Aristocracy and Power
“The Custody of the Pumpkin” begins when the story’s protagonist, Clarence Threepwood, 9th Earl of Emsworth, discovers his son’s “entanglement” with the daughter of his estate’s head gardener, Angus McAllister. Incensed by the relationship, Emsworth takes on the “forthright truculence of a large land owner in the early Normal period ticking off a serf” and attempts to have McAllister banish the girl. In response, McAllister simply resigns, and in his absence the Lord’s…
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Nature vs. Modernization
“The Custody of the Pumpkin” takes place in two primary settings: the rural Blandings Castle (a recurring fictional location in Wodehouse’s works) and London. Wodehouse initially establishes a strong contrast between these two locales, presenting Blandings as an idyllic countryside paradise and London as a loud, crowded, and “hopeless” town rife with materialistic opportunists. This contrast is further emphasized by the rift between the story’s protagonist, Lord Emsworth (a traditionalist who views nature as a…
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Subversion of Social Class
Throughout “The Custody of the Pumpkin,” Wodehouse subverts the expectations of both his audience and his characters in order to satirize preconceived notions of nationality and social class. Wodehouse does this for comedic purposes, and also to question existing traditions and social hierarchies. The assumptions the characters make about one another (for instance, Lord Emsworth’s assumption that his son’s new girlfriend must be from a poorer background) are repeatedly demonstrated to be false and…
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