The structures for a detective story are often the same in most stories. The story normally starts with a suspicious character that dislikes another character for a reason that nobody knows.
Then the middle of the story normally sees somebody murdered by the suspicious character. Finally the ending has a detective finding out who the murderer is and why he or she committed murder, from a list of clues.
Doyle first introduced Holmes in 1887 and the Victorians immediately fell for him. As the Victorians were strong believers in evil they took a like to Holmes as he always defeated evil. Holmes was extremely popular and when Doyle tried to kill off Holmes in 1893, there was a public outcry and Doyle received death threats to keep Holmes alive.
Certain speech quotes in “the adventure of the speckled band” show signs of an old language. ”My dear fellow, I would not miss it for anything” is a typical style of old language as I doubt anyone would start a conversation like that in the present day. Most speech quotes show typical examples of how long ago these stories was set.
Holmes is an extremely popular character within the stories as he is seen as a top detective by many readers. Holmes is a very observant character in all of the stories. Holmes shows observation in each story as he likes to observe evidence and clues which could solve the mystery. Holmes is also a highly intelligent person shown throughout all stories as he can always find a conclusion.
Helen Stoner is a very unconfident character in “the adventures of the speckled band” she comes a across as scared person as she is scared and frightened of her aggressive step father.
Like Holmes Watson is also a very intelligent character within all of the stories. Watson uses his intelligence in practicing his medicine which is shown in the story “a case of identity”
As the Character Holmes was first introduced in 1887 then it is expected that language is going to be very different to the language of the present day.
I think the way Holmes comes up with a solution is meant to surprise readers of these stories. For example a quote in the speckled band reads “The Band! The speckled band” is used to surprise and excite the reader because Holmes has found a solution.
As the people of the nineteenth century didn’t have much entertainment it was down to Doyle to entertain them. These stories send out a positive message to readers as the readers have taken such a like to the character of Sherlock Holmes. Readers of Doyle’s work hopefully will get the message that “you can’t get away with murder” somebody will find out, in this case it was Holmes.
After reading all three stories I feel that “The adventures of the speckled band” is the one I prefer the most. The evil step father believes he can get away with killing his step daughters, only for Holmes to get in the way. This has proved to be a very good story line as recent television dramas have used similar storey lines.
