Goodbye, Mr. Chips

Throughout the novella, Brookfield’s “old boys,” or alumni, symbolize Mr. Chips’s commitment to memory and tradition. Chips, who dwells comfortably in the past, prides himself on remembering his students: their names, faces, and idiosyncrasies. Many of his former pupils, who remember him with equal fondness, visit him in his later years, especially those who have enrolled their sons at Brookfield; they provide him with crucial support during his conflict with Ralston, allowing him to continue teaching at Brookfield past his sixtieth year. After Chips’s retirement, visits from “old boys” offer a great solace, “more than anything else in the world that was still to be enjoyed” (61). The few occasions when he leaves Brookfield are usually to attend dinners in London of the Old Boys’ Club, of which he serves as president for a time. Particularly moving to him are visits from old boys who still remember his wife Katherine, who lived only briefly at Brookfield before dying in childbirth; in these few alumni, her memory lives on. Chips’s old boys, whom he considers his “children,” substitute in a way for his own child, who died with his wife. For him, they embody the generations-long legacy of his avuncular tenderness and dedication.