The Code of the Woosters 3

These study questions are part of the study over P. G. Wodehouse’s “The Code of the Woosters.” For a general introduction to this study you can go HERE. If you’d like to learn more about Study The Great Books or to find another text to study, you can go HERE.

Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find these in the Text and Note them in the Margins)

Nihilism, Joy, Prudence, Unbelief, Chivalry, Light vs. Darkness, Expectation vs. Reality

Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)

1. What did Bertie take as an “axiom?”

2. What was it about Madeline Bassett which would make any of his friends say to Bertie “you don’t know what’s good for you?”

3. What very unlooked for help did Roderich Spode inject into the midst of Bertie’s explanations to Sir Watkyn?

4. What had caused Madeline to go silent during Sir Watkyn and Spode’s inquisition of Bertie Wooster?

5. What information did Madeline deliver to her father, Sir Watkyn, which she thought would clear Bertie from his suspicion, but which only changed the nature of his suspicion?

6. What reason did Madeline Bassett assign to Bertie’s coming to Totleigh Towers?

7. In what way did Madeline say Gussie had undergone “an improvement, if such a thing were possible?”

8. What surprising information did Bertie learn about his Aunt Dahlia from Gussie?

9. How are Spode’s ambitions and character described by Gussie?

10. For what purpose had Gussie brought his newts with him to Totleigh Towers?

11. What practice had Gussie adopted which taught him to act with confidence, whereas he had formerly been very diffident, and who suggested this practice to him?

Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)

1. Why did Sir Watkyn Bassett say, “Why, damn it, it’s persecution?”

2. Why do you think Bertie recoils at the idea of marrying Madeline Bassett (despite the fact that many would think he’s crazy)?

3. Bertie insists that “the whole thing is one of those laughable misunderstandings.” Where have we heard (or, rather, read) almost those exact words before?

4. What did Bertie mean by saying that Spode had “so to speak, once lived in Arcady?”

5. What mental imagery did Wodehouse mean to call to mind when he referred to Bertie’s conversation with Sir Watkyn and Spode as “cut-and-thrust stuff” and why is it fitting to the situation?

6. What seem to be the most prominent factors behind Bertie’s decision to telegram his Aunt Dahlia to tell her “Deeply regret quite impossible carry out assignment re you know what?”

7. You’ve now seen multiple telegrams in this book so far, what do you think best accounts for the grammar (or lack thereof) used in telegrams?

8. Despite Madeline’s comparison of Bertie and Rudel, contrast the two. How are they unalike?

9. Why wasn’t Bertie even “a bit shirty on learning” that he had been “hauled all the way down” to Totleigh Towers “for nothing?”

10. Madeline Bassett said to Bertie, “Exactly. You know your Shelly, Bertie.” Why did Bertie respond in the way he did immediately thereafter?

11. What did Bertie mean when he said, of Gussies, “when it came to self-confidence, Mussolini could have taken a correspondence course?”

12. Why was the imminent arrival of Aunt Dahlia at Totleigh Towers “nasty news” to Bertie’s ears?

13. What did Gussie mean when he said that Spode thinks of himself as “a Man of Destiny?”

14. Why did Gussie look at Bertie “rather oddly” after Bertie told him the “Round-The World” cruise was off?

Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)

1. What do you think of Jeeve’s advice to Gussie about how to exercise greater self-confidence? Do you think that his advice would really work in real life? Do you think the advice, even if effective, is good advice? Why or why not?

2. Up to this point in the story, including the previous readings, what have you found to be the funniest thing so far? What made that particular thing so amusing to you?

Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)

1. Read Proverbs 22:1. How might we relate this proverb to Bertie’s situation in our present reading?

2. Read Philippians 4:8. How does this stack up next to Jeeve’s advice to Gussie?