Gaudy Night
GAUDY NIGHT Dorothy L SayersGaudy Night is a mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, the tenth in her popular series about aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey, and the third featuring crime writer Harriet Vane.
The dons of Harriet Vane , have invited her back to go to the annual 'Gaudy' celebrations. However, everything looses control when a lunatic begins lots of malicious jokes including poison-pen messages. Desperate to avoid a possible murder in college, Harriet asks her old friend Wimsey to investigate.SUMMARYHarriet Vane returns reluctantly to Oxford to attend the Gaudy dinner. Expecting hostility because of her notoriety, she is surprised to be welcomed warmly by the dons, and rediscovers her old love of the academic life.
The attacks build to a crisis, and the college community of students, dons and servants is almost torn apart by suspicion and fear. There is an attempt to drive a vulnerable student to suicide, and a physical assault on Harriet that almost kills her. The perpetrator is finally unmasked by Wimsey as one of the college servants, revealed to be the widow of a disgraced academic at a northern university. Her husband's academic fraud had been exposed by one of his fellow dons there, destroying his career and driving him to suicide. The don has since moved to Shrewsbury College, and the campaign has been the widow's revenge against intellectual women who move outside their "proper" domestic sphere.
At the end of the book, Harriet Vane finally accepts Wimsey's proposal of marriage.LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE
There´s no killing Gaudy Night, but inside the novel we have a great deal of suspense and psychological thrills. The narrative is among a love story and an examination of women's struggles to enlarge their roles and take an important place into the social climate of 1930s England, and the novel has been described as "the first feminist mystery novel." Gaudy Night deals with a number of philosophical themes, such as the right relation between
The dons of Harriet Vane , have invited her back to go to the annual 'Gaudy' celebrations. However, everything looses control when a lunatic begins lots of malicious jokes including poison-pen messages. Desperate to avoid a possible murder in college, Harriet asks her old friend Wimsey to investigate.SUMMARYHarriet Vane returns reluctantly to Oxford to attend the Gaudy dinner. Expecting hostility because of her notoriety, she is surprised to be welcomed warmly by the dons, and rediscovers her old love of the academic life.
The attacks build to a crisis, and the college community of students, dons and servants is almost torn apart by suspicion and fear. There is an attempt to drive a vulnerable student to suicide, and a physical assault on Harriet that almost kills her. The perpetrator is finally unmasked by Wimsey as one of the college servants, revealed to be the widow of a disgraced academic at a northern university. Her husband's academic fraud had been exposed by one of his fellow dons there, destroying his career and driving him to suicide. The don has since moved to Shrewsbury College, and the campaign has been the widow's revenge against intellectual women who move outside their "proper" domestic sphere.
At the end of the book, Harriet Vane finally accepts Wimsey's proposal of marriage.LITERARY SIGNIFICANCE
There´s no killing Gaudy Night, but inside the novel we have a great deal of suspense and psychological thrills. The narrative is among a love story and an examination of women's struggles to enlarge their roles and take an important place into the social climate of 1930s England, and the novel has been described as "the first feminist mystery novel." Gaudy Night deals with a number of philosophical themes, such as the right relation between