Summary Of A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig

Joseph Cooper

ENGL-1100

Prof. Ryder

10/25/15

“The Chronicle of Roast Pig”

“A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig” by Charles Lamb is a tale about a swineherd named Ho-ti, who left his oldest son, Bobo to watch over the pigs. Bobo, of course, likes to play with fire.(coincidence?) Bobo then goes on to set the pig cottage on fire and it burns down to ashes, cooking all nine pigs with it. He began smelling something he had never smelt in the air. His mouth began to water and salivate. Bobo started searching for any alive pigs, to no avail; although, he did find a dead pig, which he stuck his fingers in. Bobo burnt his fingers and human nature took over as he put them in his mouth. He soon convinced his father Ho-ti to try it and he tasted the amazing

flesh of the pig. The discovery made Ho-ti and Bobo burn down their cottage very frequently and the neighbors started to notice something was going on. The two were sent to trial and let the court taste their discovery, which led to a verdict of Not Guilty. Shortly thereafter everyone started to burn their houses down and this led to the closing of all the insurance offices.
In the second part of the essay Lamb talks about a piece of plum-cake that was given to him by his aunt, that he had given away to a homeless man, without trying a piece first. He also comments a short piece of knowledge on how people whip pigs to death as a way to tenderize the meat. Lamb recalls something he heard while teaching that the pleasure tasted by humans may outweigh the pain and suffrage felt by the pigs.

There was one particular thing that I thought Charles Lamb did well in his essay “Dissertation Upon Roast Pig” which was providing the reader with a good narrative about how humans came about eating pigs. One weakness that I found in the essay is in the second half when Lamb talks about a plum cake. That has nothing, at all, to do with roasting a pig and takes the essay off of the subject.
The sensory details Lamb gave were pretty good because it made you feel like you were actually there.

Here is a good example of the sensory details that were used by Lamb,

“A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burnt his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away with his fingers, and for the first time in his life (in the world's life indeed, for before him no man had known it) he tasted -- crackling!” (Lamb 267)

These details are good because Lamb tells us how Bobo started to salivate as he started to smell the roasted pig and how he put his burnt fingers in his mouth to cool them off. This made me think of a time when I picked up something hot like a pizza roll and quickly put my finger in my mouth to ease the burning sensation. With this being said, the essay had weaknesses as well as strengths, if not more.

The essay was weakened because it was not clear as to why the author included the use of Latin. There was Latin used on many occasions that I do not feel was very

necessary.
“Of all the delicacies in the whole mundus edibilis, I will maintain it to be the most delicate -- princeps obsoniorum.
I speak not of your grown porkers -- things between pig and pork -- those hobbydehoys… with no original speck of the amor immunditiae, the hereditary failing of the first parent… the mild forerunner, or praeludium, of a grunt.” (Lamb 269)
The use of the Latin words made it unclear what the author (Lamb) was trying to accomplish.

It seemed like he was rushing to get this essay done and needed a word requirement, so he just threw in some Latin words. It also made this part of the essay a lot more difficult to read than it had to be and already was after the narrative. This is not the only reason that weakened the essay by Lamb.

Another reason that weakened the essay and thought a weak point of it was when Lamb came out of nowhere and basically blindsided us with the topic of plum cake. “I remember a touch of conscience in this kind at school. My good old aunt, who never parted from me at the end of a holiday without stuffing a sweet-meat, or some nice thing, into my pocket, had dismissed me one evening with a smoking plum-cake, fresh from the oven” (Lamb 270)

Plum cake has nothing to do with the roasting of a pig, so this part of the essay was irrelevant and it was not needed at all. The essay would be improved if Lamb gave the readers some background information as to why the transition was

made.

It was a good thing that the narrative was a part of the essay, because without it there would have been no point why the essay was written. If Lamb would have explained to the reader why he uses the Latin it possibly would have made more sense. It also could have helped if he explained why he comes in and talks about his aunt’s plum cake.

Work Cited
Lamb, Charles. “A Dissertation Upon Roast Pig.” The Norton Reader 13th ed. Peterson, Linda, John Brereton, Joseph Bizup, Anne Fernald, Melissa Goldthwaite. New York: Norton, 2012. 266-271. Print