Dr Watson is Sherlock Holmes’ less intelligent assistant. He is almost like the reader because he asks Holmes lots of questions because he does not think the same way as Holmes does so he is not able to put clues together like Sherlock Holmes. Dr Watson always has the first hand experience so he is able to explain to the reader what is happening. Dr Watson has a good relationship with Sherlock Holmes; we know this because Dr Watson is always in Sherlock’s house, even before breakfast! They are always solving crimes together as well.
The themes Sherlock Holmes’ stories deal with are very popular ones such as murder, robbery and horror. In ‘The Adventure of the Engineers Thumb’, Victor escapes death from the pressing room and also does Lysander Stark chop off his thumb. Dr Roylott who is money mad, kills Julia with an exotic snake so she doesn’t get the money she is entitled to. The clank of the metal was the sound that the safe made when the snake was coming out and the whistle was to call the snake. In ‘The Red Headed League’, the people in charge of the league want to get the owner of the bank out of the way so they can rob the bank but the idea of copying out an encyclopaedia is just to strange and they get caught. Going back to the engineer’s thumb, all that Lysander Stark wants is for Victor to fix
the machine so he can forge more coins. We know that the pressing machine crushed a first engineer because Elisa said ‘you said it should not be again’. In ‘The Speckled Band’ gruesome details like the baboon being compared to children and the physical descriptions of the antagonists also add to the feeling of horror.
Suspense is very strong in these stories, which also helps them to become popular. ‘The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb’ has the reader wondering why a hydraulic engineer should be sworn to secrecy and why he should travel quite far to fix a machine. Later in the same story we are left wondering what Elisa knows that makes her tell Victor to leave. In ‘The Speckled Band’, we do not know how Julia could have been killed as her room was locked from the inside. We are also left wondering of what he last words of Julia meant: ‘the speckled band’. In ‘The Red Headed League’ we suspect that the organisation that Jabez Wilson joins is not legitimate, but we have no way of knowing why it exists at all. In all these cases we are presented with a number of clues that only Holmes can piece together to arrive at a conclusion to the mysteries. It isn’t until the end when Holmes explains his conclusion to Watson and to us, the reader. This is another important use of suspense, because the readers will want to on reading to find out exactly who was responsible for the murder or crime and why they did it.
This pleasure in finding out the answers is paralleled by the pleasure of reading a familiarly structured story. All three of the stories we read began with Dr Watson telling the reader the story of the case. Then we have the victim telling Holmes and Watson the details of the case. This is then followed by Holmes and Watson going to the crime scene to investigate. At the story’s end, Holmes explains exactly how he solved the crime. Holmes’ ability at solving crimes is also a source of pleasure as the reader can relate with Holmes to see if he can put together the meaning of the clues and arrive at the correct solution to the mystery. It is this ability that Holmes has of using deduction to arrive at an impossible answer for the clues that also give the readers pleasure.
To conclude my essay, I think that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories are very interesting because they give the reader a variety of themes, suspense and pleasure. This is why I think Sherlock Holmes and his stories are so popular, even today.