DUTTA ACADEMY B.

WORDSWORTH

Question : Why do you think B. Wordsworth and the boy became friends ? Discuss the relationship shared by
them. OR Comment on the ending of the story.

B. Wordsworth depicts, with remarkable sensitivity, the friendship between a grown up

person and the gullible young boy. Their age-gap may appear queer, but it never comes in
their way of making friendship. Rather they complement each other in respect of their
sensitivity, sentimentality, devotion, love, sincerity.
Wordsworth was possibly a bachelor past his prime. He had a literary streak in him, but it had
come to a naught. His creativity and intellectual curiosity alienated him from his neighbours,
who were leading materialistic life. With no family, no stable means of livelihood, no friends,
no recognition, he led a painfully solitary life. This explains his penchant to enter other’s
houses uninvited, take interest in bee-watching, and other such unusual behaviours.
On the other hand the narrator, was a young school — going boy, who was fatherless and
taken care by his harsh and strict mother. He was often beaten and scolded by his mother for
very small reasons.
Their loneliness brought them close. The boy found in him — a friend , philosopher and guide
and the man found a young budding poet in the boy. Soon they shared an affectionate bond.
They first met at the house of narrator in Miguel Street, where the man came to his home “
to watch the bees “ in his yard.
The boy was instantly impressed by the smart dressing of the man and his correct and good
English. He befriended the boy simply because he had fallen for him because of the boy's
poetic temperament. The boy got swayed when he flattered his latent poetic flair :
I said, "You really think I is a poet? "

"You're as good as me " , he said.

Soon after their first meeting, the boy prayed to meet B. Wordsworth again. Their friendship
gets strengthened by the boy's visit to the poet's house in Alberto Street.
B. Wordsworth showered his love and kindness as he offered the boy to partake as many
mangoes as he wanted, from his yard. When the boy was upset and angry with his mother for
beating him badly , the man comforted him. His consoling words provided a healing touch to
the boy's bruised ego. He took the boy out for a walk. He tried to make the boy learn from
nature. He became the boy’s sole friend and companion.

They became bosom friends. They started spending more time together. The man told him
the tragic love story of a boy poet and a girl poet, who got married but the girl poet died and
so did their unborn baby. B. Wordsworth seemed to be growing older as he narrated the
story.
B. Wordsworth told the boy about his aspiration of being a great poet and also about his
secret that he was writing the world’s greatest poem.
Wordsworth Sony became bosom friends. For the senior companion, it was a bond with deep
cordiality. The way Sony empathized with him provided him solace and succor from his life
that was a big void, and a colossal failure. In Sony, he found someone who would listen to his
poems, share with him the pleasure of aimless sauntering in the island, and the simple
pleasures of eating ice cream. Sony never mocked him for his failures, never questioned him
why and how he had landed up so miserably in his life.
B. Wordsworth grow old, the boy could see death on his shrinking face. The boy turned
emotional, he had tears in his eyes. Wordsworth looked into his eyes and said
“Oh you can see it ,too. I always knew you had the poet’s eye.”

B. Wordsworth hugged him, and then he revealed that the story about the boy poet and girl
poet was not real and also all his talk about poetry wasn’t true. He said to the boy
“All this talk about poetry and the greatest poem in the world, that wasn’t true either.”
The boy could not bear the sight of his friend dying, he left the house and ran home crying
— “like a poet , for everything I saw.”

The man passed away with his confession, and his death broke the bond of friendship with
the boy. His crying out at his death reveals the extent of personal loss to him.
The boy missed him even after his death and thus walked along Alberto Street a year later
but could find no trace of B. Wordsworth -

“It was just as though B. Wordsworth had never existed.”

With selflessness and sincerity, they formed a divine relation where the man has given the
boy the heart of a poet and seasoned his senses to observe the world in a different way. The
negation of his story and tall claims is really astounding, but not purposeless. He has realized
that there is no place for good old values such as love for nature, devotion, sincerity,
sensitivity, sentimentality in this new world; poets are considered to be worthless, churning
out nonsensical content for the sake of appreciating beauty. On the other hand, he has
recognized the latent talent in the boy to be a poet, and he himself experienced the trials and
rejection as a poet. Hence his intention is to wean away the boy from treading his path and
suffer like him, because writing poetry is a bad profession as there are no buyers or
appreciators of a poet's words; people fail to see through the deep meaning of a poet's words
and feel the enlightening experience by reading it. Like him, he will live a life of alienation
and oblivion. Thus, in order to save the boy from the fate that he met in his life as a poet, he
negates his own story at the end, making a mockery out of his own existence, and with this,
their friendship fails, but makes a niche in our heart.
Question ::: How does the short story B.Wordsworth explore the theme of
escapism?
Escapism can be defined as a habitual diversion of the mind to purely imaginative activity or
entertainment as an escape that allows people to forget the harsh realities of life.
B.Wordsworth is a failure as a poet, but he embraces escapism. He is disillusioned and prefers
to live in the world of imagination.
Wordsworth is Naipaul's creation, better to say his mirror-image. This man has no job, no
family, and no roots. He lives in a tiny ramshackle house. He earns his living by singing
Calypsos. He finds no buyer or appreciators for his poetry. Moreover, his life is shattered and
devastated by the sudden demise of his wife along with the unborn child in the womb. Such
futility of life disillusions him and he dons an escapist attitude ,makes a dream like world of
his own to stay away from harsh realities of life.
He wanders around the place, tries to befriend people, intrudes into homes to watch bees.
He discovers Sonny, the young naive school-going child.
He admires the attributes of the great poet William Wordsworth and considers himself equal
to him, but he never goes ahead with the writing of his most ambitious poem. He knows that
in reality nobody has ever bought a single copy of his poetry, still he claims that the poem he
wants to sell is the ’greatest poem about mothers.’
Even after succeeding to build a bond with Sonny, B. Wordsworth finds no purpose in life,
other than a fancy to climb to the zenith of glory through writing poems. His quest for
recognition and fame brings him more isolation, more dismay, and more escapist tendencies.
With Sonny by his side, he wanders around, talking childishly. He writes poems, but no one
reads them except Sonny. What agony must B. Wordsworth have endured!
He even tries to make the young boy a part of his escapist world. He keeps telling the boy
that he has the eyes of a poet; he constantly trains the child artist, but does nothing to
cultivate the artist in himself. He tries to create an awe in the boy claiming that he is working
on "the greatest poem in the world" at the pace of one line per month.
But He has not achieved anything in reality. His dreams are all in his head. His actions do not
complement his dreams and aspirations. He wishes to write a poem that would speak to all
humanity but he never succeeds. B. Wordsworth is conscious of his escapism. In his attempts
to embrace fully a sense of escapism, he tries to hide his failures from both himself and the
narrator.

Towards the ending of the stay , by negating his own story and denying his claims, he shatters
the boy’s illusion of a romantic world. This he does because he wants the boy not to be an
escapist like him. He wants the boy not to be an escapist like him. He wants the boy to
discover reality and be a part of the real world.