Aunt Dahlia

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Aunt Dahlia , actually Dahlia Travers , nee Wooster is a recurring fictional character in the comic novels of the British-American PG Wodehouse . Her nephew is Bertie Wooster , who, together with his valet Jeeves, is one of the best-known figures in Wodehouse's oeuvre.

The character was introduced in the short story Clustering Round Young Bingo , which was first published in 1925. She is mentioned in the last novel, Aunts aren't Gentlemen , that PG Wodehouse was able to complete.

The Wodehouse biographer Frances Donaldson notes that the reader is seduced into perceiving Aunt Dahlia as the more likeable of Bertie Wooster's two aunts - not least because Bertie repeatedly emphasizes his affection for Aunt Dahlia. Ultimately, however, Wooster suffered more problems and difficulties from his aunt Dahlia than from his respectful aunt Agatha . Dahlia is a blackmailer who will stop at nothing and is completely unimpressed by the inconvenience and humiliation that she expects from those around her. Wodehouse lets Bertie Wooster see it similarly, at least occasionally: Bertie philosophizes how happy and calm his life would be without aunts, and notes how little sense it makes to differentiate between good and bad aunts. At heart they are all the same: sooner or later their horse's foot will show itself .

characterization

Unlike Dahlia's sister Agatha , Aunt Dahlia is highly valued by her nephew Bertie. She is a second marriage to the wealthy Tom Travers - her first husband is mentioned only in passing in Clustering Round Young Bingo - he was prone to excessive alcohol consumption and drowned in an accident. As is often the case with PG Wodehouse, characters fundamentally change their attitude on certain points. Tom Travers, the second husband, is still portrayed in Clustering Round Young Bingo as someone who is completely opposed to country life, and he is the reason why Aunt Dahlia gives up the parforce hunt, which she loves so much. In the later novels, Tom Travers is at home at the Brinkley Court estate as well as at her home in London's Mayfair.

Aunt Dahlia is now the mother of Angela and Bonzo Travers, employs the extremely talented French top chef Anatole at her country estate, Brinkleys Court, and is the editor of Milady's Boudoir , a magazine that is always on the verge of finally going into the black. Bertie Wooster is proud to have once contributed an article to Aunt Dahlia's magazine "Mylady's Boudoir". His article, entitled “What the Well Dressed Gentleman Wears,” is mentioned by Bertie in more than one novel. At the same time, however, the magazine is the reason that Tom Travers, who reluctantly subsidizes his wife's newspaper, has to be tempered again and again. Then Aunt Dahlia asks her nephew, for example, to steal the silver creamer that her husband, as a collector, has had an eye on.

Aunt Dahlia is also the director of Market Snodsbury Grammar School and needs to find worthy honor speakers and awardees for the annual graduation. Her nephew ensures that she trusts Augustus Fink-Nottle with this venerable task instead of his Augustus , which leads to a memorable award ceremony by the drunk Fink-Nottle. Stephen Fry and the literary historian Richard Usborne independently judged that this scene is one of the funniest that has been recorded in English literary history. Even John le Carré has recorded in a published newspaper article in 1996 that any collection of books must contain this novel, and tells him to his favorite novel.

Dahlia and Tom Travers live on their Brinkley Court country estate near Market Snodsbury in Worcestershire . PG Wodehouse, who sets his novels in a timeless continuum, does not give a year of marriage, but mentions that they will get married in the year in which Bluebottle won the Cambridgeshire Handicap, a well-known horse race. Sir Watkyn Bassett and his daughter Madeline live on the country estate of Totleigh Towers not far from the couple's country estate . Sir Watkyn, like Travers, is a collector of old silver and other handicrafts, which creates a certain rivalry between the two and one of the plot motifs in novels like Old Adel Does Not Rust and SOS is Jeeves . Despite this paternal competition, Angela Travers and Madeline Bassett are friends and at the beginning of the plot of Dann, Jeeves were even on vacation together.

PG Wodehouse compares the figure of Aunt Dahlia with that of Mae West , but her complexion is reddish-purple. This is a consequence of the fact that Aunt Dahlia was an avid participant in parforce hunts when she was young. This shapes her personality to this day - Bertie reminds the volume with which she speaks to him of her calls in strong winds over freshly plowed fields. She reacts no less energetically when someone arouses her displeasure - Bertie stops in SOS, Jeeves! among other things:

“The old blood relative has a strong personality and, if she disapproves anything, she doesn't mind at all turning the cause of the displeasure into a mere grease mark in a matter of minutes. I have been told that hunters who fell out of favor with her when she was still hunting herself because they had ridden dogs, never fully recovered and remained in a kind of stupor months later and winced at sudden noises. "

Stories in which Aunt Dahlia plays a role (selection)

  • Right Ho, Jeeves (1934); German title: Well then, Jeeves
  • The Code of the Woosters (1938); German title: Old nobility does not rust
  • The Mating Season (1949); German title of the first translation The highest of feelings ;
    • reissued: Jeeves works wonders , newly translated by Thomas Schlachter, Edition Epoca, Zurich
  • Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (1963); German title of the first translation: What to do, Jeeves? ;
    • reissued: SOS, Jeeves! , newly translated by Thomas Schlachter, Edition Epoca, Zurich
  • Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit (1954); German title: Nobility forgets itself
  • Jeeves in the Offing (1960); German title: Wo geht Jeeves ; No vacation for Jeeves
  • Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971); United States title: Jeeves and the Tie That Binds ; German title: It doesn't work without a butler
  • Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (1974); German title five to twelve, Jeeves ; Title in the United States: The Catnappers

literature

  • Frances Donaldson: PG Wodehouse: A Biography . London 1982, ISBN 0-297-78105-7 .
  • Richard Usborne: Plum Sauce. A PG Wodehouse Companion. Overlook, Woodstock / NY 2003, ISBN 1-58567-441-9 .

Web links

Single receipts

  1. ^ Donaldson: PG Wodehouse: A Biography . P. 10 and p. 11.
  2. ↑ PG Wodehouse; The Code of the Wooster . P. 39
  3. ↑ Usborne: Plum Sauce. A PG Wodehouse Companion. P. 123.
  4. ↑ PG Wodehouse: Old nobility does not rust
  5. ↑ Stephen Fry: What ho, My hero PG Wodehouse , The Independent, January 18, 2000 ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2002 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed April 24, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.drones.com
  6. ↑ Usborne: Plum Sauce. A PG Wodehouse Companion. P. 170.
  7. ↑ John le Carré; Personal Best: Right Ho, Jeeves , Salon. September 30, 1996 , accessed April 24, 2016.
  8. ↑ PG Wodehouse: Then not, Jeeves , p. 34
  9. ↑ PG Wodehouse: Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit. 1954
  10. ↑ PG Wodehouse: SOS, Jeeves! , P. 142. Translation by Thomas Schlachter