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Situational Irony
Explanation and Analysis—Learn Your Catechism :
When Filch claims that he is considering “going to sea” or working on a ship to avoid the dangers of the criminal lifestyle, Mrs. Peachum ironically commands him to learn the Bible so that he can commit crime without fear of repercussion:
Poor Lad! how little does he know as yet of the Old-Baily! For the first Fact I’ll insure thee from being hang’d; and going to Sea, Filch, will come time enough upon a Sentence of Transportation. But now, since you have nothing better to do, ev’n go to your Book, and learn your Catechism; for really a Man makes but an ill Figure in the Ordinary’s Paper, who cannot give a satisfactory Answer to his Questions.
Here, the selfish Mrs. Peachum behaves in a surprisingly maternal manner, treating her servant like an adopted son. She claims that she will protect him “from being hang’d,” and she dismisses his interest in “going to sea,” as he will likely be sentenced to work in an overseas penal colony anyway. Instructing Filch to stop wasting time with fantasies of working on a ship, she tells him to “go to your Book and learn your Catechism.”
Her command is an ironic inversion of conventional Christian morality. An 18th-century audience might expect that a young man would be instructed to read the Bible in order to better familiarize himself with ideas and morals central to the Christian faith. Regular readings from the Bible were considered essential to a Christian upbringing. Here, however, Mrs. Peachum has a very different motive: in the 18th century, clergymen could claim exemption from secular courts, choosing instead to be tried under the more lenient ecclesiastical courts administered by the church. Mrs. Peachum’s advice, then, is pragmatic rather than spiritual. If Filch learns to memorize some “Catechism” or summaries of passages of the Bible, then he can claim to be clergy and escape a death sentence.
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