Jeeves - Character

Character

The premise of the Jeeves stories is that the brilliant valet is firmly in control of his rich and foppish young employer's life. When Bertie gets into an unwanted social obligation, legal trouble, or engagement to marry, Jeeves invariably comes up with a subtle plan to save him.

Jeeves is known for his convoluted yet precise speech and for quoting from Shakespeare and famous romantic poets. In his free time, he likes to relax with "improving" books such as the complete works of Spinoza, or to read "Dostoyevsky and the great Russians". He "glides" or "shimmers" in and out of rooms and may appear or disappear suddenly and without warning. His potable concoctions, both of the alcoholic and the morning-after variety, are legendary.

Jeeves frequently displays mastery over a vast range of subjects, from philosophy (his favourite philosopher is Spinoza; he finds Nietzsche "fundamentally unsound") through an encyclopaedic knowledge of poetry, science, history, psychology, geography, politics, and literature. He is also a "bit of a whizz" in all matters pertaining to gambling, car maintenance, etiquette, and women. However, his most impressive feats are a flawless knowledge of the British aristocracy and making antidotes (especially for hangovers). His mental prowess is attributed to eating fish, according to Bertie, who often offers the dish to Jeeves.

Jeeves has a distinct—and often negative—opinion of items about which Bertie is enthusiastic, such as a garish vase, an uncomplimentary painting of Wooster created by one of the many women with whom he is briefly infatuated, a moustache, monogrammed handkerchiefs, a straw boater, an alpine hat, a scarlet cummerbund, spats in the Eton colours, white dinner jacket, or purple socks. Wooster's decision to take up playing the banjolele in Thank You, Jeeves almost led to a permanent rift between the two.

Jeeves is a member of the Junior Ganymede Club, a London club for butlers and valets, in whose club book all members must record the exploits of their employers to forewarn other butlers and valets. The section labelled "WOOSTER, BERTRAM" is the largest in the book. In Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit it contained "eleven pages", and by Much Obliged, Jeeves it has grown to eighteen pages. However, at the end of Much Obliged, Jeeves, Jeeves informs Wooster that he has destroyed the eighteen pages, anticipating that he will never leave the latter's employment.

Only once in the Wodehouse canon does Jeeves appear without Wooster: Ring for Jeeves, in which he is on loan to the 9th Earl of Rowcester while Wooster attends a school where the idle rich learn self-sufficiency in case of social upheaval. The novel was adapted from Wodehouse's play Come On, Jeeves, which he felt needed a more conventional ending; but he was unwilling to marry Wooster off.

Jeeves's first job was as a page boy at a girls' school, after which he had at least eleven other employers. Before entering the employ of Bertie Wooster, he was with Lord Worplesdon, resigning after nearly a year because of Worplesdon's eccentric choice of evening dress; Mr Digby Thistleton (later Lord Bridgnorth), who sold hair tonic; Mr Montague Todd, a financier who was in the second year of a prison term when Jeeves mentioned him to Bertie; Lord Brancaster, who gave port-soaked seedcake to his pet parrot; and Lord Frederick Ranelagh, swindled in Monte Carlo by recurring antagonist Soapy Sid. His tenure with Bertie had occasional lapses, during which he was employed elsewhere: he worked for Lord Rowcester for the length of Ring for Jeeves; Marmaduke "Chuffy" Chuffnell for a week in Thank You, Jeeves, after giving notice because of Bertie's unwillingness to give up the banjolele; J. Washburn Stoker for a short period; Gussie Fink-Nottle, who masqueraded as Bertie in The Mating Season; and Sir Watkyn Bassett as a trick to get Bertie released from prison in Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves.

Richard Usborne, a leading scholar of the life and works of Wodehouse, describes Jeeves as a "godlike prime mover" and "master brain who has found to have engineered the apparent coincidence or coincidences".

Jeeves's first name of Reginald was not revealed for 56 years, until the penultimate novel in the series, Much Obliged, Jeeves (1971), when Bertie hears another valet greet Jeeves with "Hullo, Reggie." The readers may have been surprised to learn Jeeves's first name, but Bertie was stunned by the revelation "that he had a first name" in the first place.