Certain People of No Importance
Certain People of No Importance opens as a mock genealogy of the Crabtree family, tracing them from Adam Crabtree of Eden, Mesopotamia, who married Eve Sparerib after his first wife Lilith, through their son Seth, and onward through Noah Crabtree the shipmaster, Arphaxad, Terah, Abraham, the first Reuben Crabtree, Solomon Crabtree the spice importer, and the knight Bors at the Round Table, down to the American branch settled at San Rafael. The family is marked by restlessness, longevity, large families, and genealogies so tangled that no Crabtree can state a relation without consulting the family tree each carries. The narrative then settles on the household of Reuben Crabtree's daughter, May Brewer, and her husband, in their San Rafael mansion. The Brewer daughters, Vicky, Tina, Esme, and Lou, along with their unnamed sisters mentioned later (Alice, Nellie, Dessie, Lola, and others married to Yelland and Torrey), spend their days elaborately dressed and consumed with husband hunting. The girls discuss Tina's prospective marriage to Vernon Yelland, contingent on his first wife Grace Fairchild's death in 1894. When a visitor is sighted approaching the house, the sisters execute a rehearsed ambush drill: Vicky lassos from the roof, Esme and Lou guard with a shotgun and pitchfork, and Tina locks the gate and chains the watchdog. The visitor proves to be only Mr. Brewer, their father, returning home and asking, as always, whether anyone has married yet; he is answered with silence and visible despair. Aunt Fanny and Aunt Lucy visit, having adjusted to a ferry and train schedule change. Mrs. Brewer, Fanny, and Lucy converse in genealogical riddles about cousin Amelia and the Crabtree-Johnson-Tompkins connections, exchange absurd recipes for fruit cake and salad, and discuss which daughters and relations married in which months, with Tina's cat's kittens mentioned alongside the daughters' marriages. Mrs. Brewer asks after "Pa Crabtree," hoping for news of his death, which Fanny regretfully cannot supply. Mr. Brewer returns, asks again if anyone has married, and leaves disappointed. In a final scene, May and her husband Stephen do dishes together, and Stephen recounts the family's subsequent fates: Esme's death, Vicky working at Napa, Tina married to a poor preacher with stepchildren, Lou married to an old man in Buenos Aires, Bertie unhappily married, Lucy separated from Harry, Nelly's husband a drunkard, Alice beaten by her husband, Bob's wife dead, and the family business bankrupt, leaving Stephen washing dishes in a mortgaged house on remittances. May offers that there are compensations, and Stephen agrees: her father, Pa Crabtree, has finally died.
By Christopher Ward · Genre: Satire, Comic Fiction, Domestic Fiction · 4 chapters · 2,288 words
First lines
The Crabtree family is ancient and honorable. Though the beginnings of the American branch are obscure, the family's origin is undoubted. Its founder was the well-known Adam Crabtree, a landed proprietor whose country estate was notable for its extent and magnificence, but especially for a certain famous tree, which bore beautiful but bitter apples, called crabs, whence the family took its name. He had perhaps the largest private zoölogical garden ever assembled, unequaled for completeness, until one of his descendants, Noah Crabtree, built up his collection.
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Genres
- Satire — The entire work is a satirical critique of Victorian/Edwardian society, marriage culture, and social conventions, using exaggeration and ridicule to expose the absurdity of women's constrained roles and the marriage obsession that dominates their lives.
- Comic Fiction — The narrative relies entirely on absurdist humor and farcical situations, including trap-laying for husbands, nonsensical recipes, confusing family genealogies, and ridiculous misunderstandings that create comedy through exaggeration.
- Domestic Fiction — The work centers on household management and family life, specifically the Brewer family's domestic sphere, their daily activities, interactions, and the women's roles within the home and domestic economy.
- Gender Satire — The work specifically satirizes rigid gender roles, the limited options available to women, and their desperate dependence on marriage as the sole path to security and respectability.
Tags
genealogy · family saga · domestic comedy · marriage · satire · mock-heroic · American fiction · 1890s · California · Victorian era · family dysfunction · social aspiration
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Certain People of No Importance is listed on Textopian as a short story by Christopher Ward, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Short story
- Author: Christopher Ward
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Satire, Comic Fiction, Domestic Fiction, Gender Satire, Farce
- Length: 2,288 words
- Structure: 4 chapters, 65 paragraphs
- Reading fit: Standard (8th-9th Grade)
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- Work identity for Certain People of No Importance by Christopher Ward
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