Quote:
Originally Posted by CRussel
I'm not trying to excuse the undoubted classism, but it was very much a part of the time and the class of the characters in this book. Yes, a viable middle-class was starting to take hold. Driven in part by the lack of a generation of males, which forced more women into the workforce, and also, in no small part, by the sea-change in taxation brought in by the Liberals just before the first world war. But the 'upstairs-downstairs' way of life was still hanging on, and Sayers came out of it. To have expressed her characters in any other way would have been contrary to who she was, and what she knew. And to inspect her work with the lens of the 21st century and our values is hardly appropriate.
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There's nothing wrong with looking at a book though a 21st century lens, so long as that's not the only lens we use. It can be illuminating in a way not open to contemporary readers.
I think the power imbalance in the exchange between Peter and Bunter which I quoted above is deeply disturbing from a modern vantage point. Peter dangles a new camera lens in front of him like a new chew stick before a pet dog. Bunter's annual salary is chump change to Peter and for that he gets Bunter's entirely loyalty and identification with his own needs and purposes. In fact, it reminds me of many black narratives and how black servants had to function within a white home while maintaining independent and conflicting emotions. Yet Sayers doesn't give even this to Bunter; the one time we see inside his mind is when he's helping Peter past his flashback and what Bunter is
not thinking is, "Get over it, you git, you're as rich as God and have the world for your playpen. You think this is tough? Look at all the war cripples in Picadilly selling matches."
I'm willing to say on the evidence that Sayers was not especially anti-Semitic; however, the way she, of an middle class, albeit eductated, upbringing is willing to identify so entirely with the aristocracy to the detriment of her portrayal of her own class, more or less, is not a nice characteristic. However, I suppose you could climb that she's of necessity as much a hanger-on as Bunter and Bunter had reason to consider himself lucky as well as used, as he snapped for that chew stick.