Question

The peddler comes out as a person with a subtle sense of humour. How does this serve in lightening the seriousness of the theme of the story and also endear him to us?

Answer 1

The peddler doesn’t come across as a humorous person, although one can locate a subtle sense of humour in the way he thinks about the world as being a giant rattrap. He is singularly pleased by this thought of his because it provides him with the opportunity of thinking ‘ill’ of the world that is not kind to him. It is clearly visible that whenever he gets caught unaware, in the web of deceit spun by his scheming mind, he hides behind the thought that the world is a rattrap and he merely a prey. Thus, he lightens the mood and theme of the story and makes us endear him.

Answer 2

The peddler has a dry, cynical, and dark sense of humour, which serves as an important literary device to lighten the story’s heavy themes of poverty, loneliness, and desperation.

He finds delight in a philosophical metaphor that depicts the entire world as a massive rattrap created to entice human greed. This dark wit gives him an interesting method to think ill of a world that has never treated him well. When he is caught in the web of his own deceit, for example, getting lost in the forest after stealing from the crofter he employs, he humour as a defence mechanism, sarcastically portraying himself as a hapless creature caught in the world’s trap.

Furthermore, when the ironmaster threatens to call the sheriff, the peddler gives a humorous, theatrical speech warning the ironmaster that one day he, too, will be captured by a piece of pork. This smart survival instinct, along with his final fun act of signing his letter as ‘Captain von Stahle’, transforms him from a cruel criminal into a likeable, deeply human protagonist.