Mr Mumsford Essay

359 Words2 Pages
The short story „Mr Mumsford“ is about a man, who works as a janitor at a southern school for 27 years. Even though his complete name is Ralph Mumsford, all students, teachers and even the headmaster call him “Bibs”. He is named like that because he wore a pair of bib overalls on his first working day and since that day no one cared about his original name. Ralph is nearly six feet tall, very black and not particularly intelligent (cf l. 3). He is normally a very sensitive and peaceful man, but one day his anger blurt out of him (“I come to kill you,” said Bibs.) because he cannot stand to be nicknamed anymore. He threatens his boss, the headmaster. The janitor is once in his life very impulsive, open and tells directly what goes wrong (cf l. 17). After a whole 27 years being disrespected and ignored (cf l. 17-22) he complains about his nickname. Normally he must be quite reserved, for the reason that no one ever recognized that he feels bad about his nickname. He could have said much earlier that “Bibs” is a discrimination and detraction for him and that he wants to be called Ralph or Mr Mumsford. But for this action he appears not that confident. This insecurity is also shown in his lack of power of self-assertion. The headmaster has no huge problems to persuade Mr. Mumsford to let him alive and calm down again (cf l. 25ff). Ralph is no steadfast character and is easily convinced (cf. l. 28f). His spontaneous anger (or fury) is blown away from one second to another, when the principle looks tired. “You’ve been working too many hours.” (l. 36). He can immediately swop into his usual behaviour and be really helpful, attentive and gentlemanlike. Like it is said in the beginning of the story, he cannot kill anyone and is much too sensible and subordinated that he could ever be forceful enough. Mr Ralph Mumsford is, all in all, a man, who probably looks scaring and
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