Maisie Dobbs

Jacqueline Winspear

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-7

Part 2, Chapters 8-12

Part 2, Chapters 13-16

Part 2, Chapters 17-20

Part 3, Chapters 21-25

Part 3, Chapters 26-30

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Symbols & Motifs

Flowers

The recurring motif of flowers is strongly interwoven with the novel’s themes of guilt, grief, and wartime loss. Maisie follows Celia Davenham to a cemetery and purchases flowers there, as Celia does. She learns that the other woman purchases irises every week—the flowers are thus a marker of devotion. Maisie also tends to a nearby cemetery plot to observe Celia. She continues work on the neighboring plot, removing weeds and wishing “if only she could make the living as comfortable” (26). Blooms and grass remind her of grief and the ability to bring order and peace. The groundskeeper notices her work, ultimately explaining that more men besides Vincent died at the Retreat. Thus, Maisie’s care for flowers and plants yields metaphorical investigative fruit. Maisie finds on her return home during the war that “every cottage garden in the village was almost bereft of blooms” (197), suggesting that Britain itself is bereft during the conflict, reduced only to the practicalities of growing food.

In the present-day narrative, Maisie makes much of her return to the countryside of Kent and finds Maurice in the gardens, hard at work. In his retirement, he has devoted his free time to growing and nurturing roses. Maisie finds the same blooms at the Retreat, but where she finds Maurice’s garden comforting, the farm’s roses are more disturbing. They “reminded Maisie of the men who scrambled from a mud-soaked hell of trenches over the top and into battle” (224). The roses evoke soldiers and violent death, the realm of a wartime masculinity Maisie does not have full license to enter. Given her tendency to premonitions and preternatural insights, the language here suggests that Maisie can read these flowers and sense the danger the farm contains. Blooms are not inherently a sign of health and flourishing if those who tend them are, like Jenkins, a danger to those around them. At the novel’s end, Maisie finds Simon in the hospital’s conservatory—among flowers and blooms, Maisie faces the truth of her past.

Clothing and Uniforms

Throughout Winspear’s narrative, clothing and personal appearances, including official uniforms, reflect the class positions and emotional states of her characters. The novel opens with a description of Maisie’s appearance—her “navy blue thigh-length jacket with a matching pleated skirt short enough to reveal a well-turned ankle […] she had what his old mother would have called ‘bearing’” (3). Maisie is dressed like a young professional, comfortable with the modern standard of a shorter skirt. The newspaper seller is struck by her poise, indicating that she is someone beyond the ordinary. Maisie is equally observant about the clothing of others, struck by Celia Davenham’s expensive wardrobe, indicating her class position. In the descriptions of her youth, Maisie wears a maid’s uniform, with the Comptons’ butler, Carter, scrutinizing her “for marks on her pinafore and scuffs on her shoes, for stray tendrils of hair escaping from her white cap” (95). Maisie’s wardrobe here is not her choice and reflects on those who employ her. Maisie also notices Enid’s choice of outfit on her walk with James Compton and her “making it look just like new with a band of purple velvet ribbon” (112). Her appearance here reflects Enid’s social aspirations and desire to impress the man she loves. Maisie herself dons an expensive dress for her first meeting with Simon Lynch, leading him to call her “fair maiden” (150).

In wartime, Maisie wears a nurse’s uniform and follows orders, much as she did during her servant days, signaling that she has temporarily set her greater ambitions aside for war service. When they meet in France, Simon tells her, “That uniform—it’s almost as stunning as the blue silk dress” (169). The compliment reveals his attraction to her, foreshadowing the romance between them. His evocation of past and present suggests that Simon remembers both versions of Maisie and is drawn to her essential self. At the novel’s end, Maisie sees her reflection in the conservatory glass, “she, wearing her blue suit and a blue cloche, her hair in a chignon at the base of her neck” (190). As she did at the beginning of the novel, Maisie wears blue. At this stage, the reader understands the full significance: This is how Simon loved her best and how she continues to carry him with her. Uniforms can also reflect darker realities, as Maisie indicates that Jenkins “was still the perfectly turned out officer” (268). Where Maisie’s clothing is a gentle homage, Jenkins reflects his deep trauma and mental illness.

Songs and Music

Throughout the text, music indicates the contrast between war and peacetime and the power of wartime memories. Maisie recalls her journey to the front with Iris, watching the soldiers “showing fatigue and fear as well as a determined levity” and singing marching songs (171). The music thus signals Maisie’s entry into a new world, entirely unlike her former life. When recalling James Compton before the war, Maisie hears him singing an old song to his mother, resulting in her “laughing heartily” (213) as they dance to his rendition of “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze.” The song and ebullient mood reflect the stronger family bonds and carefree atmosphere of the prewar years.

Desperate to save Billy and break the hypnotic power of Jenkins’s deadly ritual of execution, Maisie breaks into a wartime song “until her lone voice had become one with a choir of men singing in unison” (263). Maisie’s wartime service saves Billy, as she knows how to draw the men into a less violent part of their past in service. Music allows her to counter Jenkins’s charisma and hold on the men. After the case concludes, as she drives away from Kent, Maisie hears music and reflects that “there was nothing like singing together to make a long journey pass quickly” (286). Music has become a comfort for her, a sign that the primary conflict in her professional life is over and she can indulge in simple pleasures once more.