The Romanticization of Nature Theme Analysis

The titular men of Jerome K. Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat, friends J., Harris, and George, are united in the simple goal of boating up the river Thames, an attempt to restore their health and well-being by escaping the allegedly toxic influence of London and getting back to nature. The men quickly struggle with the river environment, however, finding it difficult to control the boat, prepare their meals, and get a good night’s sleep. Whenever a sense of communion with nature is reached, it isn’t long before it’s interrupted. The men imagine nature as a return to a purer, more wholesome way of living, but this is an ideal it rarely lives up to. Jerome explores this tension between idealism and reality to suggest the men have bought into an overly-romanticized version of the natural world, the search for which leads only to frustration and disappointment.

J., the novel’s narrator, is especially prone to personifying nature—as “Night,” or the “Sun,” or the “River” itself—and ascribing to it a kind of radiant benevolence that sends him into “deep thought.” Before the men have even set off, J. discusses how camping would be “wild and free.” He also slips into a richly descriptive passage that idealizes the simplicity of the natural world while criticizing modernity: “we fall asleep beneath the great, still stars, and dream that the world is young again … sweet as she was in those bygone days when, a new-made mother, she nursed us, her children, upon her own deep breast—ere the wiles of painted civilization had lured us away from her fond arms...” Journeying up the river, J. thinks, will let the men reconnect with an earlier, purer time. This attitude is in part inherited from the Romantic poets, who placed nature at the center of their work. But whereas Romantic poetry gives pride of place to nature in opposition to the negative effects of city living, J. and the three men are constantly coming into contact with the same petty concerns that they face on land.

The men live in London at a time of rapid urban expansion in the wake of the Industrial Revolution, and the stresses of modernity intensify their longing to return to nature. They believe that city life is superfluous and ridiculous, and that their trip will somehow allow them to rise above it. But, as creatures of comfort, the men prove ill-equipped to truly live “wild,” and instead take the stresses of modern life with them. In one of the book’s most important passages, J. describes the trappings of this life—its “formalities and fashions … pretence, ostentation and luxuries that only cloy—as “lumber, man—all lumber!” He implores the reader to “throw it overboard,” because it makes the metaphorical boat of life “so cumbersome and dangerous to manage.” This speech comes as the men pack for their “return to nature,” loading themselves up with immense amounts of “lumber”—including luxurious, impractical food, clothes, and equipment. Though they profess to be leaving the city behind, they are in fact packing it up and taking it with them.

Not only do the men prove constitutionally unsuited to the lifestyle beyond the city limits, but the natural world itself often fails to conform to the conditions required for a successful boat trip. More specifically, nature doesn’t behave the way the men want it too—and to expect it to do so would, of course, be unnatural. In a series of anecdotes before they set off, J. discusses people’s obsession with the weather, implying that it never behaves as people predict: “The weather is a thing that is beyond me altogether … But who wants to be foretold the weather? It is bad enough when it comes.” J. sees the weather as almost conspiratorial—that it usually does the opposite of what he wants it too. In truth, the three men just want a very specific type of weather—and it is perfectly natural, given the climate in Britain, that this desire is regularly frustrated. In addition to the weather getting in the way of their Romantic ideals, the river itself throws up disturbing surprises. Along the journey the men encounter both a dead dog and the floating corpse of a young woman—both arrive as symbols of death, as integral a part of nature as sunshine or water. Nature, then, isn’t just predictably erratic in terms of the weather—here it brings stark images of death to the three men just when they are trying to feel most alive.

Rain ultimately pushes the men to give up on their trip and return to London, seeking out the familiar comfort of their favorite theatre and restaurant. Jerome ultimately suggests, then, the naïveté and hubris of believing that nature ought to conform to man’s needs; if the three men had been more realistic in their expectations of the river environment, and more pragmatic and flexible in their preparations, they would likely have had a more successful and rewarding trip. People have to adapt to nature, the book suggests, and not the other way around. What’s more, in order for the trip to have been genuinely restorative, the three men should have examined their Romantic ideas more closely. Romantic poetry at its best, for example, is concerned with witnessing the sublime in nature—respecting its immense power and limitless forms. If the men had been more respectful and honest in their conceptualization of nature, rather than blindly hoping it would conform to their own comfort, the trip would have had the rejuvenating effect they sought.