Appearances vs. Reality Theme Analysis

In Colin Dexter’s “Evans Tries an O-Level,” a notorious kleptomaniac named James Evans makes his fourth escape from prison, this time from Oxford Prison, overseen by the no-nonsense Governor and a senior prison officer named Jackson. A tension between appearances and reality runs throughout the story, as many characters—especially Evans—subvert the expectations and judgments other people make of them based on their appearance. This impulse to judge based on appearance is particularly dangerous in the world of this mystery story, which is filled with deception and disguises. Dexter ultimately highlights how making judgments based on appearances is an unproductive habit, and that people and situations are not always what they seem.

It’s the grubby James Evans—who is terrible at German, dresses in ridiculous clothes, and cracks jokes so frequently that no one sees him as a “real burden”—who outwits everyone, showing that appearances can be deeply deceiving. Evans’s silly “red-and-white bobble hat” symbolizes the way Evans intentionally fulfills and subverts people’s expectations of him based on his appearance. The hat, a grimy knit beanie with a massive pom-pom fastened to the top, plays into people’s perceptions of him as a cheerful, ridiculous trickster. The Governor himself articulates the common stereotype of Evans at the beginning of the story: “Quite a pleasant sort of chap […] Bit of a card, really. One of the stars at the Christmas concert. Imitations, you know the sort of thing: Mike Yarwood stuff.” Evans’s penchant for impressions sums up the story’s warning of mistaking appearances for reality. Like Mike Yarwood—the 1960s impressionist, actor, and comedian—Evans has the capacity to convincingly pretend to be other people. However, this isn’t always for comedic effect; his well-honed acting skills allow him to believably impersonate his test proctor, McLeery, taking on the man’s clerical dress, Scottish accent, choppy haircut, and general demeanor in order to break out of prison. The extent to which appearances are misleading run even deeper in the story, however, when it’s revealed that Evans is actually doing an impersonation of an impersonation—the so-called Reverend McLeery who comes to conduct Evans’s German exam is an imposter himself (one of Evans’s many accomplices), as the real McLeery is bound and gagged back at his apartment.

The aftermath of Evans’s clever escape also reveals the futility of trusting in appearances. The two detectives, Detective Superintendent Carter and Chief Inspector Bell, are supposed to be the ones to solve the crime—once a prisoner has escaped the prison’s walls, it’s “a police job.” However, the confident detectives prove incompetent and fade from the story soon after being introduced. Despite being a “good-for-a-giggle, gullible governor” (as he assumes the police see him), the Governor is the one who cracks the case of Evans’s escape from Oxford Prison, piecing together Evans’s convoluted clues and ultimately tracking him down in the nearby city of Chipping Norton.

The story closes with yet another startling reminder that not everything is what it seems. After tracking down Evans, the Governor gloats quietly as he watches a silent prison officer handcuff Evans outside the Golden Lion Hotel and load him up in the prison van to be transported back to Oxford Prison. The Governor tells Evans that he’ll see him soon, and the two men say goodbye like “old friend[s] after a cocktail party,” leading the reader to believe that this a story that ends neatly with the “good guy” winning and the “bad guy” being successfully captured and sent back to prison. However, as the Governor watches the van drive away, the narrative suddenly jumps to the conversation unfolding inside the van, where the silent prison officer is unlocking Evans’s handcuffs and bickering with the driver about where they should run off to next. Once again, Evans (with help from his friends) has outsmarted everyone, a bittersweet ending that leaves readers with the unsettling reminder that appearances aren’t always trustworthy.