Before moving to the next book, I forgot to update you all on the romance between Harriet and Lord Peter. (Sorry the other post ran a little long.) Annie’s outburst involved Harriet and Peter when she pointed out that Harriet was stringing Peter along, calling him to help solve the case when she had no intentions of being with him. In my opinion, this is very true. She didn’t want to commit to a relationship in fear of losing her independence, although she admitted that Peter wouldn’t let her do this. So after the case was concluded, Harriet had time to think and felt very sorry for the way she acted towards Peter. In the end, Peter asks Harriet one last time to marry him. After thinking a bit, she answers “Placet,” which I assume the reader is supposed to infer means “yes” since the novel ends with them “closely and passionately embracing.” I think it’s customary for books in this genre to make up of cryptic texts and different languages because it makes the text appear more scholarly and academic, especially since one must analyze it to discover its meaning, as I discovered in this book. Having said this, I looked up “placet” and found that it means petition in French. This thoroughly confuses me…perhaps in the past, it meant yes in French.
By having Harriet accept the proposal, (assuming she said yes) Sayers is making the statement that a woman can be a wife as well as be educated, as opposed to the view Annie advocated: woman should not receive an education, but instead should take care of a family and perform hard, honest work. Sayers’s feminist view fits the times, 1920s, at least in America since by this time women had won the right to vote and many traditions were changing—not to mention that the flapper image was becoming very popular. I’m not sure about England at the time and am inclined to believe that women still didn’t have a great deal of freedom during this era, which could be why Sayers’s reason for writing the novel.
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2 comments:
This book sounded interesting (and long =P). I like how you were able to get a greater meaning out of it by the end. When I think of mysteries, I typically think of it as a simply suspenseful plot, but I never thought about how the author can still use it to communicate a message to the reader.
I just watched the BBC film version of this...disappointing, especially as I'm a little in love with Lord Peter. They glossed over my favorite scenes, like the one in the punt and the one where they finally get together.
If you liked it, Busman's Honeymoon follows them after they get married.
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