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Lord Peter As Harlequin in Murder Must Adverstise

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Volume 15 Number 3 Article 4 Spring 3-15-1989 A Comedy of Masks: Lord Peter as Harlequin in Murder Must Adverstise Nancy-Lou Patterson Follow this and additional works at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore Part of the Children's and Young Adult Literature Commons Recommended Citation Patterson, Nancy-Lou (1989) "A Comedy of Masks: Lord Peter as Harlequin in Murder Must Adverstise," Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: Vol. 15 : No. 3 , Article 4. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol15/iss3/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Mythopoeic Society at SWOSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature by an authorized editor of SWOSU Digital Commons. An ADA compliant document is available upon request. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To join the Mythopoeic Society go to: http://www.mythsoc.org/join.htm Mythcon 51: A VIRTUAL “HALFLING” MYTHCON July 31 - August 1, 2021 (Saturday and Sunday) http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-51.htm Mythcon 52: The Mythic, the Fantastic, and the Alien Albuquerque, New Mexico; July 29 - August 1, 2022 http://www.mythsoc.org/mythcon/mythcon-52.htm Abstract Examines the symbolism of the Harlequin character in Murder Must Advertise, from its roots in the commedia del’ arte to contemporary parallels. Discusses the symbolic functions of the Harlequin in the novel. Additional Keywords Harlequin (Fictitious character)—Symbolism; Sayers, Dorothy L.—Characters—Peter Wimsey; Sayers, Dorothy L. Murder Must Advertise This article is available in Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature: https://dc.swosu.edu/mythlore/vol15/iss3/4 Page 22 MYTH LORE 57: Spring 1989 Si Comedy o f (Masks Lord (Peter as (Harlequin in (Murder (Must advertise Hancy-Lou (Patterson The masque of oddity he wore drunk on the way home, so I .. .tucked her up on a divan Endeared the hidden beauties more. in the sitting-room to astonish her maid in the mom- ing "(Ibid., p.85) When thrown aside, the shade was clear'd, The real countenance appear'd Where human kindness, candour fair, "Unsentimental Masquerade of a Harlequin" describes And truth, the native features were. Lord Peter's second appearance as Harlequin. It begins How few like him could change with ease with Dian behind the wheel of a friend's saloon which is From shape to shape and all should please! overtaken by "the glare of the enormous twin lights"(/bi/., p.152) of another automobile. In a moment 'She saw the "On the Death of John Rich, Esq." (1761) black mask and skull-cap and the flash of black and sil­ ver "(ibid.) The pursuit leads them into "a stretch of wood­ n three chapters of Murder Must Advertise, Lord Peter, land" and shuts off all its lights. To Dian, "the darkness was Ialready in the disguise as Death Bredon, an employee of Egyptian."I 2 Far away she hears "a very high, thin fluting." Pym's advertising firm, dons the mask and costume of The piping is explained by Lord Peter after its disem­ Harlequin in order to interview Dian de Momerie, whom bodied sound has led Dian into the dark woods: he suspects of being involved with drug-trafficking, and perhaps of murder. In "Remarkable Acrobatics of a Harle­ "The terror induced by forest and darkness," said a quin," he has been invited to a ball by Pamela Dean, whose mocking voice from somewhere over her head, "was brother, Victor Dean, has been murdered. Wim- called by the ancients, Panic fear, or the fear of the great god Pan. It is interesting to observe that modem progress sey/Bredon appears "in the harlequin black and white has not altogether succeeded in banishing it from ill-dis­ which had been conspicuous as he stepped into his car."1 ciplined minds." Dian gazed upwards. Her eyes were growing accus­ The gathering is far from innocent; we read of the tomed to the night, and in the branches of the tree above naked danseuse, the amorous drunken couples,"(ftii., p.75) her head she caught the pale gleam of silver. and the "sinister little cubicles" each "furnished with a couch and a mirror."(lbid.) The harlequin distinguishes him­ In this position, Lord Peter questions the mesmerized self in this frantic company by climbing a statue set in a Dian at length. She describes her affair with Victor Dean, pool. "Up and up went the slim chequered figure, dripping and the boredom which led her to drop him. Harlequin and glittering."(/bid.) Dian, "in a moonlight frock of oyster refuses to descend from his tree; he calls Dian "Circe" and satin,” with "fair hair standing out like a pale aureole round chides her, 'You made him drink and it upset his little her vivid face,"(Ibid., p.76) calls to him, "Come on Harlequin, tummy. You made him play high, and he couldn't afford dive!" and "The slim body shot down through the spray, it. And you made him take drugs and he didn't like it." (ibid., struck the surface with scarcely a splash and slid through p.157) Dian, in affirmation of the title Circe, replies, "He was the water like a fish." Dian is delighted a little beast, Harlequin, really he was."(lbid.) The conversa­ tion continues until Lord Peter has learned that Tod Mil­ "Oh, you're marvellous, you're marvellous!" She ligan is the drug-pedlar who controls Dian. clung to him, the water soaking into her draggled satin. "Take me home, Harlequin - 1 adore you!" The harlequin bent his masked face and kissed him. Sister Mary Durkin remarks of this passage, "the men­ (Ibid.) tal picture of Lord Peter in the treetops and Dian huddled on the grass makes the scene grotesquely unreal."4 There They make their departure together, as he cries, '"Let's run is indeed a certain sadistic element in this scene, and its away, and let them catch us if they can.'"(lbid., p. 77) darkness is not dispersed by dawn; Harlequin descends in the early daylight, which shows Dian "only a long im­ The reader is left to wonder what happened next until placable chin and the thin curl of a smiling mouth,'3 and well into the following chapter, when Lord Peter remarks bestows upon her "kisses like deliberate insults." Sudden­ to his brother-in-law Charles Parker, Chief-Inspector of ly, her mood changes. "The hanged man," she cries: Scotland Yard, "She's a bad lot, that girl," and explains: "There's a hanged man in your thoughts. Why are you thinking of hanging?"6 With this prescient outcry, she falls I went incog. A comedy of masks. And you needn't worry asleep. When he returns her to her door, "He kisses her about my morals. The young woman became incapably gently this time and pushes her into the house." Janet MYTHLORE 57: Spring 1989 Page 23 Hitchman too is offended by these scenes; she writes, It is an obvious attempt to implicate the imaginary Bredon: "Wimsey, who must be all of 4 3 ,... lures a fast woman "T done it,' said Wimsey,. 'and so, in a sense, I have, with a penny whistle and she, poor soul, suffers a terrify­ Charles. If that girl had never seen me, she'd be alive ing moment of E.S.P., or, as might be said today 'a bad today "(ibid.) In a continuation of this mood, when the entire trip'.”7 dope ring is gathered in by the police. Lord Peter declines to celebrate. Lord Peter meets Dian de Momerie again in his Harle­ quin disguise. In their detailed commentary on Murder Must Advertise, "The Agents of Evil and Justice in the Novels of Dorothy At the note of the penny whistle she would come out and L. Sayers," R.D. Stock and Barbara Stock state that "Sayers drive with him, hour after hour, in the great black Daim­ represents their spiritual degeneration by their physical ler, till night turned into daybreak. He sometimes decay: she dilates on the blemished complexions of both wondered whether she believed in him at all; she treated him as though he were some hateful but fascinating figure Major Milligan and Dian de Momerie, setting them in a hashish-vision. against Lord Peter's nearly super-human prowess - his acrobatics as harlequin."11 By die principle of opposition He tells her frankly, *1 am here because Victor Dean died," implied in the Stocks' title, Lord Peter is the agent of and muses, in a passage that probably reveals Miss Justice. "Disguise is employed to a point up the theme of Sayers's intention in these symbol-laden passages: deception,1"(ibid., p. 20) the Stocks continue, and therefore, "The levity and high-jinks are acceptable, for we know She was the guardian of the shadow-frontier; through her, Victor Dean, surely the most prosaic denizen of the garish throughout the novel. .that Peter's humanity is fully city of daylight, had stepped into the place of bright flares engaged in the personal tragedy which he has exposed and and black abysses, whose ministers are drink and drugs to which he has perforce contributed ."(ibid., p. 21) and its monarch death.owd., p. 189) The aptness of the Harlequin's "mask" for Lord Peter's In her search for entertainment, Dian persuades Mil­ complex role in Murder Must Advertise becomes cleared ligan to gate-crash a party.
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