History Essay - Underestimation

---

On my other blog, Time Traveler’s Daughter, I’ve been doing a series called “The Last Janitor”. Sort of a Star-Wars-meets-Adventures-in-Odyssey-meets-John-C-Wright-reviews thing. Initially, I wanted to post a full episode every Friday, just like his Last Straw series. I shortened it to every other Friday. Then once a month. Even by that, I’m months behind.

True, I suffer from chronic procrastinitus. True, I’m about the slowest writer in the world, at least when it comes to finishing things. But with this one, I think the real problem was that I just did not realize how much time it would take to finish full episodes. I utterly underestimated the time and effort it would take, as well as my own slowness. I underestimated the real meaning of an undertaking like this.

Of course, I’m not the first in history to do so. Very few people realize quite how vital the things they do may be someday. Take Britain, for instance. When the British Parliament convened to discuss the Stamp Act, they vastly underestimated the importance, the momentousness of the occasion. To them, it was just another day at the office. Look at that, another tax to be passed. What joy. Oh, it’s on the Americas this time, is it? That’s a new one. Is that a fly on Lord Chucksterfield’s nose?

Then again, it’s hardly likely that anyone could have estimated that it would start the American colonies on a path to independence. Some things just can’t be guessed.

But what came next should probably have tipped their estimation the other way. Britain’s colonies across the pond rebelled. They didn’t want Parliament to be able to tax them dry over paper and tea. They wanted to govern themselves, as they had generally done up to that point (while still being royal subjects). If this right was not acknowledged, they would be royal subjects no longer.

Yet even with the obvious revolt—with at least some idea of the moment of these events—Britain managed to underestimate the colonies. King George III “made up his unfortunate German mind to the coercion and humiliation of the discontented colonists.” So a small army was sent. Not to crush a possible danger, mind you, but to deal with a few unruly factions.

Because of this miscalculation, the recently-appointed General Washington was able to pull together an army of his own. And he was not one to underestimate. He knew that if his army was crushed, rebellious populations would be the only remnant of their cause. And Britain could easily quell those. So Washington’s main goal was to keep his army alive to fight another day—a goal he met, time and time again.

After a few years, Britain realized her critical error, and sent an army that might have been adequate to its task. That is, if it had been sent in time. But by the time it was even thought of, America was beginning to gain further allies; France, for one. America had grown in power, and Britain had diminished in it, due to war with France and Spain.

Finally, in Yorktown, the commander of the British forces, General Charles Cornwallis, was forced to surrender. Washington and a French general, Rochambeau, had him sandwiched. Upon his surrender, the war ended. And Britain had to recognize the independence of her thirteen revolted—and highly underestimated—colonies.

So you see, counting the cost is essential to any venture—most obviously when it comes to fighting a war or running a country, but also in commonplace tasks. When you cook a meal, you have to put together the right amount of ingredients, and cook them just the right amount of time. When you go to work, you have to make sure you get there on time, and do your job properly. When you do your schoolwork, you have to make sure it doesn’t take all your time, but enough to get it done. We all know how important it is. “For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?” (Luke 14:28)

And yet still we underestimate. We underestimate difficulty, time, opponents, and our own inability and weakness. We underestimate the importance of our actions, and the depth of the consequences. We underestimate the seriousness of others. And the results of any one of these can be devastating.

Of course, my Last Janitor series isn’t exactly a recalcitrant country. But since I did underestimate the time and effort it would take to post entire episodes at once, I’ll have to compensate for the error. So far, I’ve started posting the scenes individually from the start. That’s on another site (see here). By the time I get caught up, I think enough Fridays will have passed for me to have more completed. No harm done.

Still, other miscalculations can be far more affecting. Britain’s in the latter half of the 18^th century is a good e.g., but not the greatest one. No, that greatest one goes back much further. It goes back to some very simple decisions, at a time when most things were very simple. A man underestimated the need to instruct and guard his wife. A woman underestimated the cunning of the Enemy. The first two people of the world underestimated God—His seriousness in His commands, His power to enforce the consequences He set for disobedience, and His knowledge of what they had done.

And underestimation can spell downfall.


---

 

Shakespeare Essay - I Say, a Dashed Comedy of Errors, What?

---

P.G. Wodehouse was born on October 15, 1881. He died 93 years later, on Valentine's Day, 1975. He is considered one of the greats amidst Britain’s millennia-spanning collection of talented writers. Especially in the 20^th century. In fact, after the famous G.K. Chesterton died in 1936, it was declared (by author T.H. White) that Wodehouse was “now the greatest living master of the English language”.

 

The unabridged cast of characters in Wodehouse’s works is most diverse—from gentlemen’s personal gentlemen, to dippy chaps and drippy girls, to lords with a love of gardening, to verbose fellows without objection to crime, to storytellers with a yarn about each of their various relatives, to headstrong and hardy aunts, and countless other types. And they all somehow always manage to find themselves at a British manor with an object to pilfer, an unfortunate engagement to be broken up, lent money to be repaid, and/or several cases of mistaken identity.

 

Which brings us right back round to what might normally have been the start. This essay is not, of course, really about P.G. Wodehouse. Though it might as well be, as you’ll soon see. My subject is “The Comedy of Errors”, by the Elizabethan Bard, William Shakespeare.

 

The plot, you see, starts out with an old codger named Ægean, who’s been sentenced death for hopping the pond to Ephesus. It and his birth-town, Syracuse, have a rivalry to match Oxford and Cambridge on Boat Race Night! But the point is, Ægean tells his story from the start, about how he had a pair of twins, both named Antipholus, but his family was split in half by a shipwreck. He ended up with one Antipholus and a different twin, born the same day, named Dromio. That was decades ago. And he’s been on the hunt for his wife and the other halves of the twin sets since.

 

I suppose I ought to make this very clear right at the start. There are two sets of twins, both male. One set are the sons of Ægean. The other set are from a poorer family, but born the same day. Those of Ægean are both named Antipholus, and the poorer set are both named Dromio. It’s beyond me why anyone in real life would give both their twins the precise same name. It’s as if they want confusion. There’s some raw work pulled at the font from time to time, Jeeves.

 

It’s here that we shift over to Antipholus and Dromio #1, of Syracuse. They’ve been searching for their twins for the past seven years, and have just arrived in Ephesus. Unbeknownst to them, their twins are long-time residents of Ephesus. And the whole thing starts when Antipholus #1 sends his Dromio—oh, and the Dromios are something like gentlemen’s personal gentlemen to the Antipholi—sends him to get their rooms ready.

 

At that point, the second Dromio comes up to fetch the second Antipholus home for supper. Only it isn’t the second Antipholus. It’s the first, and neither has any idea that they’ve got the wrong one. The four of them keep mixing up one with the other, and then the other for the one, over and over. Then yet more people get involved. Women and servants and merchants all begin mistaking the twins for each other without realizing it. And furthermore, the second Antipholus is married.

 

You can jolly well see that it turns messy right out of the garden gate. A true perplexity of the first order, what?

 

Of course, one can take for granted that it’ll work itself out in the end, by some sort of congregation of all the play’s characters in one spot, and finish with the wise words of gentlemen’s personal gentlemen. It is a comedy, after all. So there’s no need to spoil the precise ending for those inexperienced in this play.

 

But finales aside, let us take a look at the plot itself.

 

There is quite clearly a deal of mistaken identity—though in this case, it is completely accidental, and is not purposefully continued by any party. Important distinction, you see. In the Wodehouse stories, one may be mistaken for another, but he decides to continue under that pretense. Then of course, he must get someone else to pretend to be him. And then the one with the briefly-pilfered identity turns up and sets all plans to naught. In the C of E, however, no one is pretending to be anyone but himself.

 

Some part of the plot occurs at the house of Antipholus E.—that’s for “Ephesus”, you understand. That we may consider, for our purposes, to be the Shakespearean equivalent of Blandings or Brinkley, a sort of stately Ephesian home, servants and all.

 

There are three romantic entanglements which, until things are sorted out, must be considered unfortunate. Antipholus E is wedded, as I’ve previously noted. However, his Syracusan twin is mistaken for him, the husband, when he in fact has no connection to or affection for this woman he’s not seen once in his life. In fact, Antipholus S begins to fall in love with the sensible sister of the wife. Dromio S, as well, finds himself “engaged” to a rather rotund kitchen wench, in whom could be found out countries (according to Dromio’s own all-encompassing description).

 

The plot also features a mix-up involving a golden chain—which one Antipholus ordered and the other accepted. After this, Antipholus E asks the merchant for the golden chain he never received. The merchant then flagrantly demands the money he was never paid for the golden chain which he already delivered (to his twin). And one thing after another occurs to prevent any of the right people getting either chain or cheque.

 

Also, though nothing is directly stolen, a young lady insists that her ring was snatched from her room by Antipholus E. This is not the case. But going into specifics may lead the both of us further into the plot’s labyrinth without the golden thread of the full play to lead us safely out again.

 

I could continue, too. I could go into details of the longsuffering Dromios, the headstrong wife and her practical sister, and the eventual involvement of the Ephesian bobbies (who, if they have any helmets, certainly retain them), and yet further. But there’s no need of that. It must by now be evident that one might set this play in Totliegh Towers, and all but a few names might easily be mistaken for something out of a Wodehouse work.

 

And this, you see, is a level of humour that can rarely be attained in our modern day—a plot complexity that lends itself to confusion without becoming utter poppycock. Countless threads seem to become completely and hopelessly entangled during the course of the tale-telling. But no twist of twine is left raveled by the conclusion. Upon arrival, the ending makes sense (even if you’re not entirely certain how you got there).

 

Wodehouse and Shakespeare are both virtuosos at this sort of thing, of course—the former learning greatly from the latter, I’d imagine. One or two examples on film would be “The Court Jester” and “Oscar”. But there are precious few others that come, at the least, to my mind.

 

Then again, one must admit it is difficult to do properly. This is likely why we stick to pratfalls (which can certainly be funny) or crude humour (which never is). To be honest, trying to find something humourous of this calibre is, in the words of Antipholus S, “like a drop of water that in the ocean seeks another drop.”

 

And yet, somehow, the drops have found each other. William Shakespeare and P. G. Wodehouse, twin masters of confusion, of cleverness, and of comicality. We need more of their like. Yes, Wodehouse may defer to Shakespeare as the wiser senior. But in the aspects I’ve shown you, in their comedy, they are so alike as they may “go hand in hand, not one before another.”

 

---

 

Well, what-ho, what-ho, what-ho? That's my essay, and dashed if it hasn't set me off on a Wodehousian kick. I daresay somebody ought to really set the play in a Blandings-type place, costumes and all, and perform it like that.

 

Anybody here that's got a mind with something on it--or even, perhaps, a spot of Wodehousian experience? Tell me all in the comments!

 

For now, I must attend to my Anatolian task of creating supper. Off we go, Jeeves!