Analysis about a short story

A beautiful suit, by H.G. Wells 1909

 

A beautiful suit is about a young man’s love to a suit that his mother made for him. He loves this suit so much, that he wants to wear it all the time. His mother however disagreed. Instead she wants him to wear it “on rare and great occasions”. She means it was made as a wedding-suit. Then they agreed to keep the suit safely packed away until the day was come. But the man could not stop thinking about the suit. He admires it so much. Therefore she allowed him to wear the costume on Sundays to church. But on condition that with tissue covering the buttons, so they wouldn’t whitening… So if he would peek at the buttons under the tissue cape, he would notice they were becoming duller and duller. This would cause him anxiety.

One night he sees the moonlight shining through his bedroom´s window. He gets out of the bed with a wish to put the suit on. He makes up his mind to destroy the protective cape. The young man was now moving out to the house and to his mother´s garden, wearing his costume. All that matters now is that he wears his beautiful suit. The young man continue to running, even he runs into a duck pond and begins to swim around. After the swimming through the pond and coming out on the other side, he comes along a road.While running the road he sees a moth and circles around his head. He is running straight toward a deep pit and does not notice. The next morning he is found dead at the bottom of the pit, with his beautiful suit with a happiness in his face.

Characters: The young man or boy (we never get so much information about the age) and his mother.

Setting: Took place at their house, church and also in the mother´s garden. Not time specified. Most significant happening takes place during the night.

Symbols: The first symbol I found was when the moonlight in the garden shows up and the man wants to wear his suit and starts to run. Secondly I found when he takes off the tissue from the suit and found freedom and happiness. The last one I think is a symbol when he dies in the pond, he smiling showing that he was finally free and happy.

So to summarise the analysis and the story, I think H.G. Wells wants to tell the readers to follow your heart and not the choices others want you to do. With other words the mother wants the young man to not wear his suit, but he did at the end. Maybe it was from the moonlight or the moth, told him that he was now happier…