41 pages • 1 hour read
Dorothy L. SayersGaudy Night
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1935A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Poison-Pen Letters
The target for Annie’s hostility is female academics. These are women who spend their lives committing their thoughts to paper to expand the world’s storehouse of knowledge. Annie chooses the written word to commit her own thoughts to paper as well. Her weapon of choice is the same as the scholar’s most vital tool. Intellectual women once used to be called “women of letters.” Annie is a woman of poison-pen letters. She uses language to hurt, maim, and kill. The most vicious of her attacks is directed at a promising young student named Miss Newland. Because Newland devotes every waking hour to completing her studies, exhaustion makes her vulnerable to an attack upon her most valuable asset—her brain.
The poison-pen letter as a lethal weapon is demonstrated most clearly in Annie’s concerted attempt to destroy Newland’s life by destroying her mind. The girl receives dozens of these missives, all calculated to undermine her sanity. Any student nearing final exam time probably feels they are going insane. Annie tips the balance in favor of this belief by suggesting that Newland may actually be losing her mind. A few well-chosen words are enough to drive the girl to suicide. She is saved only because Harriet has the presence of mind to recognize her vulnerability to this kind of attack and preempt it.
Oxford University
Harriet views Oxford as something more than a geographical location. It is a haven from the stresses of the real world. Her scholarship is the only part of her life that hasn’t been tainted by scandal. While she remains safely ensconced within Oxford’s ivory towers, she can feel secure and at peace. The sonnet she attempts to write expresses her need to remain still. She chooses the metaphor of a spinning wheel where she positions herself at its unmoving center. Because she jealously protects her special relationship with the university and Shrewsbury College, she hesitates to invite Wimsey to help her solve the poison-pen problem. She associates him with her scandalous past, which she’s trying to forget.
She also identifies strongly with the female academics who populate its buildings and walks. It isn’t until Wimsey proves himself to be an intellectual match for her colleagues that she begins to see his kinship with the place as well. After this realization, her orientation changes, and she sides with Wimsey: “She thought: ‘He and I belong to the same world, and all these others are the aliens.’ And then: ‘Damn it all! this is our private fight—why should they have to join in?’” (421).
Harriet views Oxford as a refuge from the madness of the world. Ironically, her experiences after the Gaudy Night festivities are as macabre and dangerous as anything that she would encounter in the worst slum in London. It seems that Harriet must fight if she wants to preserve Oxford as her sanctuary. Miraculously, the atmosphere of paranoia and suspicion at Shrewsbury vanishes after Annie is apprehended. The novel ends with Wimsey and Harriet pledging their love as they admire the school grounds from the prospect of the Magdalen Bridge.
Reckless Youth
The motif of reckless youth is closely tied to the theme of choices and consequences. Gaudy Night contains numerous examples of young people acting carelessly. At one point, Wimsey asks, “Harriet! Are you going to tell me that all young men in their twenties are not fools?” (364). The novel supplies ample evidence for Wimsey’s belief. His nephew, St. George, is routinely strapped for cash. The young man then has the audacity to ask his uncle for thousands of pounds to clear his debts with no sense of responsibility for the consequences of his own actions. He subsequently races his car to get inside the gates before curfew and wraps the auto around a telegraph pole, resulting in multiple injuries. Even when he’s being helpful in identifying the Poison-Pen, he only encounters the woman at all because he has scaled the wall around Fellows’ Garden on a dare.
The wall near Fellows’ Garden proves to be a nexus for much bad behavior. Harriet apprehends young Pomfret scaling the same wall to dump Miss Cattermole inside. She, in turn, is so drunk that she can’t find her way home alone and proceeds to become sick in the bushes. While suffering a terminal hangover the next morning, Cattermole receives a lecture from Harriet about taking some responsibility for her life but retorts that she doesn’t want to be in college at all. She’s an indifferent student and only attends to please her parents. This admission infuriates Harriet, who sees Cattermole as an unworthy candidate taking the space of some deserving girl who would value a higher education. None of Oxford’s undergraduates seem to demonstrate much in the way of brains, despite the school’s reputation for intellectual excellence.
