Scottishness in the Detective Fiction of Josephine Tey Master’S Diploma Thesis

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Tomáš Bačík Scottishness in the Detective Fiction of Josephine Tey Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph. D. 2016 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Tomas Bacik Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. for his helpful guidance and my wife for support and patience. Table of Contents 1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………………………… 1 2. Josephine Tey as a Writer of Detective Fiction …………………………….. 6 2.1. Josephine Tey …………………………………………………………….. 6 2.2. The Detective Fiction Josephine Tey …………………………….. 8 3. Josephine Tey and the Scottish Literary Scene ……………………………. 18 3.1. Introduction ……………………………………………………………….. 18 3.2. Scotland and National Identity ……………………………………… 19 3.3. Josephine Tey as a Scottish Writer ………………………………. 26 4. The Man in the Queue ……………………………………………………………….. 32 4.1. Introduction ................................................................. 32 4.2. The Thirty-Nine Steps Revisited …………………………………… 33 4.3. Symbolism of Scottishness ………………………………………….. 41 5. The Singing Sands .................................................................... 52 5.1. Introduction ………………………………………………………………. 52 5.2. From Cladday to Cladda ……………………………………………. 53 5.3. The Idea of Scottish Independence ……………………………… 65 6. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………. 72 7. Works Cited .............................................................................. 76 Appendix: List of Abbreviations ……………………………………………………… 81 Resumé (English) …......................................................................... 82 Resumé (Czech) …………………………………………………………………………….. 84 1. Introduction The genre of detective fiction developed gradually from the first half of the nineteenth century. The interwar period of the twentieth century witnessed one of its heydays, and the popularity of the genre provided writers with a platform for literary expression and addressing a wide readership. The Scottish writer Josephine Tey contributed to detective fiction from 1929 to 1952, when her eight detective novels were published. Tey belongs to the group of authors who utilize the genre as a medium for the exposure of issues such as social uneasiness, contempt for the lower classes and other less enchanting realities including the growing nationalistic tendencies. This thesis aspires to analyse the theme of Scottishness in the detective fiction of Josephine Tey. The text is divided into two major sections. The first section consists of two theoretical chapters separately dealing with the detective fiction of Josephine Tey and the theme of Scottishness as a literary device defining a unique national character of Scotland. The second part of the thesis is utterly dedicated to the analysis of two detective novels by Josephine Tey, The Man in the Queue and The Singing Sand. This chapter is of an introductory character and aims to outline the structure and the fundamental objective of the thesis. The opening chapter of the theoretical part attempts to provide a concise overview of the detective fiction of Josephine Tey. It commences with Tey's rudimentary biographical data and the introduction of her parallel career as a 1 playwright, which she pursued under the male pseudonym Gordon Daviot. The major part of the chapter introduces Tey's detective novels with emphasis placed on putting them in the context of the genre. Furthermore, it discusses Tey's deployment of detective fiction to engage in a wider sociocultural discourse. Not only does the chapter rely on Tey's original texts, but it also benefits from a range of secondary sources, the most notable of which will be briefly introduced now. 10 Women of Mystery edited by Earl F. Bargannier examines the contributions of ten women writers to the genre of detective fiction. An entire chapter written by Nancy Ellen Talburt is dedicated to Josephine Tey and the analysis of her detective novels. The second, frequently cited source is the article "Josephine Tey: Scottish Detective Novelist" by Christina M. Martin in which the author seeks to examine Tey's contribution to the Scottish literary tradition. Lastly, it is the recently published biography Josephine Tey: A Life by Jennifer Morag Henderson that offers a comprehensive account of Tey's work and personal life. While 10 Women of Mystery is only employed in a single chapter, the latter two resources form vital pillars of the entire thesis. The third chapter is concerned with two principal subjects. While the first part of the chapter attempts to define approaches to Scottishness as a literary device and their connections with the post-Union history of Scotland, the second part places emphasis on Tey's relation with the Scottish literary scene and the reflection of Scotland-related themes in the works of both Tey and Daviot. The chief objective of the chapter is to provide a theoretical background for the analysis of Tey's novels that constitutes the second part of the thesis. 2 Therefore, it discusses the literary concept of Scottishness created by writers such as Sir Walter Scott and Robert Burns and later adopted by, among others, John Buchan, whose The Thirty-Nine Steps is presented in this thesis as one of the seminal examples of the use of Scottishness that Tey apparently opposes. Furthermore, it examines the tendencies to reshape the concept of Scottishness initiated by the group of Scottish authors around Hugh MacDiarmid in the first half of the twentieth century. Particular attention is drawn to the figure of Neil Gunn, whose political vision of an independent Scotland appears to stand in sharp contrast to that of Tey. The second part of the third chapter attempts to expose possible reasons behind the partial omission of Tey's name from the Scottish literary canon and seeks to prove that both Tey and Daviot contributed to the literary discourse on Scottish consciousness through their work. Apart from the previously mentioned secondary sources and the original texts by Tey and Daviot, the chapter draws on historical data presented by sources such as Encyclopaedia Britannica as well as arguments and findings articulated in The Scots by Iain Finlayson, The Modern Scottish Novel: Narrative and the National Imagination by Cairns Craig and "Our Multiform, Our Infinite Scotland" by Ian Brown. The second part of the thesis consists of two chapters that separately deal with Tey's detective novels The Man in Queue and The Singing Sand. The choice of the novels is by no means random. Not only do they both share the theme of escape to the Scottish Highlands, which this thesis treats as a symbol of Scottishness, but they also, arguably, allow Tey to engage in a dialogue with her Scottish contemporaries. More specifically, The Man in The Queue appears 3 to be Tey's reaction to The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan, and The Signing Sands seems to be Tey's explicit answer to The Lost Chart by Neil Gunn. The chapter titled The Man in The Queue begins with a comparative analysis of The Thirty-Nine Steps and The Man in The Queue. The image of the Scottish Highlands and its inhabitants as depicted in the two novels is subjected to scrutiny. The analysis draws on the claim proposed by Samantha Walton in the article "The Scottish Landscape in the Crime Novels of Josephine Tey" where she asserts that "As Britain's only nearly sublime landscape, Scotland is presented as one of the few remaining places hospitable to Romantic reflection" (2). Walton's argument is developed further by searching for possible meanings, symbolism and allegorical roles of the main characters and the ways they translate into the Anglo-Scottish relationship. The chapter relies largely on the primary texts with an occasional contribution from secondary sources such as the previously introduced article by Samantha Walton and The Mighty Scot by Martin M. Maureen. The second analytical chapter, The Singing Sands, takes a similar form and commences with the comparative analysis of The Lost Chart and The Singing Sands. It explores the apparent links between the two novels and seeks to demonstrate strategies Tey employs to deconstruct the idyllic image of the lost Gaeldom as proposed by Gunn in The Lost Chart. The second part of the chapter explores Tey's concerns over the surge of nationalistic tendencies in Scotland. Apart from the primary texts, the chapter draws on Henderson's biography of Tey to discuss Tey's real life experience and its connections to the ideas articulated through the analysed novel. 4 The primary objective of this thesis is to examine Tey's pro-Union political outlook and scepticism toward the idea of Scottish independence. The first part provides a theoretical background to the subsequent analysis which constitutes the core section of the text. The thesis consistently employs Tey's biographical data in combination with the arguments articulated through her fictional work to shift the findings of its analysis from the speculative to a more concrete level. 5 2. Josephine Tey as a Detective Fiction Writer 2.1. Josephine Tey Josephine Tey is one of the pen names of Elizabeth Mackintosh, who was born in Inverness, the capital of the Scottish Highlands, on July 25, 1896. She was the eldest of three daughters of Colin Mackintosh, a local fruiterer, and Josephine Mackintosh, a pupil teacher. She studied humanities at Inverness

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