Irene Adler is not just very talented, she is also clever. Twice she has outsmarted the King of Bohemia – ‘twice she has been waylaid. There was no result’. She also manages to get the better of Sherlock Holmes and this is probably the only time that a lady has managed to do that. As well as being clever, she is also cunning. The King himself tells Sherlock Holmes that there ‘are no lengths to which she would no go – none’. We know that she is even prepared to blackmail, but only after falling in love with Godfrey Norton, she keeps the photograph, but ‘only to safeguard’ herself. She is a very romantic person. She says that she ‘loves and is loved’. This shows that it is more important to her than money or social standing.
Helen Stoner is quite different from Irene Adler. She is a very timid woman but this may be because she is very afraid and does not know what to do. We can tell that she is anxious because she is shivering and tells Sherlock Holmes that ‘it is not cold which makes me shiver…it is fear’. She is also very desperate and this is why she comes to Sherlock Holmes for help. She knows that Holmes helped someone that she knows when they had problems so she says to him: ‘Oh sir, do you not think that you could help me too?’. In addition, Helen is under pressure and mentally exhausted. She cannot put up with things for much longer and says that if she stands the strain much longer then she will ‘go mad’. Conversely, Helen Stoner must have good self-control as she has lived with a brutal stepfather for more than two years.
When Helen Stoner arrives at Sherlock Holmes’ house, she is ‘dressed in black and heavily veiled’. This shows the reader that she is very cautious and doesn’t know who to trust. She feels helpless as she has ‘no one to turn to’. She has been unhappy for many years. She tells Sherlock Holmes that she and her sister Julia ‘had no pleasure’ in their lives. She says that ‘for a long time we did the work’ around the house which shows that they were treated like slaves by their stepfather. Helen Stoner has also been physically abused by her stepfather. Sherlock Holmes notices ‘five little livid spots, the marks of four fingers and a thumb’ ‘printed upon the white wrist’.
However, she is loyal to her stepfather. Holmes tells her ‘you are screening your stepfather’. Helen Stoner has been lonely since her sister died. She was very close to her sister as they were twins and she says ‘how subtle are the links which bind two souls which are so closely allied’. She calls Julia her ‘only companion’. Not only is Helen trapped by her stepfather, she is also trapped financially. She wants to pay Holmes for helping her but she admits that ‘at the present it is out of my power to reward you for your services’.
Irene Adler’s personality is somewhat different to the personality of Helen Stoner. Irene Adler is much more confident than Helen Stoner, who is rather timid. This is probably because Helen has been treated cruelly by her stepfather for many years.
However, Irene and Helen are both very kind and caring. Irene looked after Sherlock Holmes herself when he was hurt. Dr Watson tells of this – ‘the grace and kindliness with which she waited upon the injured man’. Helen was very close to her sister who she calls her ‘only companion’. In addition, Irene and Helen are both secretive. Helen is loyal to her father – she does not tell Sherlock Holmes about him and how meanly he has treated her. Irene guards the photograph very carefully. She does not do anything that will let the King of Bohemia find out where the photograph is kept, but Sherlock Holmes does manage to find out where she keeps it.
Irene Alder lives in much better circumstances than Helen Stoner. Although Helen Stoner’s family used to be ‘among the richest in England’, this is no longer the case. She now lives in one wing of a manor-house in Stoke Moran. The rest of the house is run down and cannot be lived in. On the other hand, Irene Adler’s house is a ‘bijou villa’ that is well furnished.
Helen Stoner is trapped – not only by her stepfather but also financially. She does not have the control of her own income but will soon be married and have some control over it, although it will belong to her husband. Conversely, Irene Adler is independent and does have the control of her own income. She is not trapped financially, but she may be, although not like Helen Stoner, at the end of the story after she marries Godfrey Norton.
Irene Adler has had the chance to be a professional opera singer. Helen Stoner has not had this chance. She has had to do all the work around the house – she say ‘for a long time we did all the work’. She will not have the chance either, she is about to be married and will then be expected to be take care of the house.
In Victorian times, the main objective in a Victorian woman’s life was to get married and have children. If a woman decided that she would not get married, she would attract social disapproval. Victorian women didn’t have much choice in their lives. They just had to obey men - their father before they were married and then their husband when they were married. After a woman got married all they owned, inherited and earned automatically belonged to their husband. If a woman was unhappy with her situation, there wasn’t anything that she could do about it. Women could not get a divorce except in exceptionally rare cases.
The clothes that women had to wear showed their constricted lives. Women had to wear tightly laced corsets and long skirts that dragged on the ground and hindered the freedom of movement.
In Charles Dickens’ book, Oliver Twist, there is a quotation that Mr Bumble said and it was the view that was shared by most men in the 19th century:
‘The prerogative of a man is to command…the prerogative of a woman is to obey.’
Between 1800 and 1900, women gained more rights: for example, in 1857, women could divorce husbands who were cruel to them or husbands who had left them and then in 1970, women were allowed to keep the money that they earned.
Even if a Victorian woman did work, it was likely to be in a simple job like a domestic servant job. Here is a table that gives an example of where women worked in 1900:
Victorian England was very different, in many ways, to the England that we live in today. Firstly, in the Victorian era, railways were not electric, they were powered by steam. Although the trains ran at much slower speeds than trains do these days, travelling by train was much faster than travelling by horse drawn wagons. Being able to travel by train changed the lives of many Victorians as they were able to travel further than ten miles in one direction and were then able to manage rare day trips to the seaside. Most people however still travelled by horse-drawn wagons as cars had not been invented. In both ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ and ‘The Speckled Band’, Sherlock Holmes uses a horse and carriage to travel around in.
Secondly, clothing was very different. People did not wear casual clothes; they wore formal clothes all the time. Women had to wear corsets to give them the narrow waists which were thought to be attractive. Women wore full skirts with as many as six petticoats. Children in wealthy families also wore very formal clothes. Girls wore dresses which were as fancy as the grown ups but slightly shorter. Boys wore dresses until they were about five or six and then were dressed in sailor suits or velvet suits with lace collars and cuffs. In addition, wealthy men wore top hats and carried a cane or walking stick. In ‘A Speckled Band’, Helen Stoner was dressed in ‘black and heavily veiled’ as if she is in mourning. Although we wear black at funerals we do not wear if for a long time after people have died, like they did in the Victorian era.
In the Victorian era taking drugs was considered to be acceptable. It was a time when anybody could walk into a chemist's shop and buy any amount of cocaine they wanted. Almost all of the period's great artists, writers and poets took drugs.
However, although there were many differences there were also many similarities, for example, one method of transport, and a source of entertainment, was the bicycle. The first bicycle to be powered by pedals was made during the Victorian period by Kirkpatrick Macmillan in 1840. This was the cheapest way to travel.
We still like going to the theatre and this was the same with Victorian people. Another source of entertainment that we enjoy today and so did the Victorians is tennis. Lawn tennis became popular in the 1870s. Both men and women played it, although it was mainly played by middle-class women. It was adapted from the old indoor game of ‘real’ or ‘royal’ tennis.
Finally, Victorians loved to throw parties, where they played games such as charades and watched firework displays.
In conclusion, Helen Stoner is a typical Victorian woman. She does not work and is about to get married. The only work she has done is when she had to do the work around the house because no servants would stay. Conversely, Irene Adler is unusual. She is a retired opera singer, but she does get married in the story.
Helen Stoner lives with her stepfather, which is what Victorian woman normally did until they got married. However, Irene Adler lives by herself in her well furnished house.
Irene Adler has full control over her income. She can spend it on what she wants and can choose what she does with her money. Helen Stoner cannot do this because her stepfather, and then her husband, has control over her money. We know this because she tells Holmes that she cannot pay him for his services.
