Poor Tom
Sad sack Tom just doesn’t get it. Liza likes the bad boys. And he’s not bad at all. Kind of dumb, and certainly slow on the uptake, but not bad. At the very moment that Jim is making his move—literally physically making his move on Liza, Tom gets it all ironically wrong:
“Tom said to himself: 'I believe she does care for me after all.'”
Liza with a Z
The novel kicks off with a scene that presents Liza of Lambeth as something more like Liza of Minnelli. The titular character’s introduction into the story is full of pomp and promise as everybody—even and organ grinder—seems to stop dead in their tracks to take in the sight, calling out “Look at Liza!” and “There’s Liza!” In the full blossom of her 18-year-old beauty and attired in her newest dress, Liza is a sight to behold and full of the best sort of promise that can come from Lambeth. It is a tragic irony, of course.
Knights of the Tea Table
England is the place where Camelot is located, right? King Arthur and the Round Table and knights and chivalry and all that stuff started there. Legend and myth has evaporated completely as two men and a woman sit down for tea and are interrupted by a bruised and bloodied Mrs. Blakeston and her husband Tom. As husband proceeds to chase said wife to their rooms, and as the sound of brutal beating can be heard, and as the daughter of the combatants is desperately pleading with the two male tea drinkers to do something—anything—to help save her mother from being beaten to death, the age of chivalry officially comes to a close as it is the woman who finally winds up springing to action to defy the blackguard and protect his wife from the fate which soon befalls Liza. Adding to the irony that it is a woman—Jim’s favorite punching bag—who makes him back down is the reasoning that murders chivalry: “p’raps she deservers it, for all you know.”
The Catfight Over a Dog
Mrs. Blakeston has been hunting for Liza for weeks. And Liza has been successful in avoiding her. A showdown is inevitable and when it finally arrives, it is a horrible sight. Mrs. Blakeston had a big weight advantage on Liza and, besides, is more eager for a fight. She also has home crowd advantage seeing as how Liza is accused of stealing her husband. And therein lies the irony. The scene is of two women scratching and clawing and throwing windmill punches at each other to the point that both end up much the worse for wear by the time the fight breaks. And all this fighting is over who gets to keep the lovable rogue Jim, whose greatest pleasure in life comes from punching his sex partners.
A Schlemiel and a Schlimazel
By the end, Tom has gone from proving again that he’s no bad boy into situating himself as both a schlemiel and schlimazel. After Liza has treated him so badly and rejected him for arguably the biggest jerk (Jim has certainly gone from bad boy to something much worse) in the neighborhood whose wife has just beaten her to a pulp, Tom still proposes. Only to be told by Liza that she is carrying Jim’s baby. And he proposes again! Only to be rejected outright. The irony? After all this, it is still Jim—the man ostensibly responsible—instead of Tom—the man who ostensibly could have prevented it—who is afforded the etiquette of being nearest to Liza at the moment of her passing as the result of injuries suffered at the hands of Jim’s wife.
