Gaudy Night

The single most important theme in Gaudy Night is the changing role of women in British culture. The novel takes place in 1935 at a time when women were emerging in the public sphere as something more than wives and mothers. Women had only been granted the vote in 1928, so the events in the story follow closely on the heels of political emancipation. Oxford University itself still treats female education as something of a novelty with a single college devoted to women’s higher education. This is the context in which Sayers explores the issue of intellectually gifted females and their uneasy role in society.

The female academics who populate Shrewsbury College are all single. It is implicitly understood that women who pursue a life of the mind cannot also pursue the physical life of breeding children. This is an either-or proposition that no one seems to question. The only woman at the college who is married holds a secretarial position, and she is resented by one of the academics for receiving better accommodations simply because she has children. The servant class who support the academics are also allowed to have families, but no one who aspires to intellectual excellence is given that option.