Dr Watson is the ideal narrator of this story. His ability to perceive and describe details is as important as his inability to deduce from them what Holmes can. He says, ‘Holmes, I seem to see dimly what you are hitting at’, after Holmes had described the position of the ventilator and the rope. The relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson is one of an ‘intimate friend and associate. In contrast to Holmes, Dr Watson makes the sensible deductions and assumption of the of the ordinary intelligent man. He is portrayed as an amiable man as well as the devoted recorder of Holmes’ achievements.
A vivid description is built up of Dr Roylott by the description of Helen stoner. We know that he came from an aristocratic background. However successive heirs had squandered the money. After taking a medical degree he went to India, where he spent some time in prison from murdering a native servant. She describes his ‘violence of temper approaching to mania’.
We are also told that he likes to associate with gypsies and also keeps exotic animals, for example, a cheetah and a baboon. In another passage Dr Roylott enters Holmes’ room and is described as a ‘huge man’ with a face ‘marked with every evil passion’. He is said to resemble ‘a fierce old bird of pray’. We are led also to believe that Dr Roylott is violent towards his Stepdaughter when Homes sees burses on her wrists.
The story is set during the Victorian era with the backdrop of the decaying grandeur of Stoke Moran this help this links closely to the character of Dr Roylott as a fallen aristocrat and also helps to create a mysterious atmosphere. ‘The building was of grey, lichen-blotched stone with a high central portion, and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side. In one of these wings the windows were broken, and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partly caved in, a picture of ruin.’
The language and speech used were more formal in the Victorian era with customs and behaviour with are not often seen today, ‘my step father has offered no opposition to the match’, said Miss Stoner when proposed to by her fiancé. Forms of transport were different e.g. a dogcart as transport, they also used oil lamps and old fashioned furnishings, these all build the setting and atmosphere.
There are a number of themes central to the plot. They’re the dangers of the exotic East, for example Dr Roylott’s dangerous exotic pets. Also the gypsies (although blameless) add an air of menace as well as providing ‘the red herring’ of ‘the speckled band’. There is also the financial motive to wish Helen dead.
In concluding I believe this story to the classic ‘locked room mystery’ the ‘who done it’ element is of course important in the detective story and this a very satisfying story from that point of: perhaps more ‘how was it done?’ but this classic detective story: the dramatic setting the terrifying Roylott homes, Holmes’ Watson’s vigil etc.
The story of The Engineers thumb happened when early one mourning Victor Hartherly, a hydraulic engineer, comes to Dr Watson with his thumb chopped off and a strange tale to tell. Watson takes him to Holmes and the tale unfolds. He was visited the previous evening by a German, calling himself Colonel Lysander Stark, for the purpose of repairing a stamping machine. The purpose of the machine sounds highly unlikely and the fact that this is to be done in the middle of the night is suspicious, but the fee is tempting. The engineer takes a train to Eyford, is then taken by carriage to the house and diagnoses the fault. When he reveals his suspicious, Stark attempts to grind the engineer to death in the machine. His escape is made at the expense of his thumb, chopped off by Stark/Fritz’s cleaver. A visit to the site by Holmes and the police reveals that the house had been burnt down and the coiners have escaped.
The main character in the story is the Engineer- Victor Hartherly, who is also the main narrator. In the story he is described as being ‘quietly dressed in a suit of heather tweed, with a soft cloth cap.’ We are informed that he is ‘young, not more than five-and-twenty’, with a ‘strong masculine face’. We are also told that he was an orphan and a bachelor and that he was a hydraulic engineer of ‘considerable experience’ however ‘his first independent start in business a dreary experience’. This would lead us to believe that he was in need of work. We are given the impression that he was of high integrity and was very trustworthy ‘if I promise to keep a secret,’ ‘you may absolutely depend upon my doing so’.
In this story Sherlock Holmes contributes very little. It is little more than four pages before the end of the story that Hatherly’s narration finishes. Holmes uses his highly sensitive recall by producing a cutting, which tells of an engineer’s mysterious disappearance a year previously.
Dr Watson also plays a small part in the story although he is known to have brought the injured Hartherly to Holmes’ rooms.
This story focuses very much on the victim Hartherly. We are told very little about the villains: Colonel Lysander Stark, ‘a man rather over the middle size but of an exceeding thinness’. ‘His face opened away into nose and chin’, ‘his eye was bright, his step brisk, and his bearing assured.’ We are also told that he would be ‘nearer forty than thirty’ and spoke with a German accent.
The setting and the atmosphere of this story are quite menacing. ‘it was pitch dark inside the house’, ‘it was a wonderfully silent house’, ‘deadly still’, ‘secluded’, ‘it was a labyrinth of an old house’, ‘no carpets or furniture above the ground floor’, ‘damp was breaking through in green unhealthy blotches’. This setting helps to build the feeling of ‘uneasiness’ in the reader.
There are a number of central themes to the plot; ‘it is more mysterious adventure than a detective story’. Starting with Mr Hatherly’s account of the journey, the attack, after twice being warned by the beautiful Elise, the escape, the mystery, and the deduction.
In comparing the two stories, there is a classic formula apparent in both stories, However in the Speckled Band the focus of attention is villain- Dr Roylott, on the other hand in the Engineer’s Thumb it is the victim who is the main element. The setting for the speckled band also differs from the engineers thumb on is set in the decaying grandeur of a mansion whilst the other is played out in the backdrop of a more working class house. Roylott is aristocratic and titled where as Hartherly is a down to earth engineer.
In concluding I preferred the engineers thumb as it created more of a felling of Intensity and was able to relate more to the engineer and there fore I could sympathise with him.
