41 pages • 1 hour read
Dorothy L. SayersGaudy Night
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1935A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-7Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary
Harriet returns to Oxford in a March rainstorm. When she meets with the Dean, Warden, Treasurer, Bursar, and Miss Lydgate, she learns about a number of new poison-pen letters as well as some acts of vandalism. A letter addressed to second-year student Miss Flaxman warns, “IF YOU DON’T LEAVE YOUNG FARRINGDON ALONE […] IT WILL BE THE WORSE FOR YOU” (99). Farringdon is a male student at one of the other colleges who is engaged to Flaxman after having been engaged to a Miss Cattermole.
Miss Barton, one of the faculty, finds a book she wrote burning in the Junior Common Room grate. In addition, the only remaining copy of a large manuscript by Miss Lydgate has been defaced. Further, a large pile of academic gowns has been doused with gasoline and set ablaze in the quad. Because these events have been occurring since October, the faculty is inclined to believe that a freshman student might be responsible. At this point in the meeting, Harriet uncomfortably reveals the letter she received the previous June. Her opinion is that the culprit is someone who attended the Gaudy Night weekend.
Even though this eliminates the younger students, it still leaves a large group of suspects consisting of faculty, staff, and older students. Harriet points out that any one of the faculty or administrators attending their confidential meeting could be the culprit. When the Dean asks Harriet to undertake the case, the latter protests that this is too much ground for one person to cover. Harriet suggests the Climpson Detective Agency in London, but the faculty is adamant that no outsiders should be involved. As a feeling of suspicion grows among the meeting’s participants, the Warden points out, “In a close community of this kind, nothing can be more harmful than an atmosphere of mutual distrust” (111). Harriet agrees to do what she can to help.
Chapter 6 Summary
At three o’clock in the morning, Harriet awakens from a romantic dream involving Wimsey. She isn’t at all pleased to be dreaming about him and thinks to herself, “It’s disquieting to reflect that one’s dreams never symbolize one’s real wishes, but always something Much Worse” (130). When Harriet gets out of bed, she notices a light coming from the windows of the New Library. Instantly alert, she runs out to investigate but collides with Miss Barton, who also noticed the light. The women can’t gain access because the library has been locked from the inside, and someone has taken the key.
Entering by an alternate route, the two manage to get to the reading room and are appalled to see graffiti painted across all the walls. Books have also been flung from the shelves into a pile in the center of the room. Because the Chancellor is due the following morning to view the New Library, the vandalism needs to be repaired quickly. Because no one was seen anywhere near the library during the night, Harriet suggests that some of the passage lights ought to be left on. She recognizes the impossibility of patrolling the entire campus, even with the addition of night lights.
Chapter 7 Summary
Harriet decides to question some of the second- and third-year students. To put them off their guard, she’s spread a story that she’s staying at the college to do research at the nearby Bodleian Library for her next book, but no one offers much useful information. One night, Harriet stumbles across a male college student trying to climb the Shrewsbury wall and enter Fellows’ Garden. She catches him as his companion flees. At first, he lies about his reason for scaling the wall, but Harriet eventually worms the story out of him. His name is Pomfret, of Queen’s College. He and a classmate were returning a very drunk Miss Cattermole to her campus. Cattermole is heard nearby, being sick in the bushes. Pomfret and Harriet manage to drag Cattermole back inside her dormitory without being seen.
Harriet stashes Pomfret in the Chapel to wait until the coast is clear for him to sneak off of college grounds. In the Chapel, the two discover an effigy wearing a scholar’s robe, hanging from the ceiling with a bread knife stuck through its middle. Harriet believes that the effigy was hung after 9:30 pm. Because Cattermole was off-campus during that time, she can at least be eliminated as a suspect. Harriet gets a knife and cuts down the effigy. She takes it back to her room to mull over the situation the following day.
Chapters 5-7 Analysis
This section accelerates the attacks directed at female intellectuals. A letter to Miss Flaxman levels a threat at her as an individual, but other attacks have a more general target. We also see the poison-pen letters are only a part of the attacker’s plan as she expands both her arsenal of weapons and the focus for her attacks. Female authors, in particular, are punished. Both Miss Barton and Miss Lydgate find books they’ve written either vandalized or defaced. The New Library, which was meant to increase the resources of the female students at Shrewsbury, draws the vandal’s ire as well. While books are damaged as a way to prevent the transfer of knowledge, the graffiti scrawled on the walls is intended to embarrass the college at large as a female center of learning. The vandalism is timed to coincide with a visit from the University Chancellor.
Aside from the escalation of attacks, this segment also introduces the pattern of reckless student behavior. Harriet apprehends both Pomfret and Miss Cattermole indulging in hijinks. Harriet becomes the accomplice of both by helping Miss Cattermole back to her room when she is too drunk to get there on her own. Harriet then hides Pomfret in the chapel so that he won’t be discovered by the college authorities. Both these actions tie into her the investigation and serve to further the plot. While hiding Pomfret in the chapel, Harriet comes across the effigy of a female academic with a knife stuck in her middle. Harriet also establishes that Cattermole isn’t responsible for this latest attack because she was off-campus at the time it occurred.
