How typical is, 'The Speckled band', compared to other Sherlock Holmes Short Stories I have read?

Authors Avatar

Tom Sharp 11G

How typical is, ‘The Speckled band’, compared to other Sherlock Holmes Short Stories I have read?

The short stories I have read in, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, all seem to follow a similar trend. There are lots of similarities in each story, and ‘The Speckled Band’ is one of the most typical of the stories. After reading through the book, I noticed the constant similarities, and noted them down.

        At first, I noticed that Holmes and Watson, who are the two main characters throughout the stories, are never in any real danger. In The Speckled Band, Holmes and Watson are waiting in a dark room where there is potential danger of getting poisoned by a swamp adder. They are both unaware of the snake, but due to Holmes already knowing what will happen, he scares the snake away when it attacks them, before it has a chance to bite them. In ‘The Copper Beeches’, when the large hound is loose, Holmes and Watson are yet again in the similar sort of potential danger. They discover the dangerous hound, but Watson has his pistol at the ready, and shoots the dog until it lay dead. Again, Holmes and Watson were in danger, but not for long at all, and the suspense of danger in the short stories never lasts long.

Join now!

        I also realised that Holmes always seems to know the answer to a case before he reveals and proves that he is correct. In The Speckled Band, Holmes knows that he and Watson should hide in the room where the death of a woman had taken place. He also knew that the way the woman died was by means of using the ventilator leading from that room, into the next. That way, Holmes was ready for a surprise attack. In ‘The Beryl Coronet’, Holmes already knows who had the coronet stones, and dressed up as a vagabond, and apprehended Sir ...

This is a preview of the whole essay