the parse_file method (see the docs for HTML::Parser) returns a reference to the parser object. So $text is a HTML::Parser object, which you suspected. I haven't used H::P before, so i don't know how to print the contetn you want.. Glancing at the docs, you may need to set up a $p->handler() method that just print's as it goes..

Update: Look in the EXAMPLES section of the HTML::Parser man page for the example about printing the text that's inside the <title> element.