Work and Leisure Theme Analysis

The Victorian era saw the rapid rise of holidaying, pleasure-seeking, and self-improvement as ways for the emergent middle class to use their time. J. and his friends live in a moment in which work and leisure became two clearly separate concepts. But as the text makes clear, leisure is not quite the clearly marked route to happiness that the characters hope for. Instead, these new pursuits come with their own pitfalls, ironically often creating, in the place of leisure, something very close to resembling work.

The three men frequently talk up their own idleness, at times even suggesting that they might be medically inclined to doing less work. Yet this is all a kind of superficial affectation adopted to suit the fashion of the day. In the opening of the book, for example, George makes the case that the three men need “rest and a complete change.” Sitting around smoking their tobacco, they are unanimous that whatever is the matter with them has been brought about by “overwork.” But, J. tells the reader, “I had the symptoms, beyond all mistake, the chief among them being a general disinclination to work of any kind.” Later in the book he adds, “I like work; it fascinates me, I can sit and look at it for hours…I take a great pride in my work; I take it down now and then and dust it.” The joke is that work is some kind of object of curiosity merely for looking at—that is, work isn’t something that J. has to do. The characters are simultaneously painting a picture of themselves as “overworked” and idle. Of course, both can’t be true, and though the reader learns little of the working habits of the three men, it can be assumed that they probably work the average amount befitting their status in society.

It seems it is not really a state of idleness that the men are after, but one of clearly recognized leisure—they want to be seen using their time for the pursuit of pleasure. Idleness is a kind of performance requiring an audience. That’s why, when George oversleeps on the morning of their departure, J. and Harris are anxious that he is wasting time that could be used to appear idle: “There was George, throwing away in hideous sloth the inestimable gift of time; his valuable life, every second of which he would have to account for hereafter, passing away from him, unused.” Obviously Harris and J. don’t believe this too strongly, given that they, too, try to get plenty of sleep throughout their journey.

This attitude towards leisure also informs the men’s choices of what to take with them on their river trip. In packing certain food and equipment to aid their affectation of idleness, the men unwittingly demonstrate how their choices can lead to the same consumerism that they purportedly want to escape. The food they take especially underscores their deliberate, methodical approach to leisure. Their meals are not solely about survival or sustenance, and the foodstuffs they carry are meant to be demonstrably pleasurable rather than functional. Indeed, though they ought to be travelling light, the men pack much more—and much more luxurious—food than they need. When they re-stock halfway through their journey, they make a big display of their shopping by walking back to the boat followed by lots of helpers carrying hampers of cheese, drinks, and fruit. They also bring pineapple, exotic and expensive for the time. They are trying to indulge in the luxuries—or lumber—of life that J. earlier implored the reader to do away with. Because they forget to pack a can-opener, however, it’s impossible to open their beloved pineapple, and after great stress and pain they throw it out of sight into the water. Bringing so much of city life with them simply makes it even harder to truly relax.

That relaxation requires effort is particularly true of the journey itself. Though floating up the Thames might sound laidback and easy—indeed, that is part of the escapist motivation for the trip—it takes a great deal of physical exertion to simply move the boat. The men need to tow, row and scull the vessel and its excessive cargo to get anywhere, and, despite expressing pride in their supposed predisposition to idleness, frequently accuse one another of shirking their duties: “In a boat, I have always noticed that it is the fixed idea of each member of the crew that he is doing everything,” J. notes. The men claim to be idle, but when things need to be done to maintain this state, they all suddenly claim to be doing more work than the others.

These tensions come to a head of the end of the book. Far from being restored and rejuvenated, the men end their journey exhausted and irritated. Because they can’t achieve a genuine, sustained sense of relaxation, all three are relieved to cut their trip short, as Harris neatly sums up: “I think we did well to chuck it when we did. Here’s to Three Men well out of a Boat.” They’re much happier back in the comfort of a restaurant in London, where their needs are taken care of, and they feel a sense of achievement that they’ve stuck it out on the river for as long as they did. This a kind of confession, then, that all that leisure has, for much of the time, been a kind of work.