After The Funeral - Themes

Themes

Unlike Taken at the Flood, in which there is a strong sense of post-war English society reforming along the lines of the status quo ante, After the Funeral is deeply pessimistic about the social impact of war. The village post office no longer handles the local post. Mr. Goby blames the government for the poor standard of investigators that he is able to employ. The family mansion must be sold, and the butler Lanscombe, who had expected to be able to retire to the North Lodge, is forced to leave the estate. A pier from a postcard view has been bombed and not yet rebuilt, which desolate fact is pivotal to the plot. Richard Abernethie is very sad as his only son died abruptly from polio, a common and devastating epidemic of that time. The son was fit, healthy, about to marry, and suddenly gone. Richard sees no other single heir worthy of succeeding to his estate entire. The Abernethie drive and talent for business are found in his niece Susan, but he cannot consider her as sole heir because she is female. Rather he reacts to her by being disappointed in her husband. Not finding any one person to take over his fortune and his business, he divided his fortune among family members who seem likely to waste it on gambling and theatre ventures.

One person he valued was his sister-in-law, now widowed by the war. She had a child in a war time affair. She never told Richard of the child, aware of his Victorian views, telling others she has a nephew she helps. She is grateful for his kindness in including her in his will, as she can now raise her son on faraway Cyprus with a proper education. The child is loved, but his mother feels he cannot be accepted in post war England.

The last name chosen for Cora's husband, the much disliked painter with some claim to being French, is Lansquenet. It is unusual as a last name, as mentioned in the story. The word is the name of a card game, but mainly it is the term for a German mercenary, a foot soldier with a lance, from the XV and XVI centuries.

Food rationing in England came to an end in the year of publication, but its effect is still felt in the egg shortages that are mentioned in the novel. Throughout, there is a strong sense of the hardships of the post-war period, including comments on the increased burden of taxation associated with the government of Clement Attlee. Taking all of these elements into account, it is not difficult or fanciful to see in these plot details Christie's disquiet with post-war Britain.