question_answer 22)

The peddler comes out as a person with a subtle sense of humour. How does this serve in lightening the seriousness of the theme of the story and also endear him to us?    

Answer:

The peddler has a good sense of humour and because of this, he succeeds in lightening the seriousness of the theme of the story and also endears himself to the reader. Although he was a vagabond and did not know where his next meal would come from, yet he, left to his own meditations, finds his thoughts about the world being a rattrap baiting people, entertaining. He visualized people he knew who had let themselves be caught in the dangerous snare and others who were still circling around the bait.   When he lost his way in the forest, he recalled his thoughts about the world and the rattrap. He felt now his own turn had come. He had let himself be fooled by a bait and had been caught. The whole forest was like a prison from which he could never escape. Thus, though the peddler had committed a theft, his acknowledgement that he had been lured or enticed reduced the gravity of the crime. He also seems to confide in the reader who empathizes with his predicament as he knows he has done wrong and will be caught in a trap of his own making. Again, when invited by the ironmaster to his home, he felt going there would be like throwing himself voluntarily into the lion's den. In the carriage, on the way to the ironmaster's house, he felt that he was sitting in the trap and would never get out of it.   When his identity is discovered by the ironmaster, he says, a day would come when he might want to get a. big piece of pork, and then he would get caught in the trap.   And finally, when he exits he signs as 'Captain von Stable'.