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It is important to notice, for use in this section as well as in subsequent sections of this paper, that there is an identity implied between the narrator and the chimney. The first sentence of the story will inform the discerning reader that both the chimney and the man are beyond middle age: “I and my chimney, two grey-headed old smokers…”
By making the most of the identity between man and chimney, we will see that on this level the theme becomes one of an obsessive will of old age to “hold its own” against the exhaustive energy of youth. There are many references to age:
“Old myself, I take to oldness in things …” (p. 386)1“As for its settling, I like it. I, too, am settling, you know, in my gait.” (p. 401)“… we two smoky old philosophers …” (p. 406)“Some say that I have become a sort of mossy old misanthrope …” (p. 408)
Without involving ourselves in a plot rehash, we may observe that the main focus of the plot is the unwillingness of an old man to permit the destruction of a chimney with which he, to some extent, identifies himself. The chief protagonist in the plan to remove the chimney is the man's wife, and she is supported by the sentiments of their daughter. The daughter is, we have every right to assume, reasonably