The Imagery of old Mr. Pontifex
Samuel Butler explicates; “When I was a small boy at the beginning of the century I remember an old man who wore knee-breeches and worsted stockings, and who used to hobble about the street of our village with the help of a stick. He must have been getting on for eighty in the year 1807, earlier than which date I suppose I can hardly remember him, for I was born in 1802. A few white locks hung about his ears, his shoulders were bent and his knees feeble, but he was still hale, and was much respected in our little world of Paleham. His name was Pontifex.” This imagery renders Mr. Pontifex a modest and dilapidated man who lives unassumingly. His approach of dressing and locomotion indicates that he was susceptible due to his progressing age.
The Imagery of Mrs. Pontifex’s Funeral
The funeral transpires like a thorough carnival: “On the day of the funeral, however, we had a great excitement; old Mr Pontifex sent round a penny loaf to every inhabitant of the village according to a custom still not uncommon at the beginning of the century; the loaf was called a dole. We had never heard of this custom before, besides, though we had often heard of penny loaves, we had never before seen one; moreover, they were presents to us as inhabitants of the village, and we were treated as grown up people, for our father and mother and the servants had each one loaf sent them, but only one.” The dissemination of loaves on a day that people are expected to be lamenting the bereavement of Mrs. Pontifex renders her interment day a merriment of her presence. Instead of sniveling, the villagers dwell on ingesting the cost-free bread delivered after Mrs. Pontifex’s passing, which occasions a ‘jubilant’ memorial.
The Imagery of the Monument
In the monument for his defunct paternities, Samuel Butler writes, “George Pontifex put up a monument to his parents, a plain slab in Paleham church, inscribed with the following epitaph:—SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN PONTIFEX WHO WAS BORN AUGUST 16TH,1727, AND DIED FEBRUARY 8, 1812,IN HIS 85TH YEAR,AND OF RUTH PONTIFEX, HIS WIFE,WHO WAS BORN OCTOBER 13, 1727, AND DIED JANUARY 10, 1811, IN HER 84TH YEAR.THEY WERE UNOSTENTATIOUS BUT EXEMPLARY IN THE DISCHARGE OF THEIR RELIGIOUS, MORAL, AND SOCIAL DUTIES. THIS MONUMENT WAS PLACED BY THEIR ONLY SON.”
The engravings on the moment suggest that George Pontifex regarded his parentages as heartfelt pious figures whose memory had to be engraved on the monument. The block letters are a highlighter of Mr. George Pontifex’s verdict about the mysticism of his parents.
