Paul Pennyfeather

17th May 2002, 1:00am

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Paul Pennyfeather

https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/paul-pennyfeather
The debagged and disgraced hero of Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall finds that there’s only one profession that will have him...

“I expect you’ll be becoming a schoolmaster, sir. That’s what most of the gentleman does that gets sent down for indecent behaviour.” Oh catastrophe! A routine debagging at Oxford results in all Paul Pennyfeather’s hopes collapsing around him. Sent down, debarred from the priesthood and deprived of his inheritance he turns to the second oldest profession in the world.

So teaching is about as low as a man can fall - that’s Evelyn Waugh’s view is it?

No, it does get worse. After a term Pennyfeather ends up in prison. Until then however he is the new master at Llanabba Castle near Bangor, a cheapskate establishment where he is given the usual package of unpopular duties assigned to a new members of staff: 5C, carpentry, games, fire drill and teaching Beste-Chetwynde the organ (the latter a particuar irritation given that Pennyfeather insists he can’t read music).

And does our man confess this professional shortcoming?

Nope. Paul is guided by the motto of headmaster, Dr Fagan: “We schoolmasters must temper discretion with deceit.” Fortunately Beste-Chetwynde only takes organ to get out of games so the two become friends. Such good friends in fact that Paul ends up engaged to Beste-Chetwynde’s mother, Margot.

And they live happily ever after?

No. He ends up going to prison for her misdemeanours. Eventually Margot does get Pennyfeather out but she marries Viscount Metroland and Paul goes back to Oxford with a false moustache, pretending to be his own cousin.

So things don’t end too badly?

As Captain Grimes, a fellow master, explains to Paul: “One goes through four or five years of perfect hell at an age when life is bound to be hell anyway but after that there’s a blessed equity in the English social system that ensures the public-school man against starvation. They may kick you out but they’ll never let you down.”

Does Pennyfeather learn anything from his spell as a teacher?

That pupil discipline is best achieved through violence and bribery. That the point of sports day is to ensure that prizes are evenly distributed among the pupils whose parents attend. “It doesn’t do to let any boy win more than two events,” says Dr Fagan. Meanwhile, the head is trying to sell off Llanabba Castle to a film company. School only re-opens for the summer term when the deal falls through. No, Evelyn Waugh did not think much of teaching.

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