“The Way of All Flesh” by Samuel Butler (post 2): Two Ernests

Theobald and Christina’s son Ernest, the main character, who had been whipped by his father since early childhood as routine discipline, is now twelve and starting boarding school. The narrator, Mr. Overton, mentions that he is a writer, saying that “in the intervals of business I had written a good deal…almost exclusively for the stage” (1, p. 102). And as Volume One comes to a close, the narrator says about Ernest that…

“…as yet he knew nothing of that other Ernest that dwelt within him and was so much stronger and more real than the Ernest of which he was conscious” (1, p. 118). And since regular Ernest does not hear the other Ernest’s voice, the narrator puts the latter’s thoughts into words:

“You are surrounded on every side with lies…the self of which you are conscious…will believe these lies” but “I will not allow it to shape your actions…Obey me, your true self, and things will go tolerably well with you…” (1, p. 119).

The narrator says that this “wicked inner self gave him bad advice about his pocket money, the choice of his companions…” (1, p. 119), which got him into trouble with drinking, but “Ernest’s inner self must have interposed at this point…for he dropped the habit ere it had taken hold of him…And so matters went on till my hero was nearly fourteen years old!” (1, p. 120).

Comment

I don’t know whether the narrator is thinking of “the other Ernest that dwelt within him” as an alternate personality or only as a metaphor for adolescent development. That Ernest does not hear a voice, makes it more like a metaphor. That the narrator speaks of an “other Ernest,” who is “more real,” and is able to provide dialog for it, makes it more like a personality.

1. Samuel Butler (1835-1902). [Ernest Pontifex or] The Way of All Flesh [A Story of English Domestic Life] [1903]. Introduction by P. N. Furbank. New York, Everyman’s Library/Alfred A. Knopf, 1992.