I turned on the pillow with a little moan, and at this juncture Jeeves entered with the vital oolong. I clutched at it like a drowning man at a straw hat.
P. G. WodehouseRead
Unlike the male codfish which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote humorously contrasts the unconditional love of a male codfish for its numerous offspring with the British aristocracy's negative view of their younger sons.
P. G. Wodehouse uses a clever analogy to highlight the difference in attitudes toward parental love. While a male codfish takes joy in its vast number of little ones, suggesting an instinctual and unconditional love, he juxtaposes this with the more critical and cynical perspective of the British aristocracy, which may harbor disdain or indifference toward its less favored offspring. This contrast serves to provoke thought about familial affection, societal expectations, and the disparities in parental sentiments across different species and social classes.
Themes
Parental LoveAristocracyHumorCodfishSociety
In practice
Example use cases
This quote could be used in a comedy routine discussing family dynamics.
More from P. G. Wodehouse
All quotes βWhile not exactly disgruntled, he was far from feeling gruntled. He spoke with a certain what-is-it in his voice, and I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.
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She fitted into my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing arm-chairs tight about the hips that season
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It was a nasty look. It made me feel as if I were something the dog had brought in and intended to bury later on, when he had time.
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Memories are like mulligatawny soup in a cheap restaurant. It is wiser not to stir them.
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It was a confusion of ideas between him and one of the lions he was hunting in Kenya that had caused A. B. Spottsworth to make the obituary column. He thought the lion was dead, and the lion thought it wasn't.
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