How would you characterize the three men in Jerome's Three Men in a Boat?

The narrator is known as J. We don’t know what he does for a living, but he’s an avid storyteller. He likes to go off on tangents whenever something reminds him of a story from the past. We get the impression that he’s somewhat lazy. He says in Chapter XV: “I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” Yet he seems to be the one who holds the...

The narrator is known as J. We don’t know what he does for a living, but he’s an avid storyteller. He likes to go off on tangents whenever something reminds him of a story from the past. We get the impression that he’s somewhat lazy. He says in Chapter XV: “I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.” Yet he seems to be the one who holds the group together.

William Stanley Harris is another gentleman who doesn’t seem to have a “real” job. And he’s the kind of person who thinks he knows how to do something, when it turns out that he really doesn’t. In Chapter XI, he tries to make scrambled eggs for breakfast for everyone. This attempt does not go well.

George works at a bank six days a week. Yet J. claims that George sleeps there the whole time. Perhaps the responsibilities of his job foster his tendencies to be more organized and decisive than his two friends are. He can sometimes become confused or clumsy. But he steps up and cooks Irish stew one night – something the other two men could not have done or even initiated.