dyslexia. At the time of his death in 1990, he was 74 years old; his legacy continues today through his descendants and many organizations, like Roald Dahl’s Marvellous Children’s Charity, created in his honor.

“Parson’s Pleasure” was published following the Second World War, a time period involving reconstruction, development, and class upheaval throughout Britain. The transition to modernity and the disorganization that the war left behind can be seen in Mr. Boggis’s scheme: he takes advantage of it to find antique furniture that has been forgotten about and to cheat his less financially well-off victims. The fact that Mr. Boggis poses as a parson, however, points to the enduring respect that Church of England clergy would have enjoyed at the time, even as broad segments of English society shifted toward being more nominally religious—while also poking subtle fun at the clergy as increasingly becoming relics of a past era. Thomas Chippendale (1718–1779), the maker of the commode at the center of the story, was an influential woodworker and designer whose work gained fame in the 18th century, creating a mass market for furniture like cabinets, bookcases, and chairs for the first time. His productions can still fetch huge prices on the auction market today.

Many of Roald Dahl’s works are thematically linked. Matilda also deals with themes of greed and corruption in its adult characters. “Parson’s Pleasure” also eventually appears in a compilation of Dahl’s short stories for adults, Kiss Kiss, wherein many of the stories also deal with the fragility of deception, like “Mrs. Bixby and the Colonel’s Coat,” which centers around a wife having an affair. Other authors that contemplate the rural-urban divide in 20th-century England include Mollie Panter-Downes, author of One Fine Day, about rural family life post-Second World War. In the way it undercuts readers’ expectations with a darkly humorous twist, the irony of the story’s climax is somewhat reminiscent of O. Henry’s short stories, such as “After Twenty Years” and “The Gift of the Magi.”