Genre and Gender in Selected Works by Detection Club Writers Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie
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SEVENTY YEARS OF SWEARING UPON ERIC THE SKULL: GENRE AND GENDER IN SELECTED WORKS BY DETECTION CLUB WRITERS DOROTHY L. SAYERS AND AGATHA CHRISTIE A dissertation submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Monica L. Lott May 2013 Dissertation written by Monica L. Lott B.A., The University of Akron, 2003 B.S., The University of Akron, 2003 M.A., The University of Akron, 2005 Ph.D., Kent State University, 2013 Approved by Tammy Clewell Chair, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Vera Camden Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Robert Trogdon Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Maryann DeJulio Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Clare Stacey Member, Doctoral Dissertation Committee Accepted by Robert Trogdon Chair, English Department Raymond A. Craig Dean, College of Arts and Sciences ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements.................................................................................... iv Introduction..................................................................................................1 Codification of the Genre.................................................................2 The Gendered Detective in Sayers and Christie ..............................9 Chapter Synopsis............................................................................11 Dorothy L. Sayers, the Great War, and Shell-shock..................................20 Sayers and World War Two in Britain ..........................................24 Shell-shock and Treatment ............................................................28 Women and War ............................................................................32 War and Detection .........................................................................34 Continuing the Treatment ..............................................................46 Dorothy L. Sayers: Gender and the Feminist Label of Gaudy Night .........52 A Wimsey History .........................................................................53 Feminism in 1930s Detective Fiction ............................................55 Gaudy Night as Feminist Text........................................................56 The “F” Word.................................................................................61 Annie Wilson, Villain with a Voice...............................................64 Sayers’s Complexity ......................................................................70 Agatha Christie’s Wars: Nostalgia and Service.........................................76 Christie’s Nostalgia........................................................................79 World War One as Current Event..................................................81 Male Camaraderie..........................................................................86 Addressing Shell-shock .................................................................97 World War Two: Nostalgia Redux ..............................................104 Agatha Christie and the Modern Mystery................................................112 Craft in Context............................................................................122 Christie and the High/Low Divide...............................................125 The Self-Conscious Author..........................................................132 Poirot: A Foreign Brit ..................................................................137 A Modern Marple ........................................................................142 Bibliography ............................................................................................152 iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my committee members for their support and guidance. Dr. Tammy Clewell, the Chair of my Doctoral Dissertation Committee, has given hours of advice and guidance. I am grateful for her willingness to share so much time with me and I appreciate her patience in agreeing to mentor me. I would also like to thank Dr. Vera Camden, Dr. Robert Trogdon, and Dr. Maryann DeJulio for agreeing to serve on my Doctoral Dissertation Committee. Their input has been invaluable and I have valued the chance to work with them and receive their feedback. My thanks go to Leah Schell-Barber, Julie Aronson, and Dr. Heather L.H. Jordan who offered suggestions at various draft stages and brought fresh eyes to the project. I would not be here if not for the blessing of having so many amazing teachers in my life. Mr. Dane Mitchell at Badger High School was a kind mentor and supportive advisor; he is missed. Thanks also to Dr. Hillary Nunn at The University of Akron for her advice and warm support. My parents-in-law, Jim and Lori Leigh, had an unerring instinct for knowing when to provide take-out pizza, a supportive card, or a soft couch to crash on. I am so lucky to have joined their family. Thanks to my siblings Brian Lott and Rosemarie Thellman and Kathleen Lott, who could always be depended on for laughter and perspective. My parents Don and Ellen Lott provided a home filled with love, support, and books; I cannot thank them enough for all they have done to demonstrate humor, patience, and faith. And finally, my thanks go to my husband Justin. I had never thought of a space heater as a romantic birthday gift, but during the hours of work in the cold, clammy office basement, the heater (and my sounding board Samson) helped me stay warm through the completion of this project and regularly reminded me how happy and blessed I am to have you centering and supporting me with your love and encouragement iv My dissertation “Seventy Years of Swearing upon Eric the Skull: Genre and Gender in Selected Works by Detection Club Writers Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie” shows how the texts produced by Detection Club members Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie challenge assumptions about the value and role of popular genre fiction and demonstrate how the detective novel engages pressing social issues related to gender in modern Great Britain. Sayers and Christie addressed serious concerns of gender in relation to topics including war and an emerging market economy in inter-war Britain; however, because they were doing so in genre fiction, their insights have not been fully explored. The popularity of detective fiction, according to critics, has resulted in a lack of criticism and a distrust of the popular. Christie, more so than Sayers, has been ignored by critics because of her popularity and the formulaic nature of her fiction. Glenwood Irons claims that Christie’s popularity is responsible for the “general ignorance of the sheer volume of detective fiction written by women” (xi), while Alison Light theorizes that the dearth of Christie criticism, because of her popularity, is “an absence which the growth of ‘genre’ studies of popular fiction has yet to address” (64). My goal is to understand how Sayers and Christie responded to modern issues through their writing and to set their writing in context with contemporary concerns in inter-war Britain. I advocate for a reexamination of Sayers and Christie that goes beyond their popularity as writers of genre fiction and analyzes the ways in which their fiction incorporates modern concerns. My dissertation looks at the works of two significant writers and shows how they address the high/low boundary—the separation between literature and so-called popular writing—in their discussions of genre and gender. This dissertation has not been modeled on the scholarly monograph; rather I offer a series of related essays focusing on selected works by Sayers and Christie primarily written between World War One and World War Two. Approaching the dissertation as a set of essays allows me to link the topics loosely with the subjects of gender, war, 1 2 and nostalgia, yet permits a thorough discussion of the very different ways in which each woman addressed these issues. As I read and reread their works, I was struck by the way their texts provided both an entertaining narrative and reflected serious issues that did not seem to be in keeping with the seemingly formulaic nature of a detective story. Sayers and Christie were able to incorporate serious matters in their writing while earning readers through their compelling story- telling. Their texts demonstrate thematization of war and gender without losing an entertaining narrative. As I researched these topics, I came to realize that my analysis of their representations of war and gender would not easily and tidily come to a singular conclusion appropriate for a book. In the form of essays that are linked by subject matter yet are able to function as standalone works, my chapters can be published as independent journal articles or as chapters in other essay anthologies. As standalone essays, the chapters can thoroughly explore disparate attitudes toward war, gender, and nostalgia pair without being tied in to a goal of publication as a single text. Some portions of the Introduction have been incorporated as part of my essay “Genre for Justice: The Final Solution and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union as Works of Detective Fiction,” a chapter in Michael Chabon’s America: Magical Words, Secret Worlds, and Sacred Spaces , which will be published by Scarecrow Press in the fall of 2013. A version of my first chapter “Dorothy L. Sayers, the Great War, and Shell-shock” has been published in the Spring 2012 issue of Interdisciplinary Literary Studies. An earlier form of my second chapter “Reexamining the Feminist