Critical Evaluation

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Penrod is an archetypal boy, resembling the earlier Tom Sawyer and the later Charlie Brown and Dennis the Menace, with his long-suffering dog, parents, friends, enemies, and an inability to avoid getting into trouble no matter what he attempts. Booth Tarkington writes ironically, but not without nostalgia and a certain amount of sentiment, about the unwritten code of conduct that sets boys at odds with all attempts to acculturate them into polite society.

Tarkington’s technique of tongue-in-cheek understatement adds to the humor of Penrod’s adventures, which are written to appeal to adults as well as children. While many of the situations and much of the dialogue (including the use of racial epithets) are dated, the central theme is timeless: boys yearning for excitement and accomplishment among their peers, while dodging their parents’ and teachers’ efforts to tame them. Penrod evokes small-town Americana in an age before electronic media and organized sports, when children spent most of their free time outdoors, using their imaginations to create their own entertainment. The children’s blunt honesty frequently exposes the self-serving hypocrisy of the adults around them, as does their unwitting parody of adult behavior. Penrod is frequently punished for doing the same things, for the same reasons, that adults do, only with less subterfuge and finesse. Thus, the novel comments on the human tendency to think the best of oneself and one’s actions, accord undeserved and sometimes begrudging respect to the rich and powerful at the expense of the hapless poor, and cover up mistakes by blaming others.

Some racial characterizations used in the chapters about Herman and Verman require comment. In Tarkington’s time, many such terms were not overtly pejorative, as they are today, but descriptive, and they are used in the text without rancor, except by the bully Rupe Collins. The obvious poverty of these boys and their family, with their untreated physical deformities and imprisoned father, evokes sympathy from current readers but is treated matter-of-factly by Penrod, who shamelessly exploits the boys in his sideshow as “savages” and “wild animals.” However, he considers them playmates and friends. It is not clear whether or not “Verman,” as a homophone of “vermin,” is intended to ridicule the ignorance of the boys’ parents. Of more serious concern is the chapter “Coloured Troops in Action,” in which Herman and Verman attack Rupe “in their simple, direct African way.” Here, Tarkington describes the boys as “beings in . . . lower stages of evolution” as compared to Penrod and Sam, “two blanched, slightly higher products of evolution.” This Darwinian justification for racial discrimination is an element of Tarkington’s writing that, while mirroring the attitudes prevalent a century ago, is inconsistent with twenty-first century sensibilities.

Worthy of note is the neat parallelism in the chapters where Penrod plays both the role of the unwanted younger brother in the way of his sister’s suitor and that of the suitor trying to get rid of his own girlfriend’s younger brother. Penrod’s singing is obnoxious to Bob, who gives him money to go away; Mitchy-Mitch’s crying is obnoxious to Penrod, who likewise pays off the little boy to keep him quiet. Both younger brothers become sick as a result of this ploy, by inappropriate eating, which results in both young women rejecting their admirers. Besides humor, the result of this parallel construction is a tacit comment on the universality of the roles humans play and the stories they enact from generation to generation. This, along with other recognizable boyhood events and feelings, elevates Penrod from amusing storytelling to profundity and earns its place among other classics of American literature.

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