SOURCE: “The Very Irreverent P. G. Wodehouse: A Study of Thank You, Jeeves,” in The Dutch Quarterly Review of Anglo-American Letters, Vol. IV, No. 1, Winter, 1978, pp. 203-22.

In the following essay, Smith offers a thematic analysis of Thank You, Jeeves, maintaining that Wodehouse's irreverent approach to plot and characters is his defining characteristic.

What characterises Wodehouse's fiction and provides the key to understanding his comic genius is the irreverence that pervades every aspect of his work, the characters, the plots and above all the use of language. Anything that represents authority becomes the victim of his humour. Thank You, Jeeves is no exception to this. In it, Bertie Wooster relates how, banished to the country because not even his own valet, Jeeves, can stand his banjolele playing, he becomes involved in his friend Chuffy's courtship of Pauline Stoker, the daughter of a rich American. Chuffy, the impoverished owner...