Detective fiction is a genre that emphasizes the fear of social disorder through crime and attempts to reassure and re-stabilize its audience through the character of the detective, who is a barrier against the destruction of civilization. The detective archetype changed in the 1920s due to the aftermath of World War I, with none more famous that Dorothy Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey. The early Wimsey novels, especially Whose Body?, published in 1923, were the beginning of a new era of detective fiction, setting the precedent for the genre from that point forward. Whose Body? creates a Modernist view of detective fiction that reflected the feelings of the audience it was written for through its use of class themes, embodiments of good and evil, reconstruction of the social order, and the archetype of the reconstructing detective.
In the 1880s, the dissatisfaction with the social order of Britain was obvious, as “… society had been divided into the masses and the classes” (Cannadine, 109). Britain was quickly becoming a democracy, with a three-tiered system, involving the aristocracy, the middle class, and the workmen, also known as the plebeians (128). Even with these distinctions, the lines between classes were blurring. Ordinary people no longer saw society as a hierarchy as they argued for a more homogenous British culture. By the early 1900s, the British aristocracy was falling out of power and favor, and by the end of World War I, they were practically gone altogether. Forty-eight percent of male members of upper-class families died between 1880 and 1939, most of whom perished during the Great War (Christopher, 307). The aristocracy made up the majority of military officers, the positions filled with the young nobility. Because of their education—which was usually due to their family upbringing—young men held a high level of access to positions of privilege, such as military offices (Scott, 162). In fact, the military and police preferred this system, as it ensured that the state’s power would not be undermined. Since the upper class had lost their major role in Parliament as the government became more democratic, they attempted to regain power by leading the nation at war, especially since the majority of the population thought that the conflict would be over within a year and would not require the level of resources that it would in actuality. Lionel Tennyson, grandson of the poet laureate, wrote “… that he dressed and packed in feverish haste, so anxious was [he] not to run any chance of missing the war” (Christopher 305). This view was shared by a large portion of young noblemen, who sought leadership and glory on the battlefield. They did not find it. According to Christopher, “Britain blamed the officer class for the endless bloodshed; now it turned its attention to righting the wrongs of an inequitable society” (307). With so many men lost to the war and the aristocratic officers having lost favor in the eyes of the public, Britain was forced to give the vote to everyone, even women. World War I “… discredited military caste and pre-war social hierarchy” (Cannadine 127), and the era of the aristocracy had reached its swan song.
After the war, the Fourth Reform Act of 1918 was signed, reforming the electoral system in Britain and giving women the vote, and democracy began full-scale in Britain. An unofficial class was created, which was referred to as the “new poor” (Cannadine 130) and was made up of officers from the war who could not find appropriate jobs for men of their stature and had to resort to finding lower-class work in order to make a living. Like Lord Peter Wimsey, these men were either forced to live off of their family’s money and take up eccentric hobbies to stave off boredom or find a career that they would have previous considered to be unworthy of their attention. In 1927, A.M. Carr-Saunders and D. Caradog Jones collected data for a survey, ultimately concluding that the upper class had been removed from society (131). Despite the decline of aristocratic influence, “… a cult of inequality remained” (142), according to R. H. Tawney, and though the upper class did not hold an overabundance of political power, they still remained at the top of the social hierarchy. The modern era had arrived, and with England in a treacherous position between their struggle to hold onto their colonies, and the democratic reinventing of their nation, the titles and properties the upper class had accumulated since the country was first formed did not hold the political sway it once did.
Between the end of the Great War in 1918 and the perceived end of the aristocracy in 1927, the upper class became stereotyped as “gentleman”. While this title was merely a formality, the personage it embodied typically had a “… social status with increased significance in social control” (Scott 90). These gentlemen were created through a system of elitism, especially due to the “old-boy network” of public schools such as Eton, and higher-level institutions like Oxford and Cambridge (107). These connections led to more influential positions, such as in the military or police force, even if the young bourgeoise were not the most qualified. From this character stemmed the satirized version of nobility; the snob. Snobbery was “… an essentially unconscious ideological production of modernity” (Latham 265), according to George Orwell, and this is where Lord Peter Wimsey comes in. With the “… ideal of the gentleman… preserved as an icon of intellectual sophistication, the snob emerged as a figure of preposterous excess…” (266), Dorothy Sayers crafted a character that played a major role in both the creation and dissemination of the view of the upper-class snob using satire toward the elite.
Lord Peter Wimsey is the most famous of the English snobs, a “… figure of cultural distinction before a substantial public…” (Latham 266). The snob detective is meant to be a stereotype of ridicule, born out of the exaggerated characteristics of Sherlock Holmes and Bertie Wooster, two other gentleman detectives, and the publics disinclined view of the aristocracy following World War I. As a young nobleman, Wimsey is a charming, if somewhat flippant, icon of the world of the aristocracy that was becoming less a status of respect and more of a formality. Lord Peter is the very picture of a gentleman: “… a collection of slightly comic stereotypes whose knowledge knows no limits and whose bravery and physical prowess produce the most miraculous accomplishments” (270). Whose Body? introduces the reader to a seemingly frivolous and foolhardy detective, who treats detective work as a hobby and has no real gravity in any situation. However, as the novel progresses, and as Lord Peter’s character grew throughout the series, the audience discovers that their hero is inherently flawed and filled with a deep respect for humanity, and a deep fear of himself.
Lord Peter represents the subset of detective that is defined as “the reconstructing detective” by Jennifer Halloran. The reconstructing detective is an archetype that appeared from 1919 to 1939 and was commented upon by W. H. Auden in his treatise on detective fiction in 1948. The reconstructing detective represented a populace who was unsure about their national identity after World War I and was offered control through detective fiction by which “… the chaos of the modern world could be set right and the… past… could be regained” (Halloran, 140). While Halloran speaks of the reconstructing detective as a representation of the decline of colonization by Britain after the war, this character can also be seen within the context of domestic policy. The nation was reeling after the heavy casualties from World War I and the influenza epidemic in 1918, and the loss of so many of their educated young men negated the Holmesian “… embodiment of justice and the masculinist scientific code” (139) that represented a strong nationalist identity, but instead required an internally flawed detective. Peter Wimsey represented the mindset of the British populace; his internal turmoil resulted from the traumatic experience of World War I, as did the public’s. The reconstructing detective sought “… to reform the ideal social order… [while remaining] fundamentally disconnected from the rest of society, replicating the isolation felt among much of the English populace” (141). Throughout Whose Body?, Peter is attempting to retain the social order that he is familiar with, yet finds it crumbling around him, and is then forced to recreate his world view, even if it is only reconstructed in his mind, isolating himself from the other members of his class who remain within the old social order.
The old-world order is explored briefly in chapter seven of Whose Body?. Lord Peter is forced to go to a lunch with members of the aristocracy in order to keep his plans from unraveling. The simplicity and frivolity of this group of people is shown, firstly, in the way that Peter must be dressed. Bunter insists that he cannot go to the lunch until he has changed and been made presentable. Peter protests, because his priorities are in the world that he is reconstructing, not the old order he is forced to adhere to. Bunter is not moved, and Peter arrives, properly immaculate, to the lunch, once again compliant with the aristocratic standard that is continuously perpetrated, despite the lack of need for it. The lunch conversation is led by Lord Peter, as he talks about alibis and psychological facets; yet another trait of the reconstructing detective, who is supposed to be “… acutely aware of their own psychological makeup, and have the ability to understand the psychologies of others” (Halloran, 140). This trait is explored later in the novel, but this is a prime example of Peter’s psychological assessments of himself and others. The brevity of the scene shows the lack of necessity for this sort of activity; the main point of contention, Milligan’s speech at the Duchess of Denver’s bazaar, is only a ruse, created by Peter in order to gather information for the case. Nothing about this lunch is ultimately real; the bazaar is fake, and the hypothetical alibis that Peter uses to explain his detective work are talked about as lies in the hypothetical scenario, which puts them as untruths in two planes of reality. This shows that the upper class is becoming a pretense; the people who inhabit this class are allowed to live the same type of lives, but the power they hold on reality and society is diminishing quickly.
Surprisingly, the connection between the old-world order and the new is not Lord Peter, but Bunter. While Peter is reconstructing his personal status quo to fit the psychologically challenging environment he finds himself in after the war, Bunter remains impersonal to either; he is loyal to Lord Peter, and his two major roles in the novel are gathering information from his equals in order to further Peter’s discoveries about his aristocratic contemporaries. Bunter and Lord Peter are inherently the same machine, but two separate parts. Peter is the mind, while Bunter is the eyes and ears, as shown by his photography work and his letter to Lord Peter, which details his conversation with Freke’s valet. His tasks involve subverting the expectations of those who have worked for Julian Levy and Freke and helping Peter to solve the mystery facing him and reconstruct their place in society.
In Chapter Four, Bunter is a perfect representation of the bridging between classes. As Mr. Graves, Sir Reuben Levy’s valet, says, “… you may find it to your advantage to be in a titled family, but there’s less thought of that these days…” (Sayers, 46). Mr. Graves represents the opinions of the middle-class in the 1920s, who viewed social order as less of a hierarchy and more of a democracy. Even though the aristocratic families still existed, they had lost power and political control, and so Bunter’s position as a servant to a gentleman would not have held much sway in their world. The social world has changed, and Lord Peter’s disconnect with the lower classes is what makes Bunter so invaluable, as he is both involved in the working class and the aristocracy, and therefore can travel between the two in order to fulfill his purpose. He does this again in Chapter Nine, in which he converses with Julian Freke’s manservant, John Cummings. Bunter gets Cummings drunk in order to urge him into giving up information about Freke’s character, and does so in a way that subverts the expectations of Bunter’s class equals: “… it has always been my experience that the best way to gain a man’s confidence is to let him suppose that one takes advantage of one’s employer” (139), he says, making sure that the reader is aware of his strong relationship with Lord Peter and demonstrating his unique grasp of the human psyche in terms of the lower classes. Bunter stands on both sides of society and has both the knowledge of the aristocracy and the working class. He is able to manipulate his position into allowing him access to both sides and does not fully identify as one social class or the other.
The final facet of Modernist detective fiction is the book’s representation of evil, which is found in Sir Julian Freke. Freke’s character is the centerpiece of the detective story, as shown by the formula laid out by W. H. Auden in “The Guilty Vicarage”. Auden says that, “The detective story has five elements: the milieu, the victim, the murderer, the suspects, and the detective” (Auden 17). The milieu is the members of the aristocratic class featured in this story, among whose number the killer is eventually found; the victim is Sir Reuben Levy, a newly-minted member of the upper-class; the murderer is Sir Julian Freke; the suspects are those working with or against Reuben Levy, who are members of the working class, such as Mr. Milligan, Mr. Crimplesham, and Mr. Wicks; and the detective is, of course, Lord Peter Wimsey, with a slight nod to Mr. Bunter. In looking at each of these elements, it seems obvious that the suspects would be found innocent, as they are the only members of the working class present in this categorization. The literary evidence—which is plain to the reader, but not to Lord Peter—implies that the murderer will be a member of the upper class, which is eventually revealed to be the case.
As Sayers transforms Peter from a charming genius to “… a properly novelistic character complete with… an elaborate psychological composition” (Latham 270), she also transforms her villains from Freke’s perversion of potential and powerful agent of evil into more humanized and less notable characters of disorder (Stock and Stock 16). Freke is truly a betrayer of the good: he is “… powerful, famous, socially significant; he possesses and indeed exercises the capacity to benefit mankind… glacially remorseless… doubly dangerous… and [whimsically humorous] concerning crime” (15). What makes Freke the true embodiment of evil is not his actions, but the fact that he has the ability to do good—and indeed, does it through his medical work—yet succumbs to his primal emotions, which leads him to murder.
If his murderous actions were not enough, Sir Julian is a clear embodiment of two of the Seven Deadly Sins: Lust and Envy. Though Sayers did not seek to embody specific Sins in her characters, her background and work as a Christian author meant that she was well-versed in Scriptural allusions and was able to create a “… relationship between her characterization and this organized conception of sinfulness” (Brown 56). The portrayal of universal evil is recognizable to readers of Sayers’ novels, and combined her varied approach of the detective genre, she gained much of her appeal for an audience base. Julian Freke is an especially complex villain because of his compassion toward the Russian mother and her child, providing free treatment when they cannot afford it (Sayers 168). However, it is eventually discovered—through a hallmark of detective fiction, in a confession letter—that Freke is actually motivated by Lust and Envy, and that “… the idea of Sin is meaningless to him” (Brown 58). This is revealed in his own book, The Psychological Base of the Conscience, that Lord Peter reads when attempting to slot the pieces of his puzzle together. Freke writes that “The knowledge of good and evil is an observed phenomenon, attendant upon a certain condition of the braincells, which is removable” (Sayers 129). As a scientist, Freke has seemingly removed himself from good and evil and has taken an objective stance on it, which allows him to commit the crimes of passion that he does.
These crimes are passionate, nevertheless, and therefore fallible to human error due to emotion. While his book may declare good and evil to be removable, his confessional letter suggests otherwise: “Of all human emotions… the sexual appetite produces the most violent and… most persistent reactions… lust to slay and the primitive human desire for revenge… for the satisfaction of myself” (Sayers 185). Freke’s sexual desire for Christine Levy drives him to kill her husband, and though he treats this murder as an experiment, it is clear that he is not objective in this matter; he has not removed himself from good or evil. He acknowledges that his actions are immoral because of their fulfillment of his desire to extract revenge. His Lust for Christine becomes Envy toward her husband, and that is the Sin that causes him to kill Sir Reuben Levy. Freke’s emotions toward Levy “… is an intense form of evil that grew beyond simple sexual jealously to become an extreme example of Envy…” (Brown 89). Freke’s embodiment of true evil is what makes him a villain, but the whodunit nature of his character is what makes him an especially good one. As the murderer, according to Auden, Freke refuses to suffer his love’s denial by Christine Levy, and his demonic pride—another of the Deadly Sins—leads to his capture, yet not his repentance; he attempts suicide, which implies a refusal of repentance (21), and though his evil is contained, it has not been eradicated from the world, leaving it in a tumultuous state, and signifying a further journey for the detective.
Sir Julian’s representation of evil parallels Lord Peter’s embodiment of good. According to Halloran, “Detective fiction explicitly emphasizes the fear of social disintegration through the character of the detective who… contains the evil and stands as the only bastion between civilization and the chaos of crime” (150). The reconstructing detective, however, was unique because he explored the human psyche in order to differentiate the criminal from the innocent, even if the two often appeared to be the same in manner and status. When discussing the case with Parker, Peter frets that his motivations may be morally unsound, since he sees detective work as “… a hobby to me… And I feel as if I oughtn’t ever to find it amusin’. But I do” (Sayers 121). Detectives in the Modernist period were driven to their work because of a lack of desire to do anything else, and Lord Peter is no exception. While Peter is doing good in his work, his enjoyment of it worries him, because he is influencing the lives of real people and investigating cases of life and death. This worry is paralleled in Julian Freke’s confession letter, though Freke does not have the same moral qualms: “… when I wrote my book, my original sensual impulse to kill Sir Reuben Levy had already become profoundly modified by my habits of thought. To the animal lust to slay and the primitive human desire for revenge, there was added the rational intention of substantiating my own theories for the satisfaction of myself and the world” (185). Freke acknowledges his emotional desires, but also treats Levy’s murder as an experiment, one that will be beneficial to mankind. Both Freke and Peter’s work is impactful to those outside of themselves, and while they both desire different results, their motives are very similar; they are curious about human nature and physiology and enjoy undertaking unusual tasks in order to learn more about humanity. It is thrilling to both of them, and they do not give much thought to the effect their actions will have on others.
Freke’s class status means that he is essentially invisible at first to Peter, which is what makes the epiphany in Chapter Eight so shocking. As a product of the society that was created before World War I, Peter has come to expect that all high class, well-educated people are part of the “gentleman’s club” of British society, and Freke certainly seems to fit the bill. He has been educated at Cambridge, part of the “old boy network”; he is from a well-known family; and he has numerous accolades to his name (Sayers, 132). It is no wonder that Peter originally does not suspect him, as he is even a part of the Army Medical Advisory Board, which connects him to yet another aspect of Peter’s own history and identity. This is why he is so distraught over his confirmation of Freke’s guilt in his mind, and the solving of the case; it breaks down his mental barriers and triggers a flashback from his service in World War I, when Peter discovered his own flawed nature.
While the war may have uncovered the false idea of high-class people being the paradigm of good, it takes the confrontation with Julian Freke’s guilt for Peter to fully reckon with it. It is not an easy reckoning; Peter is understandably shaken in the graveyard scene when the body of Sir Reuben Levy is discovered. Sayers shows this through a switch from a third-person omniscient point of view to a fragmented second-person: “More graves. A headstone shouldered crookedly aslant. A trip and jerk over the edge of the rough grass. The squeal of gravel under your feet” (Sayers 178). The graveyard scene not only represents the finality of the case, but also the death of the classist idea of good; Freke is the murderer, and the reconstructing detective has found himself in an entirely new world.
Through Bunter, Sir Julian, and Lord Peter, the hallmarks of the Modernist detective genre are clear. Bunter is the connection between classes, creating a democratic tie between the upper-class and working-class, and helping to restore society. Bunter reflects the lack of a stable societal hierarchy, since he is viewed as an equal by Lord Peter, and other members of Bunter’s own class, has knowledge of the conventions of the aristocracy, and served alongside Peter in World War I. He does not have a singular class identity, which is an example of the changing class system after World War I. Sir Julian is the novel’s embodiment of evil, but in a way that breaks down social hierarchy; he is a wealthy member of the upper class, well-educated, and a parallel of the hero himself. Moreover, he claims that his crimes are not singularly passionate, but are committed for the purpose of experimentation, one that will be of benefit to the scientific community. His carnal lust and envy reflect a savagery that was just beginning to be seen in the British people themselves rather than from outside sources, what with the decline of colonization and overzealous nationalism. Until that point, evil usually came from outside of the empire, and good was found inside the nation. Freke creates a complex psychological evil that can only be combatted by an equally introspective and psychologically complex detective. Lord Peter is the Modernist reconstructing detective; he begins the story in a stable life position, but as he investigates the murder of Sir Reuben Levy, his world begins to break down. He is caught between enjoying his work and feeling guilty for taking delight in the pain of others, and when it is revealed that the murderer is of the same class and type of education, he must look at the evil within himself. Fear of the “other”, the criminal, and the murderer now becomes “… a fear of the self, because the breakdown of every type of social order implies a splitting of the unifying psyche as well” (Halloran, 150). The Modernists felt the alienation of social roles after World War I and looked for a comprehensive knowledge of the self to rely on. Peter Wimsey’s conflict with his inner self and his equal status to the murderer, who W. H. Auden refers to as an “aesthetically defiant individual” (21), creates a conflict in which the detective must become the exceptional individual who must put aside his ambition in order to recreate the ethical standard that has been disrupted by the murderer.
The British Modernist period began within a difficult time, in which a large demographic of England’s populace had been killed, and hierarchal society was being pushed aside to make way for a more democratic system. The detective fiction of this period reflected the turmoil that was felt by the nation, and a new hero rose from the chaos in order to reconstruct order. Lord Peter Wimsey and his first appearance in Whose Body? begin a tradition of psychologically complex detectives who were more easily able to be attributed to the working class, unlike the lofty Holmes or the ridiculously aristocratic Wooster. Though Wimsey was somewhat of a foolhardy charmer, his character development over the course of the novel and the series set a pattern for the other mystery writers of the twentieth century, concerned with morality and the consequences of viewing oneself as superior to the system.
WORKS CITED
Auden, W. H. “The Guilty Vicarage.” Detective Fiction: A Collection of Critical Essays, edited by Robin W. Winks, Prentice-Hall, Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1980, pp. 15-21.
Brown, Janice. “All Have Sinned: The ‘Competent Delineation of Character’ in the Early Novels.” The Seven Deadly Sins in the Work of Dorothy Sayers, The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1998, pp. 53-105.
Cannadine, David. “The Twentieth Century: Social Identities and Political Identities.” Class in Britain, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1998, pp. 109-142.
Christopher, Bryant. “Tattered Remains of Old Glory”. Entitled: A Critical History of the British Aristocracy, Transworld Publishers, London, 2017, pp. 301-313.
Halloran, Jennifer A. Keeping the Peace: Detective Fiction and the British Imperial Project, 1844-1939. 2001. University of North Carolina, PhD Dissertation. ProQuest, https://search-proquest.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/pqdtglobal/docview/305554349/C9FC4CAE61614AB4PQ/1?accountid=14663.
Latham, Sean Patrick. Snobs, Mobs, and Celebrities: The Modernist Novel in the Cultural Marketplace. 1996. Brown University, PhD Dissertation. ProQuest, https://search-proquest-com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/docview/304599650/58E760B865CA4D12PQ/1?accountid=14663.
Sayers, Dorothy. Whose Body? HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY, 1923.
Scott, John. “Property and Privilege in Britain.” The Upper Classes, The MacMillan Press, London, 1982, pp. 90-166.
Stock, R. D. and Barbara Stock. “The Agents of Evil and Justice in the Novels of Dorothy L. Sayers.” As Her Whimsey Took Her: Critical Essays on the Work of Dorothy L. Sayers, edited by Margaret P. Hannay, The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio, 1979, pp. 14-22.
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