40 pages • 1 hour read
John BuchanThe Thirty Nine Steps
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1915A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
How Ordinary People Do Extraordinary Things
While Hannay possesses unusual skills, Buchan works to keep him grounded and relatable and to integrate average citizens into the story. Hannay has good eyesight, can run fast, is able to get along with many kinds of people, speaks multiple languages including Scots and German, has experience with disguises and explosives, and has decoded messages before. These skills go beyond those of average reader. Yet Hannay is also an everyman, who attributes his success to being “miraculously lucky” (63). In the story's first half, this claim is not unfounded, as he comes across convenient helpers and evades his pursuers despite seeming to be followed wherever he goes. At the end of the novel, his luck begins to feel less plausible. While Hannay demonstrates deductive reasoning at the level of Sherlock Holmes to determine the location of the 39 steps and the Black Stone’s escape route, he attributes his success to guesswork: “I don’t know if I can explain myself, but I used to use my brains as far as they went, and after they came to a blank wall I guessed, and I usually found my guesses pretty right” (109). Hannay’s surprise at and understatement of his successes keep allows Buchan to portray him as an ordinary man thrust into extraordinary circumstances.
Hannay is further humanized by his moments of weakness and doubt. While at first he treats spy craft as a game, by Chapter 3 he begins to feel “hunted” and to recognize the danger of his situation. As many would when faced with a true villain, he nearly loses his resolve when confronted by the old archaeologist in Chapter 6. That section also marks a turning point in his experience. For the first time, he is hungry, thirsty, and injured. His physical discomfort makes Hannay relatable for the reader.
The more truly ordinary figures in the novel are the citizens who serve as allies on Hannay’s journey. These include the milkman, hospitable cottagers, innkeeper, and roadman. Of these, Turnbull the roadman is the only one whose contribution extends for more than a chapter. Hannay’s primary ally is the aristocratic character Sir Walter. However, the contributions of the everyman characters are essential to the “luck” that carries Hannay to the end. They help readers who may feel skeptical of Hannay’s skill and resolve to still see themselves in the narrative.
Appearance and Reality
Through the course of his adventure, Hannay not only adopts disguises but recognizes that assumed and altered appearances can shape reality. In Chapter 2, one of his reasons for leaving London is that he has no friend in town to vouch for his innocence in Scudder’s murder. Yet he finds allies who accept his trustworthiness based on his appearance. When he tells the truth of his predicament to Sir Harry in Chapter 4 and to Sir Walter in Chapter 7, they believe him despite the wildness of his tale. As Sir Harry says, “I can size up a man” (49). Their perception of his loyalty and good intentions is essential to his ability to carry out his mission.
Hannay realizes, though, that appearances can be deceiving. Hannay benefits from people’s tendency to accept what they see when he takes on working-class disguises. Yet he also realizes he was hasty in accepting Scudder’s story. When he decodes Scudder’s notebook in Chapter 4, he realizes the Black Stone’s plot is far more complicated than Scudder told him. Belief, therefore, remains a gamble. He runs the risk of being deceived, as with Scudder and the Black Stone, but he needs to trust others to complete his journey.
Hannay struggles to determine if the men he accuses in Chapter 10 are, in fact, the Black Stone instead of average English citizens. He remembers his friend Pienaar told him, “If a man could get into perfectly different surroundings from those in which he had been first observed, and—this is the important part—really play up to these surroundings and behave as if he had never been out of them, he would puzzle the cleverest detectives on earth” (118). This explanation helps the audience recognize the skillfulness of the spies and the complexities of espionage. In Chapter 6, in the old man’s moorland house, and later in Chapter 9 and 10 in Kent, Hannay realizes just how well the Black Stone have been able to remain undetected while spying on England. They snuck into the meeting to access naval intelligence and very nearly convinced Hannay that he had the wrong men, despite meeting each of them before. These moments emphasize how appearance ties not only with skillful presentation but with manipulation of reality.
Individualism Versus Bureaucracy
Scudder and Hannay are guided by personal moral codes that involve, but are not blindly beholden to, patriotism. While Scudder seemed to enjoy espionage for the sake of adventure, he also did not want to see the assassination of a good man (Karolides) or the theft of England’s naval secrets. When first explaining the situation to Hannay, he argues they must try to stop the plot themselves because government bureaucracies are incapable of doing it. Though Sir Walter argues that Scudder’s enthusiasm borders on self-importance, Scudder demonstrates a personal resolve that extends beyond loyalty to any institution. Hannay internalizes Scudder’s argument after he is murdered: “Above all, I must keep going myself, ready to act when things got riper” (41). While Hannay has a strong sense of loyalty to Great Britain, he looks to himself rather than to British institutions to stop the Black Stone. He succeeds through the skills gained from his life experiences, his willingness to work with people from different walks of life, and his critical reasoning.
Hannay is both helped and hindered by slow-moving bureaucracy. The positive side of institutional power is demonstrated by Sir Walter, whom he calls, “The embodiment of law and government and all the conventions” (88). He becomes Hannay’s strongest ally toward the end of the novel, working with Scotland Yard to clear Hannay of suspicion in Scudder’s murder and to provide backup in the climactic confrontation. Sir Walter also arranges the meeting between French and English intelligence, which is only possible through his established position within political hierarchy. On the negative side of bureaucracy, Hannay was “up against […] my country’s law” while on the run for Scudder’s murder (91). Further, he is not initially granted access to the political meeting at Sir Walter’s house and must charge in to announce that they allowed a Black Stone operative to escape with national secrets.
While Hannay experiences moments of doubt about his assumption of authority late in the novel, the Black Stone are only stopped because he is willing to challenge the political officials. He acknowledges, “It was ridiculous in me to take charge of the business like this, but they didn’t seem to mind” (111). Buchan certainly does not overtly criticize English institutions. They empower Hannay, as Buchan himself was empowered when he was made a baron and appointed Canada’s Governor General in 1935.
