Murder Must Advertising Dorothy Sayers Analysis

In Murder Must Advertise, the author Dorothy Sayers depicts not only sinful people, but a society of sin, and she focuses on advertising and the drug world. Sayers suggests that these two groups are similar. Sayers uses these two groups to compare an advertising agency, with its workers and it public to the drug trafficking ring with its customers. In reality, these two groups seem to be on different ends of the social spectrum. However, Sayers infers that these two worlds have similar moral values. Having worked at an advertising agency for ten years Sayers can clearly depict a realistic atmosphere. Sayers possessed the maturity necessary to criticize the condition of the society she had lived in. Sayers saw it as people who filled their

emptiness with material values and fun in a reckless attempt to hide the emptiness of their lives. In Murder Must Advertise, Dorothy Sayers criticizes society by comparing the advertising world with the drug world. In both, a smaller group of people control the public so they can profit, both groups are materialistic; and both deny death.

Pym who is the CEO of Pym”s Publicity, methods of keeping his employees happy forces some to enter the drug world.

Pym‟s Publicity is a well renounced advertising agency in London that produces ads for all aspects of media.

Pym employs a wide variety of people, from cleaning ladies to copywriters, and messenger boys to directors. Mr. Pym advocates for the Human Relations School of Management, which promotes building employee morale and loyalty. So that Mr. Pym can generate these feel good attitudes, he organizes social get-togethers frequently. Unfortunately, the get-togethers substitute for decent salaries; this is why one of his employees is sucked into the world of drug dealing. This is how Sayers connects both the advertising world and the drug

world.

The advertising world and the drug world resemble each other in three ways. Firstly, in both worlds small groups of people control a much bigger part of society for financial gain. In advertising, the hidden people are the actual manufacturers who create the goods the agencies want to sell. None of them ever appear directly in this novel, but everyone who writes advertising is aware of these manufactures because they all have preferences. The writers become outraged and explode in anger if any of the ads can advocate gambling, or be seen as sexual or insulting. “That is the major problem with advertising as Sayers sees it—it does not present a factual review of products with information about their features and prices. Rather, it distorts the truth and appeals to the weaknesses of the public in order to sell them products which may or may not live up to the claims made for them”(Collins). Similar to the workers at Pym’s Publicity, the drug dealers and users are controlled by a hidden group of people who remain are never mentioned in the novel. “Tallboy is appropriate for a man who was merely a pawn in an enterprise not of his own making” (Reaves). The dealers or middle men are the people who actually sell the drugs to the addicts. The users are, the large group that are being manipulated for financial gain. Both groups of people are influenced by either advertisements or the people selling drugs. Additionally, both groups of people are dependent on both the advertisements to tell them what to buy, and the suppliers of drugs because the customers are addicted. Therefore, the majority of people are being controlled like puppets by a small group of people.

A second similarity between the two worlds is the reoccurring theme of materialism.

The economic system demands more and more purchase of things to survive. This is shown when Mr. Pym worries more about money and reputation then his employees, when Whimsey informs him of the drug dealing in his office. “But Mr. Pym was past helping anybody. He was chalk white. “Dope? From this office? What on earth will our clients say? How shall I face the Board? The publicity. . . .” (286). Materialism will always override other moral values. The top figures in the drug ring, like Mr. Pym and the manufacturers, are motivated by an ambition for more money. These people will even lie, steal, ruin lives, and even murder to protect their income. The consumers who are manipulated by advertisements to buy more things, even if they are out of reach are like the reckless drug addicts who want more pleasers, for outrageous amounts of money. To Sayers, the root problem in society is materialism, which is a theme she addressed in this novel frequently. All of the characters in the novel can be considered materialists, they have absorbed the materialist worldview from all of the surrounding media and influences around them. “Sayers evokes two modern worlds, that of the workday advertising agency and that of the leisured beau monde. Both are shallow, frivolous, morally vapid, “(Stock). The characters are contradictory, and they know that people’s actions do not matter because in the end the world

we see and hear is all that matters. This is why the druggies devote all they have to pleasures; it is why the advertisers lie to sell products; and it is also why the leaders of the drug-ring kill people who know things they shouldn’t.

While the characters are very materialistic, they are also representing other evils. The Seven Deadly Sins are very evident in this novel. Every character that is introduced seems to represent another sin. “Murder Must Advertise vividly portrays more of the Seven Deadly Sins than any of Sayers’s other fictional works because the Sins appear not only in association with the individual characters, but also in the wider picture of the modern society as a whole”(Brown). Each character represents a different sin because as a whole both worlds that are being compared in this novel are being depicted as sinful. For example, Mr. Johnson is lustful and teases all female employees, while Miss Meteyard is prideful because she is university educated, unlike other workers. By giving the characters a sin of their own Sayers is able to connect the advertising world with the drug world, because they themselves encompass evil.

Thirdly, theses worlds are similar because on the surface they can’t identify death. Pym‟s Publicity contributes to the death of those who write advertisements and those who are influenced by them. Ads are based on lies, so that they might satisfy the readers. Most people blindly buy objects and are influenced by these ads, so they can fill their insecurities.Even some of Pym‟s employees have doubts about the morality of their job. For example, Mr. Ingleby says early in the novel: “Three years in this soul-searing profession have not yet robbed me of all human feeling. But that will come in time” (9). Similar to the workers at advertising agencies, the people who party at Milligan‟s mansion ignore death. All the partiers participate in activities that could possibly lead to their own deaths. But like the advertisers these druggies are unconsciously letting their minds be destryoed . Dian de Momerie is an example in this novel of a person who is emotionally dead, who cannot find love or real meaning in life. “Dope-runners are murderers, fifty times over. They slay hundreds of people, soul and body, besides indirectly causing all sorts of crimes among the victims” (252). Conclusively, the drug world ignores the thing they cause every day, death. Drugs inhibit people from actually having a happy life, this is because the drug world is full of danger, so many people are either killed by drugs or dangerous people associated with drugs. “the dream cities resemble each other because on the surface they deny the ultimate earthly reality—death—even though at a deeper level they are agents of death” (Collins). Both worlds cause death every day. In the advertising world, the workers are liars and scam artists, while in the drug world drug are inhibiting people of true happiness, and a normal safer life. Therefore, the emotional, mental or physical death is evident in both worlds.

While Sayers argues that the media and drug worlds are similar, she is also criticizing society as a whole. “Murder Must Advertise was the first novel in which she approached serious fiction-a “criticism of life” (Basney). Not only is Sayers comparing two opposing societies but she is criticizing the many people that let these two groups control their lives. Both groups are the epitomes of sin, and Sayers is trying to argue that because they’re goals are essentially the same, average customers to both groups are overall blindly dependent. Furthermore, while the customers are being dependent on the groups, they do not always realize that these groups come with a death sentence. Whether this death sentence is physical, emotional or mental is up to what group a person decides to depend on. By criticizing people Sayers argues that, in the end everyone is controlled by either the media or drugs.