GREAT LITERARY LADY: Aunt Agatha
Agatha Gregson, or Aunt Agatha, is one of PG Wodehouse’s most iconic creations, after her nephew Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves – immortalised in the TV adaptation, starring Hugh Laurie (shown here with Mary Wimbush as Agatha) and Stephen Fry.
The archetypal interfering aunt taken to the extreme – when she is not trying to marry off Bertie, she forces him to run errands or clean up the Wooster name in society. Aunt Agatha is the ever-present ballast holding down London’s flighty 1920s bachelors.
But her defining characteristic is her scathing perception of her nephew. While the reader is taken in by Wooster’s signature catchphrases and the embarrassing scenarios in which he finds himself, making him only more appealing in his dumbfounded ignorance, Aunt Agatha serves to remind us of the poor impression Wooster makes on British society. And she never ceases to remind Bertie of her low opinion of him.
Wooster’s life would be void of nearly all his frustrations without the interference of his dear aunt, and she plays a paramount role in the plot development of the stories: it is because of her that Bertie so often takes a last-minute train in the wrong direction, or visits his next planned betrothed, each time leaving the reader with a laugh-out-loud climax.
Aunt Agatha is the catalyst for Wooster’s mischievous adventures, a force of nature and an unforgettable character in her own right. But as Bertie would say: ‘Aunts aren’t gentlemen.’
The archetypal interfering aunt taken to the extreme – when she is not trying to marry off Bertie, she forces him to run errands or clean up the Wooster name in society. Aunt Agatha is the ever-present ballast holding down London’s flighty 1920s bachelors.
But her defining characteristic is her scathing perception of her nephew. While the reader is taken in by Wooster’s signature catchphrases and the embarrassing scenarios in which he finds himself, making him only more appealing in his dumbfounded ignorance, Aunt Agatha serves to remind us of the poor impression Wooster makes on British society. And she never ceases to remind Bertie of her low opinion of him.
Wooster’s life would be void of nearly all his frustrations without the interference of his dear aunt, and she plays a paramount role in the plot development of the stories: it is because of her that Bertie so often takes a last-minute train in the wrong direction, or visits his next planned betrothed, each time leaving the reader with a laugh-out-loud climax.
Aunt Agatha is the catalyst for Wooster’s mischievous adventures, a force of nature and an unforgettable character in her own right. But as Bertie would say: ‘Aunts aren’t gentlemen.’