Social Pressures In “The Japanese Quince“

2 Pages 577 Words

Social Pressures in “The Japanese Quince”

In the early 1900s, there were many social classes and each person in that class was expected to abide by its rules. “The Japanese Quince” takes place in an area called “The City”, which was the financial and commercial center of London and was also a very distinct area for social classes. Mr. Nilson, a businessman, is restricted by certain social rules as he meets another businessman, Mr. Tandrum, in a garden while admiring a beautiful tree. These certain social pressures have an effect on Mr. Nilson in this story.
One of these social pressures that affects Mr. Nilson is the social formality of being properly introduced to another person. His relationship with Mr. Tandrum is that they are neighbor and see each other every day but have never really been formal introduce to each other. When they both meet each other in the garden, they converse with each other by use of “small talk” instead of having a good conversation because of this social rule. Although they alike in so many ways and would probably become friends, the pressures from their society prevents this from ever becoming reality. In the end, they will never know if they could have become great friends because of this certain rule.
Because of another pressure from Mr. Nilson social class, he can never show his emotions in public. The reason for this is his respected profession of being a businessman. In this society, businessmen were usually part of the upper middle class, which probably had one of the harshest social rules for being proper in public. In turn, Mr. Nilson probably could not express his emotions for the beauty of the tree while Mr. Tandrum was standing next to him. However, he expressed his true emotions while he was alone in the garden for a while stating that a spring day like this could not be any more perfect and beautiful. This explains how much he cared about protecting his image ...