The Code of the Woosters

The protagonist and first-person narrator of The Code of the Woosters and other “Jeeves stories,” the twenty-something Bertie Wooster is somewhat emblematic of the “idle rich” of early 20th-century England and a target of the author’s gentle satire. Although good-hearted and gregarious, Wooster is also lazy, frivolous, naive, and often comically obtuse. He lives in a comfortable London flat on inherited wealth and has almost never worked. (An exception, to which the novel alludes, is his attempt to write a fashion article for his Aunt Dahlia’s women’s magazine.) For his friends and relatives, Wooster is often generous with his time, and this, combined with his natural naivete, leads to many of his misfortunes. For instance, his clumsy attempt to woo Madeline Bassett on behalf of his friend Gussie almost traps him into matrimony, and his efforts to procure a silver cow-shaped creamer for his Aunt Dahlia almost land him in jail.

Complacent and pleasure-seeking to a fault, Wooster rarely expresses strong opinions except about food, fashion, or his own comfort. He thus exemplifies P. G. Wodehouse’s satirical view of the English aristocracy of the time, with its hedonistic outlook and effete indifference to social problems and other issues outside its immediate sphere.