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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Royal Academy and attended the Anstey Physical Training College in

Birmingham. Despite living through the First World War and the subsequent

Depression era, Elizabeth Mackintosh established a rather successful career as a

PE teacher, most of which she spent near Liverpool and in Tunbridge Wells. In

1923, however, Mackintosh's teacher career started to end as an aftermath of the untimely death of her mother. Christine Martin explains in "Josephine Tey:

Scottish Detective Novelist" that "She [Tey] returned home in 1926 to act as a housekeeper for her widowed father as would be expected of a daughter of that time" (192). Having decided to abandon teaching upon her return to

Inverness, Mackintosh pursued a literary career.

After having published a number of short stories in the Glasgow Herald between 1927 and 1929, Elizabeth Mackintosh fully entered the literary scene as Gordon Daviot when her first novel Kif: An Unvarnished History (1929), a psychological recollection of the First World War events in the Highlands, came out. It was shortly followed by The Man in The Queue (1929), Tey's first detective novel, introducing Inspector Grant. In the period from 1929 to 1934, still under the pen name of Gordon Daviot, she became a successful playwright,

whose plays included Richard of Bordeaux (1932), The Laughing Woman

(1934), Queen of Scots (1934) and The Stars Bow Down (1939). The production of Richard of Bordeaux became, as Val McDermid describes it, "the theatrical sensation of the year" ("The Brilliant Unconventional Crime Novels of

Josephine Tey") and precipitated the production of Daviot's plays at the theatres in the West End and Broadway. Elizabeth Mackintosh's second pseudonym, Josephine Tey, first appeared with the publication of A Shilling for

Candles (1936) and was used until her death in 1952. As this thesis deals primarily with Mackintosh's detective novels, henceforth she will be referred to as Josephine Tey, the pseudonym, under which she wrote the majority of her detective fiction. The name of Gordon Daviot will be used in relation to the non- detective work, historical writings, and plays written under this pen name.

Tey's body of work, as listed by Encyclopaedia Britannica, consists of twelve novels ("Josephine Tey"), eight of which intersect with the genre of detective fiction. Arguably, Josephine Tey has been regarded as one of the most notable 'Golden Age' crime writers. Her fifth detective novel The

Daughter of Time (1951) was selected as the "greatest mystery novel of all times' by the Crime Writers Association in 1990" (Henderson 1). In the introduction to the recent edition of Tey's The Man in The Queue, Robert

Barnard asserts that "her place in the pantheon of mystery writers is unassailable" (5). Tey's inclusion in Earl Bargainnier's Ten Women of Mystery

(1981) places her in the company of writers such as Dorothy L. Sayers, Ngaio

Marsh, and P.D. James and tends to support Barnard's claim.

This chapter attempts to provide a concise overview of the detective fiction novels of Josephine Tey. It aims to examine the ways Tey leverages the genre to articulate her views on history and moral aspects of life. Furthermore, it describes Tey's detective fiction as character-driven with a strong presence of independent women characters. It argues that Tey utilized the popularity of detective fiction to address a wide readership while she managed to escape any restrictive literary pigeonholing by frequent departures from the conventions of the genre.

2.2. The Detective Fiction of Josephine Tey

Josephine Tey made her first foray into detective fiction in 1929, as

Gordon Daviot, with the publication of The Man in the Queue. The story introduces Inspector Alan Grant, who was to reappear in another five novels. In subsequent years, Tey, still as Gordon Daviot, produced her most successful historical plays. It was not until 1936 that she invented the identity of

Josephine Tey and published her second detective novel A Shilling for Candles.

Tey then put the genre of detective fiction temporarily aside to focus on her parallel career as Gordon Daviot. Thus, for the next twelve years, she divided her time between her domestic duties in Inverness and the continuation of her historical and theatrical work. Tey's apparent interest in history and its interpretation resulted in writing the history biography Claverhouse (1937) and numerous history themed one-act plays, most noticeable Leith Sands (1946) and Patria (1951).

Tey returned to the form of detective fiction with Miss Pym Disposes in

1946. It was followed by two amateur sleuth-featured novels The Franchise

Affair (1948) and Brat Farrar (1949). The character of Inspector Grant returns in To Love and Be Wise (1950). In 1951, Tey wrote The Daughter of Time, in which Grant investigates the death of the 'Princes in the Tower' and attempts to rehabilitate the historical image of Richard III. As Martin asserts, "It used the form inventively and controversially to launch a serious attack on contemporary research methods in history" (193). Arguably, The Daughter of Time illustrates

Tey's utilization of the detective fiction to articulate concerns and ideas about history and its interpretation. Her last detective novel, The Singing Sands, was written during the final year of Tey's life and published posthumously in 1952.

This subchapter introduces Tey's detective novels and examines them within the context of the genre. Furthermore, it argues that Tey entered the realm of detective fiction to attract a wider readership and deployed the genre as a literary medium to address issues such as moral principles and dilemmas, the psychology of her characters, and the depiction of strong women characters and history and our views of it.

The Man in the Queue can be understood as Tey's reaction to the growing popularity of detective fiction in the 1920s. While struggling to get the novel Kif published for over a year, Tey wrote The Man in the Queue over the course of two weeks to enter a competition run by a publisher, who was trying to capitalize on the popular literary form (Henderson 119). As her later correspondence with a friend reveals, "The Man in The Queue wouldn't have been written at all, if Methuen hadn't offered 250 for a detective novel"

(Henderson 119). The story of the creation of The Man in the Queue hints at the popularity of the genre at the time. While Kif, which deals with the traumas of the First World War, was subjected to many rejections, The Man in the

Queue was rewarded with almost immediate publication.

In this novel, Tey introduces a Scotland Yard inspector, Allan Grant. He is an intelligent and enthusiastic reader of human faces and characters. Like many of his literary counterparts, he possesses a little peculiarity – similar to Hercule

Poirot's 'grey little cells,' Grant often relies on his "flair" (Tey, MQ 19), an inner intuition that proves efficient in solving crimes. As a detective who "likes to hear a scientific opinion on any subject" (Tey, MQ 20), and combine it with his mental faculties, Grant is, to some extent, faithful to the Holmesian tradition.

With his occasional susceptibility to a fault and a suppressed inclination to romance, however, Grant seems to come slightly short of a great detective.

After all, three out of his six cases captured in Tey's detective novels are solved by chance or due to the confession of the wrongdoers.

Introduced in the late 1920s, Grant seems to be well rooted in the

Golden Age era. McDermid claims that "he has the sensitivity of Margery

Allingham's Albert Campion and the cultural refinement of Ngaio Marsh's

Roderick Alleyn" ("The Brilliant Unconventional Crime Novels of Josephine

Tey"). In his own words in A Shilling for Candles, Grant wishes "he was one of these marvellous creatures of super-instinct and infallible judgment who adorned the pages of detective stories, and not just a hard-working, well- meaning, ordinarily intelligent Detective Inspector" (117). Arguably, these ostensible shortcomings, which make Grant more of a Phillip Trent-like figure,

serve its purpose. Talburt argues in the chapter on Josephine Tey in 10 Women of Mystery that "Grant's capacity for indignation and suffering make him sufficiently human to support his function as Tey's detective" (Talburt 53). In other words, Tey makes her central character more human, thus someone with whom readers can more readily identify; a perfect agent for her ideas.

The Man in the Queue tells a story with seemingly typical attributes of the detective novel of the time. The murder takes place at the beginning of the story, and Inspector Grant works through all available evidence to build up the case. The solution, however, comes as a result of chance, defying the whole detection process. The theme of a 'suffering innocent', which occupies the entire canon of Tey's detective fiction, eclipses the investigation and becomes the predominant subject. Furthermore, the crime turns out to be that of an altruistic nature, and the murderer escapes punishment by law, a resolution that Tey uses in three other novels. Carl Rollyson claims in the Critical Survey of

Mystery and Detective Fiction that Tey's crimes become primarily moral issues

(1715). Like The Man in the Queue, the paramount theme of Tey's second detective novel, A Shilling for Candles; is the suffering of a wrongfully accused man on the run. Also, and notably, the story is enriched by a profound psychological portrayal of the victim, the Hollywood actress Christine Clay. The settings of both novels are presumably influenced by Gordon Daviot's connection with theatrical and artistic circles, a feature which Tey shares with

Ngaio Marsh. Moreover, it becomes apparent that moral issues and the psychological profiling of characters known from Daviot's historical plays

penetrated Tey's detective novels. Unlike Daviot, however, Tey tends to present her views and beliefs in a more coherent and accessible form and style.

Utilizing detective fiction to address, tackle and negotiate social, cultural, and moral issues and concerns was, in fact, not an entirely new idea.

Presumably, Edgar Allan Poe created the character of C. Auguste Dupin as a

"celebration of rationality" (Dame 317) and, strictly speaking, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, the story often considered a blueprint for detective fiction, turns out not to include a single murder at all. Similarly, Sherlock Holmes's reliance on rationality and science became emblematic of the progressive post-

Darwinian era with the newly defined metaphysics. As Martin Kayman claims in

The Cambridge Companion to Crime Fiction, Holmes's stories "celebrate the capacity of rationalism to organise the material of existence meaningfully, and the power of the rational individual to protect us from semiotic and moral chaos" (Kayman 48). It may be observed that Tey contrived to utilized the genre to such an extent that her work, ever since her return to the genre in

1946 seems to balance repeatedly on the edge of detective fiction and a 'novel proper'.

Tey's third detective novel, Miss Pym Disposes (1946) provides an example of such an intersection. Miss Pym Disposes, whose title reveals its moral core, offers a view on a solely women's world in a fictional establishment of 'Leys Physical Training College', presumably inspired by Tey's real life experience at Anstey. Henderson describes the book as "particularly absorbing because of its strongly drawn characters, and the strange world it describes"

(254). Oddly for a detective novel, however, the murder does not appear until

the last third of the book. Moreover, once again, the case results in a strong moral lesson instead of a judicial punishment. Henderson explains that "If Miss

Pym had been marketed as a 'straight' novel it would probably have been aimed at women, whereas 'crime' novels cut across this problem, being generally read equally by men and women" (255). Bargainnier reinforces this claim in the introduction to 10 Women of Mystery by asserting that detective fiction is "read equally and heavily by both men and women and perhaps the only one in which women have excelled as writers of a form read regularly by men" (2). Considering the above as well as the fact that Gordon Daviot's plays in 1940's enjoyed little success when compared to Richard of Bordeaux and its immediate successions a decade ago, it might be asserted that Tey's return to detective fiction was a rational and meaningful move to address a wider audience.

Tey's abiding interest in "historical themes and vilified characters"

(Martin 194) manifests itself in The Franchise Affair (1948). Tey's fourth detective novel is a modern rewriting of an eighteenth-century trial, allegedly the 1753 Elizabeth Canning case (Henderson 272), in which two rather eccentric women fight to prove their innocence of a crime they have supposedly committed. While resembling some detective stories of Poe with its seemingly inhuman evil, The Franchise Affair is primarily concerned with the search for the truth and psychological insight into the minds of the accused women. Despite

Grant's brief appearance, the mystery is left to be solved by solicitor Robert

Blair who reveals the truth, which "is not what the public consciousness presumes it to be" (Martin 194). The Franchise Affair delves into the English

society. It investigates social prejudices and practices of tabloid journalism. In a broad sense, the main victim in the novel is justice itself.

One of the hallmarks of Tey's detective fiction is a depiction of strong and independent women characters. For example, in The Man in the Queue, the wittiest character is that of Ms. Dinmont. She becomes Grant's assistant in the investigation, and it is her clear-thinking, reasoning, as well as "her logic and her self-containedness", that strikes Grant as "unfeminine" (222). The crime in A Shilling for Candles is solved by the character of Erica, who is, similarly to Ms. Dinmont, admired for what Martin terms as "lack of conventional femininity" (197). Miss Pym Disposes takes place in a strictly women's environment run by an independent and authoritative Lucy Pym.

Martin finds this novel as an "interesting counterpoint to the exclusively male world of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Thirty-Nine

Steps" (197). The Franchise Affair seeks to prove the innocence of Marion

Sharpe and her mother. In the novel, Marion Sharpe refuses the proposal of

Robert Blair: "I am not a marrying woman as I don't want to have to put up with someone else's crotches, someone else's demands" (235), which demonstrates her independent outlook. In a broader sense, the 'Franchise' in the title suggests Tey's intention to support the women's suffrage movement.

The attempt to liberate the Sharpes might be as well read as a symbol of the liberation of women. In Tey's fiction, women play important roles. Not only they appear strong and independent, but they also assume supposedly 'male' roles.

In the period from 1948 to 1952, Josephine Tey maintained a tradition of writing one detective novel a year. Thus, Miss Pym Disposes and The Franchise

Affair were followed by Bratt Farrar (1949) and To Love and Be Wise (1950). It was around 1950 when Tey allegedly referred to the writing of her detective novels as "knitting" during a conversation with John Gielgud (Reynolds, Innes, and Ewan 233). In 1953, Gielgud, an English actor, who starred in Gordon

Daviot's famous plays, and was a close friend of Tey, publicised the phrase in the foreword to Plays by Gordon Daviot, stating that Tey dismisses her detective novels as "yearly knitting" (qtd. in Martin 192). Thus, suggesting that it was Gordon Daviot's plays and historical writings that she valued the most.

This statement was later adopted by scholars and critics who dealt with Tey's work. The reference to the asserted inferiority of Tey's detective novels has made its way into the academic and biographical materials written on Tey and her work, including Bargannier's 10 Women of Mystery, Cathy Hartley's A

Historical Dictionary of British Women or By the Banks of the Ness by Tey's contemporary Mairi MacDonald. This established claim is challenged by

Henderson: "Her [Tey's] work under the two names was always intertwined.

And she never prioritized one over the other" (253). Arguably, this dispute can be best resolved through the Tey's work itself – namely her last two detective novels.

The Daughter of Time seems to justify Henderson's claim as the novel combines the major themes of Gordon Daviot's plays, the search for historical truths and attempts to vindicate accepted villains, with the conventions of detective fiction. Inspector Grant, immobile in a hospital recovering from a

work-related injury, investigates one of the most notorious crimes in British history – the death of the 'Princess in the Tower'. Grant builds a case providing evidence that suggests the innocence of Richard III. Grant tells us that the received version of the story is "a completely untrue story grown to legend while the men knew it to be untrue looked on and said nothing." (94). Later on, he continues: "After all, the truth of anything at all doesn't lie in someone's account of it; it lies in all small facts of the time" (95). The Daughter of Time articulates Tey's proposition that what we consider historical 'truths' might be, in fact, fabricated myths based on romantic images or are 'made to serve as political propaganda. While The Daughter of Time exploits the genre of detective fiction, Tey's subsequent and the last detective novel The Singing

Sands (1952) tends to ignore many of its boundaries. The plot of Tey's last detective novel revolves around Grant's quest for mental recovery and attempt to reconcile with his life, while the crime plays only a minor role. The Singing

Sands was published several months after Tey's death.

Josephine Tey contributed to the genre of detective fiction during the period that has become known as the Golden Age era of detective fiction.

Around this time, the genre enjoyed a vast popularity and a considerably rich readership. For women writers, such as Tey and her contemporaries, detective fiction offered an effective and, arguably, the only literary channel, to address a broad audience regardless of its gender boundaries. Tey wrote eight detective novels in which she explored and stretched the limits of the genre. Her consistent departures from its conventions were motivated by Tey's concerns for moral values and history as well as her interest in psychology and the

advocacy for women's independence. Tey utilized the genre and articulated her concerns through it. This chapter claims that Tey has a well-established place in the genre of detective fiction next to writers such as Agatha Christie, Margery

Allingham, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Ngaio Marsh. Furthermore, it suggests that her work deserves analysis outside of the genre.

3. Josephine Tey and the Scottish Literary Scene

3.1. Introduction

The previous chapter introduced and reviewed the work of Josephine within the context of detective fiction. To investigate the theme of Scottishness in Tey's detective novels, it is also necessary to examine her work within the framework of the Scottish literary tradition. While Tey has been given a considerable credit as a writer of detective fiction, her contribution to Scottish literature has rarely been acknowledged. Martin asserts that despite Tey's

"substantial contribution to literature, her writing seems virtually unknown to the generation which has grown up in Scotland in the forty years since her death" (191). Tey's name is missing in a number of relevant publications dealing with Scottish literature1. With few exceptions of relatively recent scholarly works by Walton, Martin, and Henderson, which are frequently cited in this thesis, Tey's work has been scarcely ever analysed as a part of the Scottish literary scene. This omission, however, should not overshadow the fact that, as this thesis claims, Josephine Tey expands the discursive-literary framework of

Scotland, its history and the notion of the Scottish national identity throughout her literary and theatrical career.

This chapter aims to deliver an overview of the noteworthy milestones in the post-Union Scottish history and related approaches to Scottishness as a literary device. The emphasis is placed solely on historical events and strategies relevant to the analysis that constitutes the core part of the thesis. Thus, the

1 See Craig; Riach and Brown 18

chapter discusses the Act of Union, the Jacobite Rebellions and the era of significant intellectual and scientific achievements known as The Scottish

Enlightenment. Furthermore, it examines methods and strategies for creating a

Scottish national identity through literature. Writers such as Robert Burns and

Sir Walter Scott helped define a notion of Scotland's national identity through idealising and romanticising the cultural legacy of the Scottish Highlands, thus creating a unique national character independent of English influence. This approach towards literary Scottishness was prevalent during the nineteenth century. The beginning of the twentieth century witnessed efforts to redefine this notion by creating a modern and, what writers such as Hugh MacDiarmid,

Neil Gunn, Edwin Muir and others, considered a more sensible and realistic idea of a national character. These literary endeavours in the first half of the twentieth century became known as the Scottish literary renaissance.

The second part of this chapter attempts to expose notable events in

Tey's life that could have helped form her views on Scotland's place within the

Great Britain. Furthermore, it attempts to examine Tey's connection with the

Scottish literary scene, the reception of her work by her Scottish contemporaries, and the reflection of Scottish themes in the works of both

Josephine Tey and Gordon Daviot.

3.2. Scotland and National Identity

As with any generalisation about national character, conventional notions of what it means to be Scottish are cultural creations rooted in a troubled past.

Iain Finlayson argues in The Scots that "The Scots are beset by Scottish

history" and that "the interpretation of the past is a subject that animates the

Scots like no other" (16). Reflecting the Act of Union between England and

Scotland in 1707, Scottishness can be defined as a combination of qualities that make Scotland unique and distinct from England. Cairns Craig asserts in The

Modern Scottish Novel that "The development of the novel is profoundly linked to the development of the modern nation” (9). Thus, the theme of Scottishness in literature is, arguably, closely connected with the history of the Anglo-

Scottish relationship.

The Union of the Crowns in 1603 and the subsequent Union of

Parliaments of 1707 triggered mixed reactions within the population of

Scotland. While some praised the promise of economic prosperity, others tended to oppose the political implications of the newly established order. By

1746, the mostly Highland-centred Jacobite movement failed to restore a Stuart

Monarchy, and the Highlanders were widely considered a threat to the

Hanoverian Crown. In the aftermath of the unsuccessful Jacobite risings of

1715 and 1745, the administration of George II adopted precautionary measures to prevent any future opposition. Jacobites faced prosecution, and the traditional way of life in the Highlands became a target of suppression:

"The Gaelic language, the bagpipes, the kilt, every manifestation of a distinct, and therefore antithetical, culture was proscribed" (Finlayson 35). These measures and the subsequent Clearances at the turn of the nineteenth century not only "more than decimated the Highland population by prompting the exodus of emigrant Scots" (Finlayson 35), but they also subdued the cultural identity tied to the region.

The Scotland of the eighteenth century is also firmly characterised by the

Scottish Enlightenment. Encyclopaedia Britannica describes the era as "the conjunction of minds, ideas, and publications" ("Scottish Enlightenment"). While profoundly linked to the philosophers David Hume and Adam Smith, the

Scottish Enlightenment was not merely an intellectual movement, but rather an era, in which Scotland achieved, as Neil McCallum asserts, "a vast totality of accomplishment in nearly every aspect of human endeavour" (qtd. in Finlayson

145). During the period, the Scots contributed significantly to the areas of philosophy, science, technology and industry. Finlayson points out further that concerning literature, the Scottish Enlightenment "bred both Burns and Scott"

(145).

In post-1745 Scotland, philosophy and literature began to flourish throughout the country and its cultural centre, Edinburgh, earned the title 'the

Athens of the North'. Also, as Arthur Herman asserts in The Scottish

Enlightenment, Scotland was experiencing a spell of economic prosperity (154).

The feelings of Scottish pride and confidence grew, and Scottish writers commenced to revisit the national history in a search for a new national identity. Ian Brown argues in "Our Multiform, Our Infinite Scotland" that the most of the Scottish agreed to, or accepted the idea that "after the 1707 Union it was necessary to invent the concept of an Anglophone British nation to match the new British state" (4). This belief transformed to attempts at creating a notion of Britishness, a national identity in a relatively newly formed Union.

The forging of Britishness, however, was not entirely successful, as

Brown further argues, mostly because the majority of the English

contemporaries thought that "what had taken place in the Union was a takeover by England of Scotland and, if that was so, what need of the newfangled idea of Britain?" (5). As a result, many Scottish writers turned their attention to new forms of cultural incorporation of Scotland in Great Britain, which was, regarding culture, dominated by England. Finlayson explains that the foremost political, religious and geographical division of the post-Union

Scotland lied between the Lowlands, where the majority of Scottish population was concentrated, and the Highlands (34). Thus, the distinctiveness of the

Highlands and its culture was employed extensively as a vehicle for the creation of what was considered to be the unique character of Scotland.

The popularity of Ossian, the pseudo-Gaelic epic, largely invented by

James Macpherson in 1760 ("Ossian"), poems by Robert Burns and later, in the first half of the nineteenth century, the novels of Sir Walter Scott led to the creation of what Martin Maureen in The Mighty Scot calls the "Highland myth"

(9). Consequently, Scotland became closely associated with sentimentalised pictures of a distant Highland culture. Maureen asserts that "Walter Scott played a pivotal role in the development of the romantic, Highland-centred conception of Scottish difference, a construction that impacted how true

Scottishness came to be understood in Scotland as well as in England" (10).

The romanticised image of Scottish history helped establish a strong sense of the national identity without carrying out a threat to the stability of the Union.

Arguably, literature played a vital role in the development of what Cairns

Craig terms "'Unionist-Nationalism', a sense of national identity in Scotland as established in the terms of the Treaty of Union" (qtd. in Brown 5). Maureen

asserts that "Although nineteenth-century Scots neither had nor wanted a state of their own, they sought to retain a Scottish identity within Britain" (8). The literary dimension of the 'Unionist-Nationalism' was later adopted by Scottish writers such Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson and John Buchan.

The latter of the three is given a particular attention as this thesis further argues that in The Man in the Queue, Josephine Tey implicitly reacts to John

Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps and its interpretation of Scottishness.

John Buchan (1875 -1940) was a Scottish statesman and writer. His literary career, which Buchan pursued along his active involvement in politics, diplomacy and publishing, covers over 50 books including Richard Hannay- featured spy thrillers as well as historical biographies such as Montrose and Sir

Walter Scott ("John Buchan"). In terms of politics, Buchan was a representative of a Unionist-Nationalist tradition and an active supporter of Scotland as a strong nation within the British Union. Buchan was deeply concerned with the negative effects of Scottish economy caused by the high immigration, and the strengthening Anglicization of Scottish culture. In the Parliamentary debate in

House of Commons, 1932, Buchan articulates his concerns: "In language, literature and art we are losing our idiom, and, it seems to many, that we are in danger very soon of reaching the point where Scotland will have nothing distinctive to show to the world" ("Mr John Buchan"). He further expresses his belief that "Every Scotsman should be a Scottish Nationalist” and concludes his speech by quoting Sir Walter Scott: "If you un-Scotch us, you will make us damned mischievous Englishmen" ("Mr John Buchan"). While Buchan seems to

find the concept of the Union with its economic aspects desirable for all parties involved, he strongly advocates Scotland, as a nation of its own.

In the late 1920s, a group of influential Scottish writers attempted to breathe a new life into the idea of Scottish identity. These attempts later formed a movement that became known as the Scottish literary renaissance. In the article "Introduction: Scottish Renaissances" published in European Journal of English Studies, Wolfram Keller describes the Scottish literary renaissance as

"the twentieth-century rise of a modern Scottish literary culture" (1). In The

Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Scottish Literature, Roderick

Watson argues that the writings of the Scottish literary renaissance can be characterised by "origins, escape and return" (85). Based on the preceding description, it can be inferred that the movement was primarily concerned with the loss of identity, and the need to reclaim genuine roots and heritage.

The Scottish identity encouraged by the movement focused on a number of elements, such as the revival of Scots and Gaelic, folk-lore and rural traditions as well as freedom from English influences. The case was made that

"Scotland had lost touch with its native languages, traditions and habits of thought, these having been eclipsed by the dominant Anglo-centric culture"

(Keller, McClure, and Sandrock 3). In this sense, the fight for cultural independence by the movement can be seen in a broader interwar context of declining colonialism with many countries within the British Empire struggling to break from its influence. Watson writes of the Scottish literary renaissance as

"an early manifestation of the wider and later postcolonial process by which

other cultures developed counter-discursive strategies against Anglo-centricity"

(81).

The key figure of the Scottish literary renaissance is that of Christopher

Murray Grieve, who is better known under his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid. His literary work including A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle (1926) and Scots

Unbound (1932) focused on the importance of language in the formation of identity and the understanding of history. It is through language that much culture is conceptualised and expressed, and the suppression of Scots and

Gaelic by the dominant English language was symbolically reversed in

McDiarmid's work, representing a culture shaped by, but free from, an external influence. Arguably, the work of Hugh MacDiarmid proposes that the idea of

Scottishness promoted through Scottish literature from the eighteenth to the beginning of the twentieth century was both sentimental and shallow. Watson asserts that MacDiarmid's literary work was a significant influence on other key writers of the Scottish literary renaissance, in particular, Neil Gunn, Lewis

Grassic Gibbon, Nan Shepherd and Edwin Muir (76). These writers built upon or argue with MacDiarmid's work, adopting different approaches, but pursuing a common objective of Scottish self-confidence.

The Scottish literary renaissance also correlates closely with the development of Scottish political agenda throughout the early twentieth century as two influential figures of the movement supported a parallel ambition of

Scottish independence. The cause was advocated by Hugh MacDiarmid and Neil

Gunn. Both MacDiarmid and Gunn were involved in the foundation of the

National Party of Scotland (Henderson 158), which would be absorbed by The

Scottish National Party (SNP) in 1934 ("Scottish National Party"). The connection of the movement with the brief surge of nationalism in Scotland of the early twentieth century seems controversial because other notable figures, particularly Muir and Gibbons, appeared to have no sympathy for the prospect of Scottish independence. Nonetheless, it has considerable significance for this thesis as The Singing Sands is arguably Tey's reaction to The Lost Chart by Neil

Gunn and the nationalist cause in general.

The Scottish literary renaissance was fuelled by a combination of a celebration of Scottish culture, and the modernist and postcolonial ideas and philosophies. By forging a Scottish identity which both acknowledged English influences and broke free from them, the Scottish literary renaissance attempted to create what was considered to be a more genuine and realistic

Scottish identity.

3.2. Josephine Tey as a Scottish Writer

Arguably, Tey's views on Scotland and its place within the British union were formed in the period that preceded her first literary endeavours. The sources of her pro-Union advocacy (which was, despite the previously discussed bursts of nationalism, shared by the majority of Tey's countrymen) seem to be rooted in her early life experiences. Henderson explains that Tey's father, Colin

Mackintosh, made conscious choices not to raise his daughters to speak Gaelic, despite his Gaelic background and the large Gaelic-speaking community of

Inverness at the time, as he considered English as the "language of the education" and "key to success" (30). Tey's education, which Henderson

describes as "an incredible journey for a young girl to make away from the

Scottish Highlands during wartime" (9), was followed by a relatively successful

PE teacher career, which peaked near Tunbridge Wells in the South East

England region. The correspondence with one of her Anstey fellow students reveals that the latter place became a spiritual home for Tey: "I never really felt at home in England until I went South of London, and now for me it is like going home. Over the hill south of Sevenoaks, and there is 'my country' stretching in front of me” (Henderson 86). It may be asserted that Colin

Mackintosh's upbringing, Tey's prosperous and enjoyable time in England, and the prospects of social mobility helped shape her views on the Anglo-Scottish relationship that were later manifested in her literary works. More specifically,

Tey's personal achievements can be read as the results of what she considered being a mutually beneficial political accommodation.

Tey's return to Scotland in 1926 may be deemed one of the most crucial moments of her life. Not only did it conclude her teaching career, but it also foreshadowed the end of her independence. Henderson explains that Daviot's early writing "betrays a deep sense of bitterness and isolation about her return to her hometown" (94). The not-entirely-consensual Inverness asylum resulted in what could be described as an ambiguous relation to the Highlands capital.

The reality of life in the Scottish Highlands was a significant component of Tey's early writings. Before Tey had her first novel published, the Glasgow Herald issued five short stories by Gordon Daviot. They all share Scottish settings and some of them even include Scots words such as "scunnered, aye, haivers and bubblyjock" (Henderson 111).

The first two novels Kif and The Man in the Queue share close links to the Highlands and the latter, whose plot allows Grant to exert his authority on both sides of the Anglo-Scottish border, is subjected to intense scrutiny in the second part of the thesis. Quite ironically, it was Gordon Daviot's play Richard of Bordeaux (1933) that attracted a considerable, yet, for Tey, rather unwanted attention of both the Scottish press and the local literary scene. Richard of

Bordeaux offers an innovative alternative to Shakespeare's Richard II. Tey's application of modern language and the contemporary update of the characters made the story of the originally "stately Shakespearian Richard" (Henderson

142) appealing to the twentieth-century audience.

The production of Richard of Bordeaux in London achieved outstanding success. While the English press such as the Daily Telegraph, The Times and the Sunday Observer were full of praise for the play, the Inverness Courier took a "slightly antagonistic tone" towards Daviot, suggesting that he popularises some Scottish historical figure the way she did for an English King (Henderson

157). This wish was not fulfilled because Daviot's following play, Queen of

Scots (1934), does exactly the opposite as it introduces Mary, who has usually been viewed quite sympathetically, as an unlikable character. Martin asserts that the play suffered from Daviot's lack of understanding of Mary's character and that her technique of a character re-valuation turns inappropriate (173).

The productions of both Richard of Bordeaux and Queen of Scots coincided with the publication of The Thistle and the Rose (1933) by the formed Provost o

Inverness Sir Alexander MacEwen, and Sun Circle (1934) by Neil Gunn

(Henderson 158). Given that these are two important works celebrating

Scotland and its independence, it may be asserted that the two plays contributed to Tey's disassociation from the Inverness literary scene.

Mairi Macdonald, a Scottish writer and Tey's Inverness contemporary, sees the hostile reception of Richard of Bordeaux and Queen of Scott as a turning point in Tey's connection with Inverness. According to her, Tey could not bear the fact that Inverness did not share the excitement that her work generated in England, particularly in London. She asserts that a strongly religious place such as Inverness simply could not support a playwright (65).

Henderson, on the other hand, puts forward the claim that "local [Inverness] papers regularly talked about the theatre, and Inverness had no problem supporting Gaelic writers" (157). Based on the foregoing arguments, it can be argued that Tey's recognition in Scotland at the time suffered from the Anglo- centrism articulated in her literary works which did not seem to fit the approach to the question of Anglo-Scottish relationship adopted by Tey's influential contemporaries such as Sir Alexander MacEwen and Neil Gunn.

Tey's apparent interest in Scottish history reflects itself in a biographical novel, Claverhouse (1937). John Graham of Claverhouse was a "Royalist who supported James II against heroes of the Scottish Reformed Church, the

Covenanters" (Martin 195). Tey attempts to depict Claverhouse as a Scottish hero, focusing on his loyalty to King James II, to which Claverhouse committed even after William of Orange overthrew James II in the Glorious Revolution of

1688. Henderson asserts that Tey deliberately chose the Covenanting period as it was "one of the touchstones of the history that SNP was referencing. Neil

Gunn's friend Maurice Walsh wrote about the Covenanters around the same

time, while 'the National Covenant' was SNP's chosen name for their 1940 campaign for devolution" (204). Arguably, depicting Claverhouse, who was directly involved in killing the Covenanters, as a heroic figure can be interpreted as Tey's response to the SNP's political deployment of Scottish history.

The critique of the Covenanters is even more explicit in The Daughter of

Time, where Inspector Grant tends to deconstruct the romantic image of the

Covenanters as, in his own words, "very holy people" (192), suggesting that such perceptions were created by "nineteenth-century pictures of conventicles.

The reverent little gathering in the heather listening to the preacher; young rapt faces, and white hair blowing in the winds of God" while in fact, Grant continues, "The Covenanters were the exact equivalent of the I.R.A. in Ireland.

A small irreconcilable minority, and as bloodthirsty a crowd as ever disgraced a

Christian nation" (192). This portrayal appears to reveal and manifest Tey's position in the Independence debate. Moreover, both Claverhouse and The

Daughter of Time articulate Tey's concern for the fragility of our understanding of history and its potential exploitation in the support of a political cause.

The personal life of Josephine Tey bore a mark of existential schizophrenia. Henderson explains that while in Inverness, she lived the life of a dutiful daughter. Once or twice a year, however, she would take a trip to

London and spend a week or two there visiting clubs with her friends. Allegedly, such trips were highlights of Tey's life (4). She wrote under two pen names, one English and female and the other Scottish and male without an apparent effort to disclose the "oneness of the two" (Martin 199). From a literary perspective, her life appears to be a prime example of 'The Caledonian

antisyzygy', a term coined by G. Gregory Smith, which "labelled the energy of contradiction" (Crotty 89), and the issue of conflicted identities. In Tey's detective fiction, this conflict is projected into the character of Inspector Grant, who maintains a constant dialogue with his more reasonable inner voice. Crotty tells us that the principle of two identities is a hallmark of Scottish writing and that Scottish literature, in fact, "prides itself on paradox" (89). Martin argues that "The need of two identities is often seen as having its origin in the need to escape from a rigid religious framework", listing James Hogg's Confessions of a

Justified Sinner and Stevenson's The Strange Case Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as seminal examples (200). In Scottish literature, this struggle translates itself into the need of finding a national voice. The period to which Tey contributed was greatly marked by the effort to redefine such a voice and to liberate the

Scottish psyche from the influence of the English.

Although Tey's work has been omitted from many publications dealing with Scottish literature, it can be argued that her works negotiate Scottish consciousness and answer literary and political undertakings of her contemporaries. Considering Tey's life, her family background and the ambivalent relationship with Inverness, intensified by the longing for the life in the South-east of England, her Anglophile attitude articulated through her work can be read as an effort to preserve the English influence in the Scottish

Highland. For Tey, arguably, this can be done by embracing the Union.

4. The Man in the Queue

4.1 Introduction

In The Man in the Queue, the mise en scene of English-Scottish social dynamics is represented by a bleak, remote Scottish landscape, to which

Lamont flees in the belief that it will provide refuge from Inspector Grant and the long arm of the English justice. For Lamont, Tey's Scotland is not a refuge but a return to the past. Just as Richard Hannay in John Buchan's The Thirty-

Nine Steps, Lamont escapes from London and becomes a fugitive, convinced that the Scottish Highlands can provide a sanctuary insulated from the influence of the English civilization: "They never read anything but a local paper and local papers report London affairs in one line" (Tey, MQ 111). However, Tey has readers understand that Lamont cannot hide from Grant, just as Scotland could not escape the English influence. In this, The Man in the Queue turns to mirror

Tey's vision of the Anglo-Scottish relationship.

This chapter discusses the main characters in the novel and seeks to examine their symbolic representation of the Anglo-Scottish relationship. The primary focus is put on the dynamics between Grant and Lamont and the ways it translates into the conflict of a Scottish national identity. The first subchapter investigates the relation between The Man in the Queue and The Thirty-Nine

Steps by John Buchan. Buchan's novel is treated as an example of the literary

Scottishness that Tey, as this thesis argues, tries to deconstruct. The second part of this chapter discusses the ways Tey utilizes characteristic features of detective fiction such as the use of remote settings and rational investigation

methods. It argues that logic and reason deployed by Grant transcends the romantic emotionalism connected to the literary idea of Scottishness. It also attempts to analyse the allegorical roles of Grant and Lamont at defining

Scotland's place within the Union. Inspector Grant is seen as the embodiment of modernization while Gerard Lamont symbolizes the sentimental attachment to the past.

4.2 The Thirty-Nine Steps Revisited

Samantha Walton asserts in The Scottish Landscape in the Crime Novels of Josephine Tey that for Lamont, Scotland is "an imaginary space, the

Highlands [offering] a pre-modern escape from modern justice, morals and information exchange" (3). Lamont's belief turns to be as illusory as the conviction that Scotland's Scottishness separates it from England, that its otherness will protect Lamont from the forces of modernism under the guise of

Scotland Yard and all of the criminal detection and law enforcement resources at its disposal. Instead, the "isolated Highlands and Island social landscapes are shown to be both vulnerable to nefarious external forces…the crucible of crimes of national significance" (Walton 2).

In The Man in the Queue, Tey speaks to this situation through the character of Inspector Alan Grant, who tracks the fugitive Lamont. For Tey,

Scotland's union with England must be fully embraced if Scotland is to flourish and come into its own. Inspector Grant is Tey's agent of modernization, a figure who represents both authority and opportunity for Scotland. Arguably, the character of Inspector Grant provides a vehicle for Tey to deconstruct the

mythical symbolism of Scottishness, which seems to hold Scotland back. As he tracks Lamont through the remote Scottish Highlands, Grant meets locals who are surprisingly willing to help him, people who respect and support English law, even if it means that Scottish officials, and Scottish sovereignty, is marginalized in the process. Tey allows Grant to exercise English authority to identify the culprit in the Scottish Highlands, the place supposedly untouched by the English influence. It is through the case and its solution that Tey certifies the Anglo-Scottish union and promotes it as a beneficial situation for Scotland.

The opening chapter of The Man in the Queue revolves around the discovery of a dead body. The unknown man turns out to be a murder victim, and the Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant takes over the case. From the beginning, Tey makes sure that Grant comes nothing short of a likable character: "If Grant had an asset beyond the usual ones of devotion to duty and a good supply of brains and courage, it was that the last thing he looked like was a police officer" (18). As to his physical appearance, he is described as

medium height, slight in build, and he was – now, of I say dapper,

of course you will immediately think of something like a tailor's

dummy, something perfected out of all individuality, and Grant is

most certainly not that; but if you can visualize a dapperness that

is not tailor's dummy type, then that is Grant (18).

Grant is an imperfect hero; a reliable guide through the investigation; an officer with a refined look, with whom readers identify quickly.

As the investigation progresses, the victim is identified as Albert Sorrel and all available evidence points to Sorrell's close friend, Gerard Lamont as the

most likely culprit. It is through the characters of Sorrell, Lamont and their landlady Mrs. Everett that Tey seems to pay homage to the great figure of the

Scottish detective fiction, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The story of Sorrell, who "had gone to her [Everett] on coming out of the army" (142), to be shortly joined by

Lamont, with whom he develops almost a 'bromance' relationship, provides an apparent link to the tenants of Baker Street 221b. Apart from Doyle, Tey acknowledges yet another source of inspiration as Grants finds books by John

Buchan during the search of Lamont's room (134). The latter reference is of vital importance to investigate the theme of Scottishness in The Man in the

Queue. Wrongfully accused of the murder, Lamont seeks a hide-out in the

Scottish Highlands. By doing so, he repeats a journey earlier undertook by

Richard Hannay in The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan. Arguably, The Man in

The Queue not only is inspired by the Buchan's novel, but also opens a dialogue with it and challenges its depiction of the Highlands, and, in a broader sense, the place of Scotland within the British Union.

John Buchan wrote The Thirty-Nine Steps in 1915. The novel cannot conceal Buchan's patriotism as well as his profound admiration for the romantically coloured writings of Sir Walter Scott. In The Thirty-Nine Steps,

Richard Hannay leaves for the Highlands with a hope to find a "wild district" where he could pass as an "ordinary Scotsman" (17), even though he knows

"very little about the country" (63). The place Hannay finds is an "honest- smelling hill country" and its "kindly shyness" makes him almost instantly feel

"light-hearted" (24), despite the dreadful ordeal he goes through. It does not take long before the hearty treatment, that Scotland and its people offers,

makes Hannay wonder why "when I was still a free man, I had stayed on in

London and not got the good of this heavenly country" (22). Eventually,

Hannay is saved from his pursuers by the generous help of his fellow countrymen. To hide in the Highlands, Hannay blends in by becoming "the living image of the kind of Scotsman you see in the illustrations to Burns's poems" (80).

In this, the novel depicts a romantic return of a colonial to his native country. The Scottish Highland that Buchan introduces is a place invariably distinct from its Southern neighbour. Buchan's Scottishness is defined as a mix of the geographical uniqueness of the Scottish Highlands and the distinctive character of its inhabitants. In "The Self-made Scot", John Keegan asserts that

"The Buchan firmament is peopled by characters, which are instinctively patriotic, romantically unselfish, and ready at a moment's notice to abandon everyday duty to do service to the cause" (42). Thus, The Thirty-Nine Steps partakes strongly of Scottishness, the distinctive quality which Buchan presents rather romantically as an eclectic mix of bravery, chivalry, and integrity.

The Man in the Queue was written and published fourteen years after

The Thirty-Nine Steps and, as far as the crime is concerned, it remains faithful to the Golden Age tradition. In Buchan's novel Richard Hannay escapes to

Scotland to escape the claws of a secret syndicate known as the 'Black Stone'

(37). In The Man in the Queue, Tey, conversely, assures readers that "There were no impressive secret societies in London at present" (25), and that the murder of Albert Sorrell is clearly that of a 'personal nature.' Lamont runs north of the border to hide from the English law, yet it is safe to argue that his

motivations are the same as those of Richard Hannay. They both seek refuge in the place they know very little about. In Tey's Scotland, however, the qualities of Scottishness are somewhat diluted by the influence of English modernization.

Lamont's decision to leave London is reinforced by his landlady, who describes the west coast of Scotland as a place as sparsely peopled and distant from English justice and punishment as any other remote and isolated island.

Mrs. Everett fills his mind with images of an unpopulated haven, assuring him that the unfortunate infamy of his has not reached those who reside there:

"The place is thirty-six miles from a railway station, and the policeman lives in the next village, four miles away" (Tey, MQ 111). For Lamont, the Highlands epitomise a wild and scarcely civilised country; a pristine and pre-modern landscape. He envisions it as an ideal bolthole in which he can disappear, hiding among the partially benighted, yet noble Scots.

Shortly after Lamont's departure, Grant finds out that Mrs. Everett is

"Scotch" (142), coming originally from a small town on the Scottish west coast, where her father used to work as a minister of a Free Church (142).

Interestingly, as Keegan reveals, John Buchan himself is a son of a clergyman, who began a Free Church Ministry in a rural area of the Scottish west coast

(38). It is also hardly a coincidence that Buchan's book is found on the mantelpiece in Lamont's lodging just as he is boarding a northern train. These references support the argument that The Man in The Queue is Tey's direct answer to Buchan's novel and that Lamont seeks to find the sanctuary that

Hannay found fourteen years prior.

Lamont, however, misreads the situation by ignoring the civilizing influence of English society. Grant encounters locals, who demonstrate close ties and personal loyalty to English law. In the end, Grant's authority prevails because Scotland in The Man in the Queue, despite its outward appearance, ceased to be the pristine wilderness, the Scotland as depicted by Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott. It is a place inexorably and inevitably transformed by the hallmarks of English civilization. Lamont's intentions fail because, as Walton asserts, "Authority radiates from London, it is towards London that communication and information tend" (4), and the failure of his plan indicates the extent to which Scotland has been influenced by English civilization.

The Highlands of The Man in the Queue mirrors their real-life inspirations as perceived by Tey. Although both Carninnish and Garnie are fictional names, they have been apparently based on real places of the Scottish West Coast.

Henderson explains that that Garnie is likely inspired a by a nearby Dornie while

Carninnish represents Tey fathers' home of Shieldag. Presumably, Tey was liable to know the places: "Colin visited and kept up links with his home of

Shieldag not only in the 1920s but right up until 1940s and Beth [Tey] must have accompanied him on some of his trips west" (123). These links help us understand Tey's reluctance to uphold the old tradition of depicting the

Highlands as a romantic sanctuary. By the time The Man in the Queue was written, Tey had been living in the Highlands for over three years. It may be assumed that Tey tried to capture her perspective on the reality of life in the region at the time.

The characters which are seemingly staunchly Scottish prove to be useful to Grant in spite of what he represents as an English authority figure. The treatment that Grant receives in Carninnish is no different from the one that

Richard Hannay enjoys in his Scottish adventure. Thus, in The Man in the

Queue, Grant can relish the hospitality of Mr. Logan's household. Furthermore,

Mr. Drysdale, who is described as "not overgenerous" (152) by his neighbours, let Grant access his property and equipment including his house, fishing grounds and a motor boat, which plays a major role in Lamont's capture. In this respect, Tey's Scotland is much more incorporated into the Great Britain than the place, in which Richard Hannay hides from his pursuers.

Paradoxically, the virtue demonstrated by locals towards Grant is the

Scottishness that Lamont seeks in his search of a place where being a fugitive means something very special. The idea of sanctuary is inextricably linked with the Scottish Highlands, the place that protects Rob Roy MacGregor from the authority of the English crown in Rob Roy (1817) by Sir Walter Scott. The unpleasant and problematic parts of the Anglo-Scottish relationship, such as the

Jacobite Rebellions and the subsequent Clearances, have endowed the meaning of Scottishness with a notion of individuality, defiance, and freedom. By fleeing to the Highlands, Lamont repeats an age-old custom, but it proves to be an anachronistic act in a world of scientific detection and new methodologies in the field of criminal justice: "In the old days in the Highlands, to take to the hills had been synonymous with flying from justice – what the Irish call being on the run. But civilization had changed that completely. Not one criminal in a thousand now fled to the Highlands" (147). In Tey's vision, the border between

England and Scotland blurs gradually, and Scotland is now "very like the rest of

Britain, only more beautiful" (144). Arguably, Tey tells us that English civilization has transformed traditional notions of Scottishness and its identification with the Highlands.

The contrast between the past and the present is symbolically demonstrated through the characters of Mr. Logan and his niece, Mrs. Dinmont.

In a conversation with Grant, Mr. Logan exhibits his tartan pride, but his provincial nature seems to assert itself. Mr. Logan declares that a "singlestock person" (164) of the Scottish Highland ancestry is superior to other nationalities. He does it, as Tey writes, with "all the stubbornness and stinking pride of his race" (164). Later, however, Grant learns, to his amusement, "that

Mr. Logan had never been out of Scotland in his life" (164). Arguably, Mr.

Logan is the embodiment of the isolation and what Tey considered being a misleading way in which the common Scot might view his country's identity.

Mrs. Dinmont contradicts the views of Mr. Logan by asserting that a mixed strain "gave a man a many-sidedness instead of giving him a few qualities in excess, and that was a good thing. It tended to cleverness and versatility, and consequently broad-mindedness and wide sympathies" (164).

At the same time, she reminds Inspector Grant that "in the old days in the

Highlands a guest received hospitality and sanctuary even if he had host's brother's blood on his sword" (182). Having studied and worked in London,

Mrs. Dinmont is Tey's model of a modern Scot, honourable yet embracing all aspects of the Anglo-Scottish Union. It may be asserted that in The Man in the

Queue, Tey introduces the Highlands as a fully integrated part of Great Britain.

The seemingly distinctive characteristics of the region are viewed as a backward concept, which cannot survive the clash with the open-mindedness of the succeeding generation. In this light, the idea of Scottishness becomes both redundant and misleading.

4.3 Symbolism of Scottishness

Maureen asserts that "writing by Scots on their country's national psyche often to what has been called a 'Caledonian antisyzygy'" (84). This conflict of dualities within one entity has been expressed in many forms in Scottish literature. Finlayson explains that "the holding of opposing or paradoxical viewpoints is not a trait unique to the Scots, but it is among the Scots that contradiction becomes apotheosized" (22). Thus, the term defines the conflict between the Lowland and the Highland, Calvinist and Jacobites, canny and uncanny, etc. Arguably, The Man in the Queue attempts to resolve the conflicts between modern and romantic and, ultimately, Englishness and Scottishness.

This subchapter seeks to examine the ways Tey aims to resolve these conflicts through the characters of Grant and Lamont.

In many ways, the idea of Scottishness offers "an identity that often proved more durable than 'Britishness,'" by merits of Robert Burns' poetry, the romantic legacy of the Highland clans and, ironically, because of English persecution (Clancy et al. 157). The saga of multitudes of Highlanders forced to flee their homeland in the notorious Highland clearances turned the

Highlands into a symbol of Scottish cultural heritage, a kind of Shangri-La or

Brigadoon and, as Finlayson puts it, "somewhere to go back to" (15). Thus,

Lamont's escape to the Highlands becomes rather a means of finding anonymity; it is a return to the past, symbolized by a belief that the place can shield Lamont from Grant as well as the fate of a man everyone believes guilty of murder. After all, had it "not been for Mrs. Everett's promise of sanctuary, not even her will would have got Lamont out of London" (Tey, MQ 147).

Sanctuary is a concept that only resonates with Lamont because of what it means within the much larger context of Scottishness.

Historians and social theorists have contradicted the romantic idea of the noble highlander, asserting that Scotland has been a site of horrific violence, and exploitation of the common people by their more powerful countrymen.

Maureen argues that Scotland's "Highland identification did offer Scots an element of national distinctiveness while allowing them to reap the economic benefits of the union, but it ignored Scotland's present and much of its past, materials crucial to building a more credible sense of Scottish identity" (8).

From a postcolonial perspective, as Maureen asserts, "Scotland [Highlands] remained the primitive other" (4).

This distinction is seen as problematic as it has cast Scots in the role of underdogs, a people who are susceptible to wallowing in their misery

(Skjonhaug 5). Thus, the Scots have reason to emphasize their misfortune, and to expect the worst. A terrible misfortune has forced the Scots to resort to emigration in massive waves, creating an enormous diaspora. "One of the reasons for this unfortunate trend may be that the Scots do not have faith in a bright future and opportunities for themselves and their family in Scotland; people with [academic] ambitions and Scots who are striving for economic

success tend to move to London" (Skjonhaug 5). Modernization in the form of

English rule has created a belief that anything Scottish is inferior, but this is not what Grant discovers in his investigation.

On the contrary, Grant's findings suggest that English influence has infiltrated even the remotest corners of the Highlands more than he, Lamont or

Mrs. Everett realize. As mentioned earlier, the locals exhibit faith in English justice that buries Lamont's hopes and expectations of finding anonymity in the

Highlands. The Scotland which Tey's characters think they know has more to do with "nostalgia and decline" (Walton 1) than with the laws and criminal justice system that make it, politically, part of Britain. It is the presumption of distance and alienation that appeals to Lamont and which Grant presumes to pose obstacles. In this sense, Scottishness represents otherness, which has entirely different meaning for Lamont and Grant.

The geographical location of the Highland plays a vital role in The Man in

The Queue. As a literary device, distance and isolation are familiar components of detective fiction in the works of seminal Golden Age detective writers such as

Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy L. Sayers. By the late 1920s, the tragedies of World War I were still vivid and the Great Depression was about to impact profoundly conditions of British society. The detective novels seemed to offer a soothing escape from present anxieties. John Scaggs argues in Crime

Fiction that "The characteristic desire of Golden Age fiction to restore or return to a lost order that, in all respects, is superior to the present world, reinforces this pastoral reading" (50). Arguably, the remote rural settings epitomize structural opposition to the undesirable realities and malpractices of modern

capitalism. Moriarty-like master criminals, another possible embodiment of predatory venture capitalists, are rarely to be found. The stories are often enclosed in both setting and social class, lower classes play minor roles, and society threats give way to those of a personal nature.

Tey remains faithful to the Golden Age tradition with regards to the nature of crime, yet her deployment of remote setting has, arguably, another meaning. In The Man in The Queue, distance and separation may be interpreted as the characteristics of Scottishness, a literary device, reminding the readers that the Scottish Highlands is a land which was violently antagonistic towards English ideas of civilization. To become lost in it is to retreat into the past that is still distinct from Englishness. Walton argues that

Agatha Christie's classic mise en scene is "an encircling state of nature which severs the human participants from social norms," whereas "the natural world has central thematic significance in Tey's Scottish mysteries" (2). This natural world is Scotland, and the nature of its distinctiveness from England is part of the mystery.

There is an intriguing parallel between the deployment of distant and isolated places in detective fiction and Scotland's cultural association with the

Highlands. While the remote and rural setting of detective fiction offered the escape from the realities and anxieties of the interwar period, the Highlands seem to produce the same effect to the concept of Scottishness. Maureen argues that:

The cultural association of Scotland with the figure of brawny

kilted Highlander necessarily obscured those elements of Scottish

history or culture that it could not accommodate. The Jacobite

rebellion, the mountains, the warrior clansman fit the bill (albeit in

a distorted form); the Enlightenment and the Clearances, the

densely packed cities and the industrial working class, the

Edinburgh intellectual and the Glasgow capitalist did not (8).

The foregoing argument tends to imply that the notion of national identity associated with the Highlands could be seen as an escape from the realities of life in Scotland.

Logic and reason are also crucial elements of detective fiction from its birth in the nineteenth century. The detective figures have used deduction and scientific and rational thoughts to solve a mystery and to bring or restore order out of emotionalism and chaos. This is Grant's modus operandi: he employs all the resources of Scotland Yard to capture Lamont and, eventually, he uses deductive reasoning to identify the murderer. In a much broader sense, he brings logic and reason to the concept of Scottishness, which Tey sees as holding Scotland back, and keeping it from fully embracing the opportunities that union with England offers. It is what distinguishes detective fiction apart from other literary forms. While many forms of literature are concerned with transcending the boundaries of human reason in order to observe a deeper meaning in existence, the detective novel serves the opposite purpose. It is this purpose that Tey's fiction brings to the literary device of Scottishness.

Metaphorically, Grant's mission is to impose reason on romanticism as a symbol of England bringing civilization to the Highlands.

The Man in the Queue negotiates Scotland's relationship to England, with its civilizing and modernizing influence. As he flees into the supposed wilderness of the North, Lamont ignores the possibility that English civilization could penetrate into the landscape of the Highlands. The notion of the benighted Scotland of Mrs. Everett's description proves to be misleading. The fact that Grant, with the machinery of English justice at his disposal, is able to track down Lamont presents Scotland as a nation that not only needed English civilization but is also receptive to it. Walton asserts that, for Tey, "Realism versus romance is a concern when it comes to the evidence of modernity in the landscape while a unionist stance inflects her presentation of the reliance of

Scotland upon England in matters of economy, policing, communications and infrastructure" (1). Arguably, Tey fills the relationship between Scotland and

England with a practicality which transcends the nostalgia and emotionalism of an independent Scotland.

It may be asserted that Tey is saying that Scottishness, that combination of qualities that make Scotland unique and distinct from England, is inconsequential and should be diluted by the modernizing influence of English civilization. Lamont is deluded into thinking that Scotland could offer refuge from Inspector Grant and English justice. Walton calls Lamont's perceptions as

"nostalgic fantasy" (3) as the wilderness fails to defeat the modern methods of the police investigation. She points out that "Fingerprints are analysed; transport, property ownership and public records are consulted" (3). Tey draws a yin/yang comparison between the two countries regarding the development and basic administrative capabilities. The whole investigation and apprehension

of Lamont is carried out by English authorities with no apparent involvement or recognition of Scottish legal authority (Walton 4). Grant is in charge of the investigation in Scotland without involving the Scots in any official way. Grant's legal authority north of the border seems to be, perhaps deliberately, exaggerated, yet it serves its purpose of establishing Grant as an agent of the

English modernization.

If Grant may be seen as a symbol of civilization and order, then Lamont could be regarded as representing Scotland, more specifically, Scotland's tendency to seek a return to the idealized past. Through Lamont, Tey articulates her resistance to the notion of romanticism, similar to what Samuel

Johnson found when visiting the Highlands in the late eighteen century. In The

Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, Dr. Johnson asserts: "The Scots have something to plead for their easy reception of an improbable fiction; they are seduced by their fondness for their supposed ancestors" (qtd. in Boulton

246). Tey's familiarity with the work of Samuel Johnson is obvious from her later work. The foreword to The Daughter of Time, which Tey wrote in the early 1950s states that her historical biography Claverhouse is dedicated "TO

THOSE WHO may not prefer Scotland to Truth, but certainly prefer Scotland to enquiry" (Henderson 201), using a quote from Johnson's In a Journey to the

Western Islands of Scotland.

Coming back to The Man in The Queue, Lamont's belief that he can escape the law by retreating into the Highlands is a symbol of Scottishness, which has roots lying in a misguided notion of a romanticized past. More specifically, Lamont's journey into the Highlands is symbolic of Scotland seeking

to return to, or reclaim, a remarkable sense of itself, which has nothing to do with England. Arguably, this model of Scottishness, for Tey, represents a reluctance to accept the English influence. Just as Lamont believes that the

Highlands will hide him, Scottishness seems to be treated as a symptom of a mistaken belief that Scotland can return to the past. Lamont's symbolic retreat into the wilds is an allegory for this misguided desire. In this sense, Scotland itself becomes a fugitive from progress and the promise of modern civilization.

Edward Said asserts in Culture and Imperialism that imperialism is never only economic, and it includes an entire ideology of cultural superiority (qtd. in

Maureen 3). Tey seems to find this concept impossible to avoid. Throughout

The Man in the Queue, Tey frequently reminds readers of the misguided way in which Scottishness accentuates Highlands' natural beauty and the nobility of its people despite the presence of the modernizing English influences. Through

Grant, Tey explains that none of the qualities of Scottishness can protect a fugitive from justice in the modern era of criminal detection. "Not one criminal in a thousand now fled to the Highlands or to Wales for a refuge. A man demanded the means of food and shelter in his retreat nowadays, and a deserted bothy or a cave on the hillside were out of date" (Tey, MQ 147). Thus, running to the highlands to hide from the law is treated as a symptom of naivety.

In Tey's vision of Scottishness, Inspector Grant is the focal point of the

Union. He is the epitome of reason, logic, and civilization, whose presence transcends the romantic emotionalism of cultural separatism. For Tey, Grant is a hero, who plays a part for Scotland's sake. "As a heroic figure traversing the

landscape, he expresses ideological commitments to the union, which alone can protect Scotland from internal and external threats" (Walton 17). Tey suggests that union with England was for the greater good of Scotland. Thus, Grant seems to stand in contrast to the sentiment of Scottishness that can only to

Scotland stuck in the past. Inspector Grant is also a reminder that the union made Scotland part of a greater whole. In the contradiction to what

Scottishness is supposed to represent, the people Grant encounters respond positively to what he embodies, which can be surprising to the reader familiar with the growing Scottish cultural revivalism of the time The Man in the Queue was written. In a broad sense, Grant travels to Scotland not only to arrest

Lamont. As Walton argues, Tey's detective plays a much larger role as he is supposed "to confront and subvert myths of rural Scotland" (17). Grant's role and the authority he represents reflect the spirit of the union and Scots do not treat him as a despot or invader.

After all, the joining of England and Scotland arose from an old idea of union, in which England united with its northern neighbour as an expansion of the British Empire. The year 1707 saw a beginning of a relationship in which

England "has always been the senior partner" with the political, social and cultural power concentrated in the south (Devine 1). It is this geopolitical construct that Tey appears to find desirable. In The Man in The Queue specifically, this arrangement proves to be mutually beneficial because it facilitates the capture of a man who is thought to be a dangerous criminal. Tey describes the Union as a needed and welcome concept through which Scotland has gained considerably more than it lost. In a very broad sense, the plot of

The Man in the Queue can be perceived as Tey's approving nod to London's involvement in Scottish affairs.

As explained earlier, Tey's literary perspective is closely connected with the landscape of Scottish Highlands, into which Lamont escapes and which

Grant transcends with his authority. Tey's Scotland is no longer a land of natural wonder and the mystery that epics such as Ossian and nineteenth- century writers ascribed to it. Tey deconstructs Scottishness based on the myth, which makes the Highlands powerfully evocative of a culturally distinct and independent Scotland. In The Man in the Queue, Tey makes the proposition that "individuals should disentangle themselves from the landscape, both by rejecting false regionalism in favour of anglicised cosmopolitanism, and by moving beyond Romantic passivity in nature in favour of individual autonomy"

(Walton 17).

The solution of the case in The Man in the Queue provides yet another symbolism. Inspector Grant, assisted by Ms. Dinmont, manages to prove

Lamont's innocence. Thus, Grant migrates from the role of Lamont's pursuer to the role of his preserver. In other words, the protection sought by Lamont in the Highlands comes from London. His serving justice and protecting the innocent can be read as Tey's conviction that Englishness can save Scotland from turning to a romanticized past. Arguably, Tey suggests that the Scotland continues to embrace rather than question its place within the Union.

To conclude, romanticism and a preoccupation with a mythic past have been hallmarks of Scottish literature as far back as the eighteenth century. The works of writers such as Robert Burns and Sir Walter Scott immortalized the

image of a noble highlander. This motif helped establish the literary idea of the

Scot, and Scotland, as the embodiment of doomed individuality in the face of modernization and the inexorable progress of English imperialism. To a large degree, this defines literary Scottishness, a phenomenon that fueled the romantic idea that the glory of Scotland's past represents an idea that Scotland should reclaim. Josephine Tey's The Man in the Queue approaches

Scottishness in an entirely different way. For Tey, Scotland should leave the cultural myth behind as it can only keep Scotland stuck in the past. Arguably,

Tey is saying that Scotland cannot refuse external influences in order to keep realizing its full potential.

5. The Singing Sands

5.1. Introduction

The Singing Sands is the last detective novel of Josephine Tey. Published in 1952, a few months after Tey's death, once again, the story finds Inspector

Grant at work in the Scottish Highlands, serving the interests of justice and enforcing London's legal/judicial authority north of the border. Unlike The Man in the Queue, however, the primary concern of The Singing Sands does not centre on the murder investigation. The core development of the story revolves around unfolding Grant's psyche as he suffers from a mental breakdown caused by "four years of consistent overwork and an overgrown conscience" (54).

Grant takes time off work and returns to the land of his childhood. His venture to Scotland may be interpreted as a quest for self-assurance and mental recovery. Thanks to this strong existential element, The Singing Sands tends to border on being a proper novel, in which, as Henderson asserts "a murder just happens to occur" (335).

In this, as this thesis argues, Tey provides an interesting metaphor.

Grant, her rationalist hero, responds to his crisis of identity by venturing north of the border, into Scotland, which is undergoing its own identity crisis.

Metaphorically speaking, Grant travels into the heart of Scottishness in a search for an island which, according to a poem he finds, guards the way to Tir Na Og,

"the Gaelic Paradise" (Tey, SS 67). In The Singing Sands, Tey's take on

Scotland's obsession with the past and its potential willingness to accept misleading and harmful ideas about Scottishness is reinforced, and intensified.

The first part of this chapter develops the assertion made by Henderson that The Singing Sands is Tey's answer to The Lost Chart by Neil Gunn (335), and, in a broader sense, to the upsurge of Scottish nationalism in the 1940s and 1950s. It exposes and examines the links between the two novels as well as strategies Tey deploys to deconstruct the myth of the Gaelic paradise that preserves a rich cultural history as suggested by Gunn in The Lost Chart.

Furthermore, it discusses Tey's rather uncomplimentary depiction of the

Scottish folk revival emphasizing the author's concern of its potential abuse by politically motivated individuals and organizations in their struggle for power. In the second part of the chapter, the discussion points to Tey's criticism of

Scottishness as a tool of political propaganda employed by Scottish nationalists.

Lastly, it looks into the possible symbolism of Grant's personal crisis with regards to the Scotland's search for a national identity.

5.2. From Cladday to Cladda

Neil Gunn, Tey's Inverness contemporary, wrote The Lost Chart in 1949 as his first attempt at entering the genre of detective fiction. The plot of the novel centers around a lost chart that provides directions to the distant island in the North of Scotland called Cladday. The Cold War has just commenced, and the island becomes a place of vital importance for the country defense. The story is driven by a police investigation, involvement of a communist fifth column as well as the secret services. Moreover, considering the relevance of this thesis, Gunn creates a parallel plot, in which Cladday represents the last place that preserves what Gunn considers being the lost Gaelic culture. It might

be asserted that the search for the lost chart has more than one task to accomplish. Not only does it symbolize the effort to protect Scotland from international threats, but it also serve as a symbol of preserving the distinctive

Scottish culture. Thus, the cultural element ascribed to the place adds another critical dimension to its symbolism.

Throughout The Lost Chart, the main protagonist, Mr. Dermont, falls into the grip of the obsession with Cladday and the belief that the island conceals the gateway "to Tir Nan Og, that Gaelic paradise set in the Western sea" (Gunn

41). Gunn portrays the island as "the place where you see light being made"

(42). Dermot vaguely remembers visiting the island in his childhood and his longing for the return is referred to as "running back...back into a more primitive order of society" (64). Cladday and its surroundings are described as

"divine" and "like something that does not happen any more in the world"

(113), and its inhabitants are depicted as loyal, silent and secretive (153).

Despite the recovery of the chart, Dermont never reaches the place, and the island remains a mystery to be discovered.

The most distinctive feature of Scottishness represented in The Lost

Chart is the use and symbolism of the Gaelic language. However sublime the island of Cladday might be, it is the Gaelic language that "paints the landscape in sound" (153). Notwithstanding the foregoing characterizations, the attempts to describe the beauty of the island and the surrounding sea in English pose a daunting challenge to Dermont, because "the words, like blue and green, they are too hard for the see out yonder" (117). Dermot falls in love with a Gaelic speaker, Ellen, and, arguably, their romance becomes a vehicle through which

Gunn expresses his vision and ideas of Scottish cultural distinctiveness. Ellen's singing is a thread running through the novel, and Dermot is exceedingly moved by the power of the Gaelic songs. They "always affected him in an atavistic way, like some sort of drug" (34). For Dermot, the songs convey much greater meaning than a mere musical experience. "It was a whole country, a lost world...it was a primordial innocence" (44), and "the song - and the singing

- had a whole civilization behind it" (221). Based on the reference to the lost world, it seems legitimate to suggest that through the deployment of the Gaelic songs, Gunn tends to relive the memory of the pre-Union Scotland. Thus,

Dermont's longing for Cladday carries a broader meaning and embodies the idea of the return; the idea evolved by the Scottish literary renaissance in which

Gunn participated actively.

Encyclopedia Britannica states that "Gunn became involved in politics and was instrumental in forming the Scottish National Party" ("Neil Miller

Gunn"). The Lost Chart appears to be reflective of Gunn's involvement in

Scottish politics and his openly admitted pro-independence stance. The

Highland Clearances, which came as an aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellions and, are thought to have resulted in the destruction of the Gaelic culture

("Highland Clearances") are subjected to rather a severe criticism in the novel.

At the ceilidh, a traditional Gaelic social gathering, Dermont explains to a friend that "these barbarities happened no more than a century or so ago in the

Highlands of Scotland...the nature of the human beast doesn't change in a century, even in Britain" (90). Then, he continues that "bloody ructions" are inevitable if Scotland is pushed by a group collaring total power" (90). Gunn

explicitly articulates his views on the consequences of the English influence on

Scottish culture in the scene where Ellen signs a Gaelic song to Dermot in their apartment. Ellen's singing is interrupted by a phone call from the British Secret

Service agent:

When the telephone rang it was a machine gun ripping right

through. It was black, and fixed, and malignant. It had silenced

Ellen as it had destroyed the country they journeyed, that country

he was always a little afraid of, because its beauty, its containing

harmony, was sad with the mute cry of the forever lost. He looked

at the black hump on his desk with a profound hatred; he felt the

fighting blood surge malignantly inside him. (114)

Arguably, the call that suspends Ellen's performance represents the epitome of the Union and the subsequent consequences of Anglicization. This analogy tends to delineate the Act of Union as a violent exercise of British political power through which Scotland has suffered a significant cultural oppressions and harboured bitter resentment toward the established political accommodation.

In The Lost Chart, Gunn treats the Gaelic songs as a symbol of Scottish culture and freedom from the English influence. It may be asserted that their revival epitomises Scotland's return to independence, one of the goals of

Gunn's political agenda. The mythical island of Cladday supplies a powerful metaphor. The island represents a crucial place for national defence.

Furthermore, the importance of its role is amplified by the cultural component

which turns it into the sanctuary for what Gunn seems to consider the indigenous Scottish culture.

The succeeding part of this chapter is an attempt to develop the claim that The Singing Sand can be considered Tey's direct answer to The Lost Chart.

Written two years after the publication of Gunn's novel, the plot of The Singing

Sands is centred around Grant's discovery of a cryptic poem after a man dies on his way to the Scottish Highlands. The poem hints at the existence of a mysterious place:

The beasts that talk,

The streams that stand,

The stones that walk,

The singing sands,

......

That guard the way

To Paradise. (17)

Grant's search for the meaning of the verse and locating the place becomes slowly an obsession. During an encounter with a Scottish patriot, Wee Archie,

Grant learns that the sands that sing are in Cladda, a remote island in the

Hebrides. Both Cladday and Clada are fictional places. The apparent similarity of the names and the possibility of both places being a gateway to Tir nan Og hints conspicuously that Tey engages in a dialogue with Gunn's novel. Unlike

Dermont in The Lost Chart, Grant succeeds to reach the island. Instead of a

Gaelic paradise, however, he finds what Henderson calls "a collection of

disparate souls living in a small place" (336). Tey is direct in confronting the

Gaelic folk and language revival, using Grant as a vehicle to poke holes in the shallowness of Scottishness as presented by Gunn. In the Hebrides, Grant comes across what he describes as "deplorable" representations of island folk music: "The songs were musically negligible," he muses, "If this was the kind of thing that people came to the Hebrides to 'gather,' then they were hardly worth the gathering” (98). The ways Tey attempts to deconstruct the myth of a

Gaelic paradise will be discussed in turn.

For both Dermot and Grant, the Highlands are the land of childhood, and their longing for the retreat into it symbolizes the return to the innocence. The symbolism of Grant's return to Scotland is discussed in the second part of this chapter, yet Grant's Scottish ancestry needs to be mentioned with the connection to The Lost Chart. In The Singing Sands, readers learn that Grant comes from the Strathspey area, close to Inverness (93). This information reveals an inconsistency in the character as Inspector Grant of The Man in the

Queue was born in the English Midlands (61). None of the others Tey's books featuring Inspector Grant do not deal with the place of his origin, and it is highly likely that Tey deliberately developed the character. Not only does

Grant's Scottish ancestry remind of the author's personal life, but it also makes

Grant a Dermont's closer counterpart. It may be asserted that this resemblance between Dermont and Grant enables Tey to challenge Gunn's view of the

Scottish culture and politics.

In The Singing Sands, Grant travels to the Scottish Highlands for a six- week holiday, which he plans to spend in Clune at the mansion of his friends

Tommy and Laura. The discovery of the dead man and the cryptic poem, however, turns Grant's holiday into a private investigation. Thus, the last case of Inspector Grant can be seen as the inquiry into the Highland myth. As soon as Grant learns about the connection between the singing sand and the island of Cladda from Wee Archie, his curiosity lands him in the library to research information on the islands. Surprised by the high number of books on the

Hebrides, he learns that "It's a distinction in Scotland not to have written a book about the Islands" (76). The mystery of Cladda and the singing sands sticks in Grant's minds and the following day finds him on the way to the

Hebrides.

The Island Grant finds is far away from the paradise, for which Dermont moons over in The Lost Chart. When requesting information, Grant offers a glass of whiskey to the train conductor, who turns to be "the best value for money that Grant had ever had... As a source of information, he was pure horse's mouth, and he 'gave' like a beer tap" (74). The initial satisfaction quickly turns into satiation, and Inspector Grant utters that, "one more minute of Yoghourt and he would be sick" (74). This idiomatic description is in direct contradiction to the vision of the "silent and secretive" inhabitants as presented by Neill Gunn in his novel.

The Cladda Hotel, in which Grant stays, is depicted as a ramshackle place with a rather grudging staff (82). Grant's desire to feast on local food, of which he read in the books, is shattered:

His first meal in the isles of delight consisted of a couple of bright

orange kippers inadequately cured and liberally dyed in Aberdeen,

bread made in Glasgow, oatcakes baked by a factory in Edinburgh

and never toasted since, jam manufactured in Dundee, and butter

made in Canada. (86)

The landscape surrounding Cladda, as Grant sees it, is "impressive in its sweep and simplicity" (92), yet clearly not sublime. During a long walk around the island, Grant utters to himself that "the whole thing was as inspiring as the fens on a wet January day" (91). Upon coming back to the hotel room, Grant burst into a peal of laughter because "to set out for the threshold of Tir nan Og and fetch up at the Cladda hotel had an exquisite ridiculousness" (92). Grant's self- mocking laugh comes in the full realization that he has allowed himself to be deluded into thinking that he might find something substantive in Cladda after all.

While at Cladda, Grant attends a local gathering, the ceilidh. His reaction to the festival of Gaelic songs could not be more dissimilar to that of Dermont in The Lost Chart. The first singer has, according to Grant, a sweet voice, but no expression (98). She is followed by a self-confident, young man, who, unfortunately, failed to learn the art of singing (98). Then, "another woman sang another expressionless song" (98) and Grant finds the whole gathering rather a "dull affair" (98). At the end of the event, Grant leaves with the conviction that "it was better that these feeble imitation should be left to die"(98). This rather humiliating depiction of the ceilidh demonstrates Tey's attitude towards the attempt at the revival of the Gaelic culture.

Arguably, Tey puts forward the claim that the sublime and distinctive qualities associated with the remote parts of the Highlands are of a mythical

nature, and the islands are parts of the British Empire both economically and culturally. Grant's initial fascination for the place alters and turns into an interest in finding out "why had a place of so few attractions captured the imagination of so many people" (90). According to Father Heslop, the authority of the Cladda, the myth was created by people, who came to the island

"unconsciously running away from life, and found what their imagination prepared for them" (90). Before leaving Cladda, Grant looks at the ocean surrounding the island and realizes that "the nearest land was America" (92), which is, in Tey's view, "much nearer the Islanders' idea of Heaven than Tir nan

Og" (77). It is through the character of Grant and his investigation that Tey tries to get behind the historical mist and bring her vision of Scotland. Depicting

America as a place of a higher attractiveness than Tir nan Og reveals Tey's disdain for any tendencies to revive the Gaelic culture. Furthermore, this view is presented as a prevailing opinion of the Scottish people living in the Highlands.

Arguably, The Singing Sand is not merely an answer to Neil Gunn's The

Lost Chart, but rather a broader response to the Scottish cultural revival and the support of Scottish independence initiated by writers such as Hugh

MacDiarmid and Neil Gunn. Tey's views and concerns are projected into the character of Wee Archie, who promotes a pro-nationalist, pan-Gaelic future for

Scotland. Presumably, the character of Wee Archie is an overt representation of the Scottishness that Tey appears to despise. According to Walton, he is an amalgam of mid-twentieth century Scottish nationalists such as Hamish

Henderson and Hugh MacDiarmid (6). As discussed further, for Tey, Wee Archie

is as out of touch with the realities of life in Scotland as he is with the nature of the political relationship between England and Scotland.

An essential element of Scottishness during the period in which The

Singing Sands was written was the revival of the Gaelic language, the language that was near the point of extinction by the first half of the twentieth century.

This, perhaps more than any other feature of Scottishness, negatively resonated with Tey since she was convinced that Scotland should embrace all aspects of the Union with England, especially the English language. Moreover,

Tey presents Wee Archie's effort to promote the use of Gaelic as a pure charlatanry. Grant is informed that Wee Archie is "writing an epic poem in don't think the poem can be up too much" (43). Grant finds out further that before retreating to the Highlands, Archie had lived in the Lowlands, but had failed there (43). Nevertheless, his manipulative skills make him dangerous, particularly where Scottishness is involved. Grant gathers that "there's nothing wrong with Archie Brown's head…if he hadn't had the wit to think up this role for himself, he would be teaching school in some God-forsaken backwater"

(43). Later it turns out that Archie doesn't have a drop of Scottish blood in him, having come from an English father and Irish mother (43). For Tey, Archie is the embodiment of the falseness of Scottishness; an artificial concept manufactured without reflecting the realities of life in the Highlands.

Grant finds Wee Archie's affectations, such as the interest in reviving

Scottish Gaelic, amusing, but not because it is alien and unfamiliar. It is because Grant has some elementary knowledge of Gaelic that enables him to recognize Archie's charlatanry. When Archie greets Grant with a familiar Gaelic

expression of welcome, "Cia mar tha si?", his surprise is palpable: "He had not heard the Gaelic phrase since he was a child, and the affectation of it cooled

[Grant's] welcome" (37). It is hard not to see Tey, herself a native of the

Highlands, in Grant. Although Grant exchanges a few greetings in Gaelic with the islanders later in the story, he realizes there is no point in defending any nostalgic attachment to the old tongue. In The Singing Sands, as Martin asserts, Gaelic is pictured as impractical for both official and general use (203).

The inspector's lack of respect for this feature of Scottishness, which people such as Wee Archie have so easily manipulated, is the expression of a literary imagination influenced by such false prophets.

Furthermore, Tey juxtaposes the contradiction between Grant's personal history and his role as Scotland Yard inspector. As mentioned earlier, Grant comes from a Highland community near Strathspey. In spite of his Scottish ancestry and his familiarity with the Gaelic language, Grant has apparently rejected Highland ways, which symbolize a lost past, for a future as an important law enforcement official in a prototypically English institution. This may explain why Grant is so critical of Scottishness and its linguistic and musical manifestations. Through the encounter with Wee Archie, Grant comes face to face with a dimension of Scottishness that Tey seems to finds highly unappealing.

Henderson explains that Tey's uneasiness about the revival of Gaelic was based on her conviction that those who advocated the revival of Gaelic culture refuse to associate with poor Gaels such as Tey's grandparents. She asserts that "the Gaelic revival did not simply reverse this prejudice against their

language…and allow descendants of Gaelic speakers, like Beth [Tey], to accept their heritage: instead it set up new norms and new societal groupings" (339).

Tey describes Archie's interest in the Gaelic merely as an opportunistic act.

Grant learns that Archie was one of the "Lowland-Scots...but the competition was too keen. So he decided that Lowland Scots was just debased English and very reprehensible, and that there was nothing like a return to the 'old tongue,' to the real language" (43). Arguably, Tey implies that Scottishness and it features have been hijacked by the likes of Wee Archie, people who have associated it with the Scottish nationalism.

While in The Singing Sands Tey openly criticizes the attempts at the revival of the Gaelic language, the reasons behind her opinions are, apparently, revealed in Gordon Daviot's play Patria, which was also written at the beginning of the 1950s. The main protagonist, a young Highlander Margot, expresses her views of the revival:

You talk of our glorious traditions; you would revive the language

and literature of the Creelanders. There isn't any literature, and

you know it. All the literature the Creelanders ever produced were

folk-tales, handed down by word of mouth because they couldn't

write. As for the language, there isn't a single person in this hall

tonight who knows a word of it. It is so dead that it has no words

for anything that came into being later than two hundred years

ago. It has no connection with modern life. And yet you demand

that it should be learned and talked again. And when speak a tag

of it your poor dupes cheer like maniacs. (Henderson 339)

This strong statement and the patronizing characterization of the Scottish folk revival in The Singing Sands may be interpreted as Tey's message that what could be considered a valid national identity cannot be shaped based on the fabricated cultural heritage. In response to The Lost Chart, Tey seems to imply that Scotland should refrain from seeking its identity through a largely invented cultural history.

5.3. The Idea of Scottish independence

Apart from the revival of the Gaelic language, the primary concern that

Tey articulates through The Singing Sands appears to be the idea of Scottish independence. Henderson asserts that, during the last year of Tey's life, the

SNP was campaigning heavily in Inverness and the surrounding areas. "The

Covenant committee aimed to raise the profile of the idea of Scottish Home

Rule, and their meetings in Inverness were very well attended, with an audience of 2.000 congregating outside of the Town House" (Henderson 338).

Considering that the population of Inverness in the 1950s was about 40.000 people, Tey could hardly fail to notice the growing nationalistic tendencies and was apparently concerned with what this political effort could become.

Once again, it is the character of Wee Archie, who epitomizes the

Scottish nationalism and the related political ideas. During the first encounter with Grant, Archie calls himself a "revolutionary" (37) and, betrayed by Grant's

English accent, subjects him to an angry patriotic speech of criticism:

England, it seems, was a bloodsucker, a vampire, draining the

blood of Scotland and leaving her limp and white. Scotland had

groaned under the foreign yoke; she had come staggering behind

the conqueror's chariot; she had paid tribute and prostituted her

talents to the tyrant's needs. But she was about to throw off the

yoke, to unloose the bands. (38)

To Grant, Archie is an inexhaustible source of generalization and overstatement. After the encounter, Grant expresses the displeasure with the combination of Archie's pitiable perversion of patriotism and an "unwarranted patronage" (38).

Archie's patriotic speech seems to confirm Walton's claim that Wee

Archie is Tey's take on Hugh MacDiarmid, who expressed his thoughts that the revival of the old tongue should help Scotland to throw off the yoke of

Anglicisation ("Hugh MacDiarmid & Scottish Cultural Renaissance"). Also,

Archie's Lowlands history and his inclination to write poems in aversion of

Gaelic that no one seems to "understand a word" (43) might be taken as Tey's reference to MacDiarmid's attempt to reawaken Scottish culture through the adopting the 'Lalans.' It was a new form of the Gaelic language: "A synthetic idiom borrowing from many different varieties of the Scots language, spoken at different times in different parts of the country” ("Hugh MacDiarmid & Scottish

Cultural Renaissance"). It may be asserted that the almost exaggeratedly mocking depiction of Wee Archie is Tey's expression of her disdain for the literary and political agenda of Hugh MacDiarmid and his sympathizers.

More importantly, Tey treats Archie's endorsement of Scottish independence as a crime against the Scottish people. Again, Tey utilizes Grant and his professional interest in Archie to tackle the issue. As a representative of

the Scotland Yard, Grant weighs up possible motivation behind Archie's conduct and comes to the conclusion that he is extremely likely subsidised by some

"native malcontent with a thirst for power" or "some foreign agency with an interest in troublemaking" (39). After reporting Archie to the Special Branch,

Grant receives an answer that the Branch has nothing against the "bird", but they would like to find out who his "ravens" are (60). Grant is distressed to find that Archie carries out his patriotic mission throughout the islands, worrying that, unlike in the Lowlands, he could represent power in Cladda, abusing the separateness of the island and its inhabitants. Arguably, Tey points at the irony of Archie's mission. While he presents the independence as a means of protection from the international threats, Archie becomes a threat himself with what Tey regards as a spurious prophecy.

In this, Archie emerges as the major culprit in The Singing Sand. For

Grant, Wee Archie is an exploitative and perilous demagogue whose sermons about nationalism and the Scots' duty to honour their glorious Gaelic past perpetrate a con game on the Scottish people. Similarly to the revival of the

Gaelic language, Tey's concerns with the surge of nationalism, which are indirectly tackled in The Singing Sand, are exposed in Patria through the character of Margot and her message to Scottish nationalists:

What you are doing is a sin, a crime. A crime against humanity

and civilisation. You are rousing hatreds that were sleeping; that

would have died in their sleep...you distort history as you please...

I love my country as much you do, but I am not blinded by flag-

waving or doped by cheap sentiment. (Henderson 339)

Arguably, Tey asserts that Scottishness has been fabricated and exploited as a pretext for the political attainments in the struggle for power, the concept which can only harm Scotland.

Despite these concerns, Tey portrays the nationalism as an idea embraced only by few individuals promoting political aims of their subsidies.

Throughout the whole novel, the audience is reminded that the enthusiastic patriotism displayed by Wee Archie is sparsely shared or approvingly received by other Scots. Tommy's quip that Archie "was wearing a kilt that no

Highlander would dream of being found alive in" (36) denotes that Archie is a silly caricature of a culture he is keen to revive. Later on, Laura ridicules

Archie's manners, calling him a self-appointed "champion of Gaeldom" (43), pointing out that his Glasgow accent is not only "repellent" (44), but also, and crucially, it remind his audience of the "possibility of being ruled from Glasgow, a fate worse than death" (44). In this, there is a strong suggestion that the idea of Scottish independence is, in fact, anathema to the majority of Highlanders.

This argument is reinforced and emphasized during the scene where

Archie gives a speech at the ceilidh in Cladda. After a Scottish folk song and during a lengthy patriotic broadside from Wee Archie, during which he accentuates the demand to terminate Scotland's suffering under the British dominion, the crowd of Scots exposes the enormous disinterest in the

Scottishness that Archie tends to impose. "In the midst of his impassioned speech, the audience depart en masse to watch the ballet on their televisions, an art form they have become obsessed with because it represents something completely different to what they know" (Walton 7). It is a mocking interlude

in Tey's narrative, a comic portrayal of Scottishness and the extent to which it can parody itself. Grant laughs at Archie calling him a "souvenir doll...overthrown by an arabesque" (102), implying that Scottish revolutionaries can hardly make any impression on their countrymen with such an agenda.

In The Singing Sands, Tey seemingly holds out hope for the future of

Scotland without the nationalistic tendencies. The agent is supplied in the form of the character of Pat, Grant's nephew, whom Grant aptly calls the "Young

Scotland" (38). Anxiously inspecting Pat's reaction to Archie's patriotic speech,

Grant "rejoiced in this heart" (38) to notice the adverse effect that Archie's lecture has produced on his nephew. "Young Scotland was sitting facing the loch, as if even the sight of Wee Archie was too much for him" (39). It appears that Tey embeds a symbolic handover of the mission to the last story of

Inspector Grant. Pat is endowed with a few revolutionary tendencies, but those of a different nature than Wee Archie's. He learns from Grant that fighting for freedom from England would be the most extraordinary idea for a country which "thankfully fell heir" to all the benefits of the Union such as "colonies,

Shakespeare, soap, solvency, and so forth." (118). Notwithstanding Archie's critical appraisal of English oppression, Tey openly contends that Scotland has thankfully embraced both the economic and cultural elements of the Union with

England. Arguably, to a mind equipped with this premise, the notion of a national identity defined as the antithesis to Englishness must have been, arguably, an ill-fitting idea.

As this thesis has argued, Tey provides an agent of English influence through the character of Inspector Grant, a vehicle she employs in the attempt

to blur the borders between the Scottish Highlands and the rest of the Union.

The newly acquired Scottish ancestry, however, assigns Grant yet another role.

Recovering from the mental breakdown, Inspector Grant is determined to overcome the impulses of his id which he calls "forces of Unreason" (12).

Something in his psyche gives rise to the need to find refuge to recover. Of all places, Grant chooses to retreat to the north of Scotland. Thus for Grant, the

Highlands become a haven, a place where he might heal and come to a better understanding of himself. Quite paradoxically, Grant himself repeats the custom of retreating to the Highlands to seek protection, just as Richard Hannay in The

Thirty-Nine Steps, Lamont in The Man in the Queue and Dermont in The Lost

Chart.

Considering the Freudian component and accepting the assumption that the character Inspector Grant provides an allegorical representation of

Scotland, it may be observed that Tey suggests that Scotland itself suffers from a form of psychosis with its tendency to seek a distinctive national character.

During the journey, Grant is temporarily seduced by a thought that there might be a Shangri-La like place in the Highlands after all. Moreover, his mind plays with an idea of leaving his role at the Scotland Yard and staying in Scotland. It seems as though he has decided that he needs to give Scotland, and

Scottishness, an equitable chance to win him over, and that perhaps he has been too critical. Given the depth of his feelings about the relationship between

England and Scotland, and the importance of the union, the fact that he has come to Scotland for clarity seems to indicate that he has reached a moral tipping point. Grant's journey to the Scottish Highlands in a search of his own

identity possibly translates as Scotland's effort to 'create' or reshape' the national character through the culture associated with the region.

Attaining a more intimate understanding of himself, Grant ventures to the farthest western reaches of the Hebrides. Walton argues that "Grant seeks to discover whether a Romantic encounter is still possible in Scotland" (14).

Expecting to understand what those who have embraced Scottishness appreciate, Grant unexpectedly finds something else. "As it happens, the reparation of his health and the solving of crime are facilitated by the closing- down of Romantic possibilities" (Walton 14). The encounter makes Grant realise that his reliance on logic and reason transcends romanticism, not to say the notion of Scottishness. Although the island of Cladda turns out to be no Gaelic paradise, it is where Grant finds his inner peace. Therefore, upon his return to

England, Grant seems to arrive at an accommodation with the idea of

Scottishness. As he has learned to make peace with his physical and metaphysical surroundings, he utters that "as an ingredient [Scottishness] was admirable; neat it was as abominable as ammonia" (186).

The writing of The Singing Sands took place against the backdrop of mortality in Tey's life. Her father having died in 1950 and the author herself have begun to experience her own physical decline. It is, perhaps, why she embedded such an intense existential element into her last detective novel.

Tey's Scotland Yard Inspector Grant manages to achieve a measure of inner peace and asserts his role as an authoritative figure. Using the character of

Grant as a metaphor, Tey seems to suggest that Scotland is bound to assert its place within the Union instead of seeking independence from it.

6. Conclusion

This thesis has attempted to expose and examine the theme of

Scottishness in the detective fiction of Josephine Tey. The theoretical part commences with a concise survey of Tey's literary canon putting the primary focus on her detective novels and their sociocultural components. The third chapter has delivered the overview of historical milestones in post-1707

Scotland that contributed substantially to the creation and shaping of the literary paradigm of Scottishness defined as a set of qualities distinguishing

Scotland and its culture from England. The closing section of the theoretical part is dedicated to the examination of Tey's connection to the Scottish literary scene and the interpretation of her work within the Scottish literary tradition.

Not only does it take the literary endeavours of both Gordon Daviot and

Josephine Tey into consideration, but it has also attempted to establish possible links between Tey's personal life and the pro-British outlook articulated through her work.

The analytical part discusses Tey's The Man in Queue and The Singing

Sands, examining the theme of Scottishness in the two novels against John

Buchan's The Thirty-Nine Steps and Neil Gunn's The Lost Chart respectively. In

The Man in the Queue, Lamont's escape into the Scottish Highlands is treated as a symbolic return to the past, to a somewhat romanticised vision of

Scotland. In Tey's view, the distinctive character of the Highlands and its inhabitants that shield Richard Hannay from his pursuers in The Thirty-Nine

Steps is irrecoverably transformed by the influence of English civilisation.

Inspector Grant's pursuit and his interaction with locals reveal a country that is confident, yet fully integrated into the British Empire in terms of the economic, technical and sociocultural developments.

In The Singing Sands, Tey returns to the exposure of the pragmatic matters associated with the notion of Scottishness in much more explicit and confrontational form. Engaging in a dialogue with Gunn's The Lost Chart, the effort to reshape Scottishness through the revival of what is presented as the indigenous Gaelic culture and the possible employment of Scottishness in attaining political goals are mocked and implicitly criticized. Wee Archie is portrayed as the epitome of Grant's most undesirable feelings about

Scottishness and its susceptibility to affectation. Archie and the Scottish nationalist movement that he represents are in fierce opposition to Grant's conviction that the Anglo-Scottish Union is to the benefit of Scotland in all its aspects.

In both novels, Tey’s characterization of Grant’s authority, skills and the utilization of the modern resources stand in stark contrast to what Tey appears to perceive as rather a hollow ideology of Scottishness represented by individualism and a fabricated image of the past. As the thesis has sought to prove, the shift in Grant's ancestry allows the author to expose the theme of

Scottishness and the ways in which Scotland is viewed, from within as well as from England. While The Man in the Queue, as far as Scottishness is concerned, deals primarily with the perception of the Highland myth from outside of

Scotland, The Singing Sand articulates Tey's concern over the potential abuse of Scottishness in the social climbing and political objectives. Arguably, these

two approaches were driven by Tey's personal experience. The Man in the

Queue was written relatively shortly after Tey's return to Inverness, whereas

The Singing Sands, written twenty years after The Man in the Queue, provides profound insight into the realities of life in the Scottish Highlands as perceived by the author.

The character of Inspector Grant provides the essential element to the argument that this thesis has developed. Although his allegorical roles shift from being the agent of English influence in The Man in the Queue to the representation of Scottish psyche in The Singing Sand, in both novels, he supplies a symbol of the transcendentalism of logic, reason, and collectivism over romantic and individualistic tendencies. Representing Scotland and

England, Grant may be seen as the bearer of Tey's pro-Union stance.

On the other hand, Scottishness is symbolically represented by Lamont's illusory belief in Scotland's distinctiveness and Wee Archie's opportunistic charlatanry. Arguably, in The Man in the Queue and The Singing Sands Tey treats Scottishness as a symptom of naivety and crime respectively. From the perspective of detective fiction, both Lamont and Archie are the supposed culprits in the respective novels, and it is for Grant, the detective figure, to restore the order by deconstructing the myth that Lamont seems to naively pursue and Archie allegedly corrupts.

To conclude, the detective novels of Josephine Tey do not evade tackling social, cultural and political issues, the notion of Scottishness being one of them. In The Man in the Queue and The Singing Sands, the Anglo-Scottish

Union is framed as a relationship to be embraced by Scotland. By asserting

both economic and cultural benefits of the established political accommodation,

Tey appears to imply that Scotland's tendency towards creating a national character that bears no resemblance to that of their English neighbours is an ill- defined idea that should remain within the confines of the pre-twentieth century literature.

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Appendix: List of Abreviations

MQ Tey, The Man in the Queue

SS Tey, The Singing Sands

Resumé (English)

The thesis attempts to expose and 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

Sands.

The core discussion points of the thesis revolve around the examination of Tey's pro-Union political outlook and her considerable scepticism about tendencies to revive the Gaelic language and the support for Scottish independence. Thus, the thesis strives to scrutinise Tey's detective novels within the context of the Scottish literary tradition. More specifically, The Man in the Queue and The Singing Sands are treated as Tey's reactions to The Thirty-

Steps by John Buchan and The Lost Chart by Neil Gunn, respectively. It examines the ways Tey appears to engage in the sociocultural discourse on the questions of the Scottish national identity and the Anglo-Scottish relationship.

The text searches for the links between the analysed novels and the strategies Tey employs to articulate her views through the genre of detective fiction. It examines possible meanings, allegorical roles and symbolic representations of the main characters, and the ways they seemingly translate into the discursive framework of a Scottish national identity. The thesis

consistently deploys Tey's biographical data in combination with the arguments articulated through her fictional work in an attempt to shift the findings of its analysis from the speculative to a more concrete level.

Resumé (Czech)

Tato práce se pokouší analyzovat téma skotské národní identity v detektivní fikci skotské spisovatelky Josephine Teyové. Text je rozdělen do dvou sekcí, první z nichž se skládá ze dvou samostatných kapitol, které se zabývají detektivní fikcí Josephine Teyové a tématem skotské národní identity a jeho využití v literatuře. Druhá sekce je kompletně věnovaná analýze dvou detektivních titulů Josephine Teyové, The Man in the Queue a The Singing

Sands.

Jádrem tohoto textu je rozbor politických názorů Teyové v otázkách anglicko-skotské politické unie a jejímu značnému skepticismu v otázkách obrození gaelského jazyka a podpoře skotské nezávislosti. Práce tak usiluje o analýzu zmíněných detektivních titulů v rámci skotské literární tradice.

Konkrétně text vychází s předpokladu, že The Man in The Queue a The Singing

Sands byly napsány jako reakce na tituly The Thirty-Nine Steps od Johna

Buchana, respektive The Lost Chart od Neila Gunna. Práce se zabývá rozborem způsobů, jakými Tey zdánlivě přispívá do debaty o sociálně kulturních otázkách spojených se skotskou národní identitou a anglicko-skotskými vztahy.

Práce se snaží odhalit souvislosti mezi analyzovanými tituly a metodami, které Teyová využívá pro artikulaci svých názorů skrze detektivní fikci. Text se zabývá analýzou možných významů, alegorických rolí a symboliky hlavních postav včetně jejich potenciálních interpretací v rámci diskursu na téma skotské národní identity. Tato práce se snaží konzistentně kombinovat biografické údaje ze života Josephine Teyové s analýzou jejich fiktivních děl. Tímto způsobem se

autor pokouší posunout výsledky své analýzy z čistě spekulativní do více konkrétní roviny.