40 pages • 1 hour read
Dorothy L. SayersThe Nine Tailors
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1934A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Church Bells
Church bells are the most prominent symbol in The Nine Tailors. They consistently represent the judgment of God and have an unnerving effect on the various malefactors in the book. Old Hezekiah, who is Tailor Paul’s bell-ringer, tells Wimsey, “Wunnerful understandin’ they is. They can’t abide a wicked man. They lays in wait to overthrow ’un” (308). Hezekiah also says that a righteous man has nothing to fear from the bells. Early in the book, Hilary is cautioned to avoid Batty Thomas because this particular bell has caused the death of two men. Although both deaths could be called accidental, the men killed had bad reputations.
The bells are described in ways that suggest they see all and judge the wicked harshly—the characters in the book who are engaged in wrongdoing all sense this. Cranton is so unnerved when he accidentally strikes a bell that he flees the church. Although Jim isn’t a wicked man, he helps his brother conceal a crime and senses the judgment of the bells as they observe him hiding Deacon’s body.
Of course, the bells reserve their worst punishment for Deacon, who richly deserves his fate. Ironically, he was a bell ringer before becoming a criminal, but he swerved from the path of righteousness and has much to fear from the bells. Venables sums up the function of the bells when he tells Wimsey, “Hezekiah will tell you that the bells are said to be jealous of the presence of evil. Perhaps God speaks through those mouths of inarticulate metal” (397).
Letters
The most important clues that further the novel’s plot are provided by letters. Letters are a recurring motif that functions in multiple ways. They are slips of paper that can be found, as Hilary does in the belfry. They are signs written on a page that convey meaning, as the French letter from Suzanne or the strange ramblings of the cipher letter.
However, the words themselves are virtually meaningless in both cases. Words conceal more than they reveal, and it is up to a discerning reader to figure out what message is being conveyed. In the case of Suzanne’s letter, Wimsey can deduce her location in France, her relationship to the man with whom she is corresponding but little else. The letter’s primary value lies in its allusion to past mysteries. It will require a visit across the English Channel to sort out the details.
The letter that Hilary finds in the belfry is even less illuminating. On the first read, the message seems to be gibberish. While Wimsey recognizes that a cipher must be involved, only someone acquainted will bell-ringing sequences would understand the true meaning. Venables, as the ultimate change-ringing enthusiast, suggests how the letters and words ought to be interpreted. Of course, simply decoding the cipher does nothing but reveal another layer of complexity to the message. The letter points to the location of the emeralds, but it does so by citing verses from scripture. If any conclusion is to be drawn from the letters in The Nine Tailors, it is that words never mean precisely what they say.
Waters
As might be expected in a story situated in the swampy fens of East Anglia, water is of significant concern to the characters. It takes a variety of different forms as snow, rain, and floodwaters. Water is a force of nature, and most of the region’s attempts to contain it prove futile. Engineering schemes to create new channels only aggravate the problem. Man’s attempts to defy nature by controlling the waters parallel the evildoer’s attempts to defy the judgment of God. References to Noah’s Flood cause the reader to view the rising waters as a form of divine retribution.
In fact, the waters in the book are the principal means by which Wimsey is guided to solve the central mystery. From the very first page, the reader finds the detective sliding into a drainage ditch because of snow-covered roads and a hazardous bridge. Waters have conspired to immobilize Wimsey right in the middle of a parish mystery.
When Wimsey returns the following Christmas, the waters again impel him toward the answers that have eluded him for a year. The rains during the holidays swell the drainage canals and break through the sluice gates, causing a flood. That flood drowns Will. Although not a career criminal, he has attempted to conceal someone else’s crimes and indirectly kills Deacon, so the wrath of God falls upon him. The flood spurs an evacuation, and the emergency bells begin to sound. The concatenation of floodwaters and pealing bells leads Wimsey to solve the case. Once order is restored, the floodwaters recede. God’s waters have cleansed the land of its wrongdoers.
