P.D James' The Skull Beneath the Skin, is a crime fiction text that really encodes many of the traditional social values in Britain. James' plays around with gender roles as well as class systems. These all play an important part in the novel as they allow our protagonist to solve the crime in the end. Even though the crime is solved, there is no clear solution to the other problems and corruption that surrounds the novel.
The protagonist of the novel is Cordelia Gray, a private investigator. Because the protagonist of the novel is female, clearly P.D James is trying to make a stateme…
