A dissertation upon roast pig by Charles Lamb summary

 Charles Lamb as a Romantic Essayist

Charles Lamb was popularly known as the prince of English essayists. His essays formulate a special aura that the readers emotionally involve in. It evokes our central emotions like laughter and sorrow. One can find out a strange mixture of humor and pathos in his writings. His essays are fascinating, captivating, charming and heavenly. 

 

He never married for the sake of his sister as she was insane. She killed their own mother with a knife out of her eccentricity. His personal life abounds in sorrows and frustrations marked by the death of his brother and the subsequent madness of his sister. 

 

Lamb brought out a new face and shape to essays by implementing a highly informal and subjective method. He delighted his readers with his humorous and entertaining language. His essays are hilarious, graceful, illuminating, sensitive and filled with unusual fancies and fantasies. 

 

The tone of all other major essayists like Francis Bacon, Joseph Addison, Richard Steele and William Hazlitt are didactic and universal. Where as Lamb's essays are based on human interest, sentimentality and subjectivity. His essays are also marked by the use of poetic language, lyricism and the archaic expressions similar to William Shakespeare and Robert Burton. 

 

A dissertation upon roast pig by Charles Lamb summary

The narrator invites the readers attention to prehistoric period when man used to eat meat raw without cooking. The writings of Chinese philosopher Confucius confirm this fact in an era known as “Cooks Holiday” meaning that the Chinese had no knowledge of cooking before Confucius came to the literary scene. The narrator also confirms that Confucius’s writing or the essay deals with how cooking was discovered by Bo-bo the son of swine herd Ho-ti.

 

While playing with fire as a child, Bo-bo happened to burn his entire cottage along with nine pigs accidentally. Before he could come up with a satisfactory reason for explaining the unfortunate incident, the mouth-watering smell of roasted pig came to him and not surprisingly he wanted to taste it. Forgetful of his remorse at the sad demise of his domestic animals, he could not resist devouring the taste of delicious meat and he started eating it. Ho-ti was upset at not only of burning of the cottage but he witnessed the scene that his son was tasting the burned. Out of exasperation Ho-ti beats him. But Bo-bo was enjoying the delicious taste he could not even feel Ho-ti’s beating. When Ho-ti happened to touch the roasted meat his hand became burned and unknowingly he places his hand in the mouth and feels the delicious taste. Together they taste the roasted meat.

 

Later, they consider this as a great invention and keep the secret with them. But burning of cottage and pigs become routine affair resulting in loss of Ho-ti’s property.

 

The father-son duo faces trial from their town people upon revelation of the secret of frequent fire. While asking for practical demonstration of breaking out of fire during the trial, the jurors (hearers) also fall prey to delicious roasted pig and let off the accused. The judge does not approve of the typical behavior of all concerned people but eventually fall to the lure of burnt pig when the mysterious fire breaks out in his own house. The mysterious fire occurs frequently in the entire town now giving people opportunity to devour delicious roasted pig as a favourite dish.

 

This is how the history of roasted pig is glorified by the narrator, describing about the crackling (crisp anf fatty) skin and succulent(tender and tasty) fat. What stands out here is the humourous analogy between the swine, known for its gluttonous behavior and being a base (tamed) animal, and human beings subverting themselves, in both character and morality, to the level of pigs in eating pig meat.

 

This comic piece of narrative essay gives some experiences on pleasure of eating roasted pig. The literary device of hyperbole becomes Lamb’s skill and strength, exploring all possible means of eccentricity for lavishly praising the flavor of roasted fork. The absurd incidents such as the discovery of roasted meat by an accidental house fire in China, that too by a child and the personal tone heightens its effect.  The highlight of the essay is the fictional representation of the ancient myth by mixing up literary devices and some imaginative narrative forms to his advantage.