Jessie's bookish and romantic education has kept her ignorant of the realities of life, and her ignorance contributes to the comedy of Hoopdriver's half-clever, half-ridiculous improvised stories of life in Africa. Jessie has her own aspirations: "She was going to Live her Own Life, with emphasis." H.G. Wells's intention in The Wheels of Chance might be taken to be satirical, were his protagonists' circumstances not so closely related to his own history and that of his second wife, Catherine Robbins.