Morse and Lewis were quite surprised to see Dr Ullman back in his home before the opera was finished. They both went home. Morse walked 300 yards home and Lewis took the van home. When Morse got home he noticed something on the table. A note. It read ‘Sorry for the inconvenience – very sorry indeed. It was the only thing worth pinching and I’m hoping I’ll get a good price for it’.
Morse leaped up the stairs to see if his tables were gone and they had. Morse phoned the police to tell them that he had been burgled the officer told Morse that it had already been reported by Dr Ullman. He said that he lived near by. Dr Ullman had got the number plate of the white self hire van. Morse went around to Dr Ullman’s house and he explained all that had happened.
The Language of the two stories is different in many ways. Nowadays we don’t use dog carts and don’t have bell-ropes in our houses like in the Speckled Band, also we don’t write 70 word sentences like ‘In glancing over my notes…………………of Stoke Moran’. We also don’t call our bedroom a chamber anymore. We don’t use phrases like ‘would fain draw a little closer to the fire’. Not many houses even have a proper fire in their homes nowadays anyway. The Morse story mainly contains modern language and some slang like ‘genuine enough I reckon’ and ‘so this chap’ this is completely differently from the 70 word sentences that are in the Speckled Band.
Neighbourhood Watch contains many modern words like ‘Tupperware’, ‘new alarm system’, ‘white self hire van’ or even ‘NHS hearing aid’. That makes it obvious that Neighbourhood Watch is not set in the same time period as The Speckled Band.
The old words in The Speckled Band make it feel rather strange. Maybe it’s because I don’t understand some of them but the new modern words that are in Neighbourhood Watch and everyday life don’t add much of any thing to the story.
The Style of the sentences in The Speckled Band is often long and you lose what had happened at the beginning of the sentence without reading it again. Like this meandering sentence ‘Dr Watson before whom …………………….to light a fire’ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle starts a sentence with one thing and finishes with an other thing. In Colin Dexter’s story, Neighbourhood Watch the sentences all vary in size but none of them are 70 words long like Speckled Band. The sentences are easy to read in parts with a lot of talking. The pace is slow hardly changes.
The old words and style make The Speckled Band more interesting and you wish to read on. Even though I like science fiction this is ok in a way. The modern story Neighbourhood Watch isn’t really any good as there isn’t much difference in the size of sentences which makes the story boring and dull.
Since the Speckled Band has long sentences it makes you wish to read on into the story but because of this it is complicated to read. But if you like what is happening in a book then you would trace back pages and try to find out what happened due to the sentences being so long and hard to remember. Neighbourhood Watch on the other hand has really short sentences that are really easy to understand except near the end (roughly the last paragraph) which may have some short sentences but it is damn near impossible to find out who did it!
Sometimes in the Speckled Band the sentences are too long to follow like ‘in glancing over………Stoke Moran’ which is about 70 words long. After reading the two stories I still don’t understand why Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had such a complex beginning to a story. Neighbourhood Watch is a fairly easy story to understand except the end of this simple little story.
The Speckled Band has many long sentences and long paragraphs. These contain a lot of description (one thing I can say that the Neighbourhood Watch story does not have) but most people would say it is too long and you lose interest in it. I think that they are wrong because if the sentences were all short and were easy to read then both of the stories would be rather the same. Maybe one would be a murder story and one would be a theft but they both would be easy to read. actually it would make the Sherlock Holmes story absolutely easier to read compared to Inspector Morse’s story because of his dodgy ending. I also think that since the Speckled Band was written well before the Author of Neighbourhood Watch was even born and the language was quite a bit different then it would have been easier for someone to read it in those days because it would have been modern to them.
The two stories are told in different ways. The Speckled Band is told by a narrator but at the beginning it is told by Watson and some way it changes throughout the story. When Watson is telling the story you feel as though you are in the story with him and when it changes you feel as though you are just being told the story by someone. Neighbourhood Watch is told by a narrator all the way through the story which makes it a bit boring because when things change I think they become more interesting.
The Speckled Band has lots of speech. There are about two to three pages in a row just full of speech where as Neighbourhood Watch has only two to three pages of conversation throughout the story.
I think the descriptions of Sir Arthur’s places are really good. They may be long and in depth but without description you could be in a ghost town or in the middle of a busy city. But in these descriptions he tells you about everything from the boarded up windows to the uncut grass ‘The building was Dr Roylott’s chamber’. Where as Colin Dexter’s descriptions are very vague and they hardly describe anything. When Morse and Lewis were sitting out in front of Dr Ullman’s house he doesn’t even describe what his house looks like. I think that if Neighbourhood Watch had some decent descriptions then it might have been better in my mind. To be honest I think he would have preferred to describe the woman in the pub more than describe the pub.
Conan Doyle uses the weather throughout his story to create an atmosphere, like on page 61, ‘to me at least there …………… which we were engaged’. He also uses weather at other parts in the story. To create more tension he would use lightning and to create a happy mood he would use a bright sunny morning. Colin Dexter’s story doesn’t even have any type of way to create an atmosphere. There is nothing anywhere in the story that I think could be described as an atmosphere in a story.
The description of weather is used in The Speckled Band and it does help the atmosphere a lot. Neighbourhood watch doesn’t have any descriptions of weather in it and. I can’t see any atmosphere in this story unless it is in the silence when they are waiting in the white self hire van. These types of stories should have weather as the atmosphere. I think it is the same way ghost stories use the weather as their atmosphere because you get a good story when you use the weather. I think, due to lack of description throughout, Neighbourhood Watch not very good to read compared it to The Speckled Band.
I think descriptions are there to give the reader a view of where they are in a story. Its no good just saying they were in the pub without describing the pub like Neighbourhood Watch. These types of stories need a lot of descriptions so the reader could at least take a guess at who they think is the villain by using clues that are described. It’s like describing a room; if you miss something out that is really obvious then the reader is going to be a little annoyed with the author missing something really simple.
The main characters in The Speckled Band are Sherlock Holmes who I think uses his head and always tries to put an explanation with an answer; Dr Watson who I think is very sensible because he always carries his gun with him where ever he goes; Dr Roylott who I think is a coward and behaves in a barbaric and violent way when really I think he wishes to be left alone and keep his income; Miss Stoner who I think is very scared and clever to go to Holmes and Watson because of what happened to her sister. The main characters in Neighbourhood Watch are Inspector Morse who is more interested in alcohol and drink than he is in his job; Sergeant Lewis who goes with whatever Morse says and does; Dr Ullman who I think is very clever to think about going to Morse’s home and watching his house while Morse was at Dr Ullman’s; Millie who must have thought of that idea as good because a thief that gets away once gets away twice in most stories.
In the Speckled Band both Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are both friends and partners, equals, no rivalry between them. Inspector Morse and Sergeant Lewis don’t have quite so close a relationship as Holmes and Watson. All they have is a work relationship. They don’t see much of each other out side of working hours. I know this because Holmes says Watson is his ‘intimate friend and associate’. Morse on the other hand works with Lewis as a job whereas Holmes and Watson don’t get paid for doing what they do best, solving crimes.
I think that Sherlock Holmes is very patient in his work and enjoys it because he says ‘the case its self is its own reward’. I don’t think he really has a weakness except for his pipe which he uses when he is thinking about the job in hand. I think that Dr Watson has a keen intellect for working things out and likes nothing more than working out and deducting these crimes with Holmes. I think Dr Watson may be uncomfortable at times which is why he may carry his gun with him but, who wouldn’t. I think Morse is a bit of alcoholic because at the beginning of Neighbourhood Watch it reads ‘He’d only meant to pop into the King’s Arms briefly’ I think he likes opera and he has good observational skills but he isn’t as good as Sherlock Holmes. I think that Lewis is more interested in what happens in the past than in the future ‘there was a case like that a few weeks ago’ and this tells you that he has also got a good memory. I think he is a bit impatient because as soon as someone went into Dr Ullman’s garden he wanted to go after him but I don’t think that he actually has a weakness.
Holmes and Watson talk to each other openly with nothing to fear because they closest of friends but when Holmes is talking to someone else he doesn’t seem to add much to the conversation. Watson talks to people in a manner fit for an interview with the Queen. Morse and Lewis are friends but mainly just at work. The two of them have to be nice and respectable when talking to the people of the public because they may get bad comments from the public. But Lewis also has to talk that way to Morse all the time because Morse is a higher rank than Lewis and it is disrespectful to Morse if Lewis was to talk to Morse with slang.
Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson get on very well when working but when it comes to the deduction Holmes has to virtually spell it out to Dr Watson before he gets it. Morse and Lewis work together well. Lewis must research a lot because he finds out about things that have happened before and sees if there are any links between the two. Morse must organise most of the operations which take place with Lewis and himself because they are more likely to give a surveillance operation to a higher ranked officer than a low rank.
I think Sherlock Holmes is a person who puts his mind to what he is doing because when he is thinking he sits with his pipe in a thick layer of smoke until he thinks it through. I don’t think he regrets anything he does because he hits the snake and it goes back and bites Dr Roylott and kills him but Holmes isn’t bothered about the death. I think Morse is more interested in the drink than what he does during the day because when Holmes does a case he does it at home and work but once work has finished Morse is finished for the day but goes back to it the next day. I think that Morse would like to have a wife or a girlfriend because he saw that women in the pub give him a smile and waited to see if anything else was going to happen. I also think he is a bit gullible to think that woman was interested in him anyway.
I think Holmes and Watson were good at what they did and they did it free at most times because Holmes says ‘my profession is its own reward’. They worked for themselves, for no profit, but to solve cases. But they must have got something for doing the job. Morse and Lewis don’t work because they like to work though, they work to be paid and if that’s what they are good at doing then they do it. They don’t work for themselves though; they work for the police service.
Out of the two detectives I think I like Sherlock Holmes better, maybe because he gets the case done in a different way to Morse. I like they way he sits and thinks about one thing because I know that I couldn’t do it. Also I think Holmes had a lot more time to think these things through because as I said before Morse just does his work as a job not any other time.
I think it is quite obvious from the start who the villain is because he comes to Holmes house demanding answers from Holmes because his step daughter had come to see him. Holmes was warned off and Dr Roylott left after bending the poker. Neighbourhood Watch isn’t that easy to tell who the villain is in the beginning but she is there in the pub opposite Morse and he and Dr Ullman don’t even notice that she is the villain until right near the end.
I think the attitude of Dr Roylott is put on because the description of Dr Roylott is ‘he was so tall ……….. old bird of prey’. This description tells you that he is supposed to be strong and a violent type of man. The description also says that he had a top hat on and his head brushed the top although maybe that could have been the hat. It said he brushed the door side to side as well but he could have been over weight. You don’t even notice that she is the villain in the story because she is described as a beautiful 30 year old woman just sitting doing a crossword puzzle. I didn’t even think it was her. I thought it was Dr Ullman just attention seeking and he wrote the note himself.
We are told that Dr Roylott’s personality isn’t exactly hospitable and he is a bit mad because he lets a wild cheetah and baboon roam around his house with no concern. He also must have been a bit violent otherwise he wouldn’t have killed his butler. We are told about the villain by Dr Ullman. All we know is that she is a copy cat thief and like Morse is very observant because she watches Dr Ullman’s house from the bus stop. She is very good at keeping herself unknown to the victim.
Dr Roylott acts strong and violent because he beats up young women and bends pokers even though Holmes bent it straight back to normal. When he talks he seems to talk in a deep voice which is probably put on as a cover up or to add to his attitude of violence because you don’t see many bulky men with a high pitched voice. Mollie isn’t that easy to point out as a villain because she acts like everybody else. The only crime that Morse could have arrested her for at the beginning of the story was not being interested in him! The reason it is a lot easier to tell who the villain is between these two stories is because in The Speckled Band they say ‘dark shadow of a man’ but Millie seems to blend in easily because there are loads of 30 year old beautiful women.
I think the character of Dr Roylott is very believable because if you spend a certain amount of time in jail then something would go wrong in your head. The other villain Millie is even more believable because it isn’t that easy to tell who the villain is. Millie ties in with the surroundings more easily than most people because a woman with a pen and note pad could have been a bus spotter or even somebody writing a list of what they bought or are going to buy.
I didn’t really have any sympathy for Dr Roylott because in those days it probably would have been execution for murder and Sherlock Holmes didn’t seem to bother either. The other story Neighbourhood Watch was slightly different. It was difficult to tell who the villain was till the last bit of the story and even then I had to think who it was.
Most upper class people in those days had servants with big houses. The servant would do everything for their bosses and have to do their own house work and keep their own homes. Where as the upper class people did very little. Not even Dr Roylott did much for himself as he had a servant. In them days servants would have done everything and anything for virtually nothing. The lifestyles which we have are a lot different from back then. We have to do everything except for important people like the Queen and members of the Royal family. The closest we have to a servant in our homes is a cleaner and they don’t exactly do everything for us.
Sherlock Holmes didn’t like the police. He sometimes believed that he was higher than the police because they were new into Britain and Holmes didn’t really trust them. Sherlock Holmes didn’t like to be ruled by other people because he didn’t bother when bigger and stronger people came to him and threatened him. Maybe that is why he didn’t fear the police. Holmes didn’t even bother to take advice from the police and was quite ignorant when it came to the police. Present day police are a lot better and don’t have to bother with people trying to solve cases for themselves. Today there are a lot of arrangements made. Nowadays lots of questions are asked before they do very much unless you tell them that you did it then he did it. That’s why Morse wouldn’t act like Holmes because Holmes would have ignored everything that the people told him if he thought they were wrong. Morse would have to find out who was lying and why before any information was important. Today it is a lot easier to find out who did it because we have forensic help from the police who find out using DNA and finger prints and so on. Morse could not have done what Holmes did because Morse would have been caught and prosecuted with something.
One difference between these stories is they are in different time periods The Speckled Band was set in the 19th century and Neighbourhood Watch was set in modern day. Transport was a lot different then and nobody would have known about a car because they had dogcarts with horses pulling them. They didn’t just have dogcarts they also had train and a bus type that was like a big box with about room for at least five to six people. One type of transport just never seems to want to leave and that is walking. In those days they would have had to walk virtually everywhere if they couldn’t afford a dogcart.
Also the clothes that they wore then are a lot different. They wore suits and top hats. The women wore big long dress as that would keep them warm because they were head to toe and had a few layers in them. One thing that wasn’t to good for women in the 19th century and during The Speckled Band was that all the good jobs were done by men. Dr Roylott was a doctor and so was Watson but the women were servants, maids doing the simplest of jobs. One thing I bet Holmes didn’t have to do was to write anything down for a type of file system.
The modern day story Neighbourhood Watch has lots of clues when it was set because of words like ‘self hire van’, ‘mini metro’ and things like that woman in the pub by herself. In The Speckled Band that wasn’t allowed. Women weren’t allowed to do very much without their husband or father. The transport has changed a lot since the dogcarts were used though we still have dog carts but they are kept by horse owners. Most of the people today have cars, like in the TV series of Inspector Morse he has a Jaguar. It doesn’t stop there. We even now have planes they might not work all the time but we do have planes. Since Morse’s job is an inspector he has to do everything by the book otherwise its wrong and he could lose his job. Instead of writing all these cases up Morse and Sergeant Lewis have to type them up using a computer. Using a computer is a lot easier to keep than paper when you’ve done loads of cases. Disks are easier to store. At home we have lots of things that they never had in The Speckled Band like TV, Video and CD players. These would have been mysteries to the people then. One thing that has changed is the way women are treated. They can now do what they want when they want as long as it isn’t against the law. This would have changed the event in The Speckled Band because Dr Roylott wouldn’t have had control of Miss Stoners money.
To come to the point, I think that The Speckled Band is the better story of the two because it had the most suspense by using the weather and darkness. I didn’t think that any of the stories were original but I think The Speckled Band was the one with the most gripping line. The part I didn’t like was when they were sitting in the dark room supposed as Morse sitting in a van waiting for anything. I don’t think that a crime like The Speckled Band could take place nowadays because forensic help would easily tell that the first sister was poisoned and that would have started a big case. If you look at the difference in language between the 19th century and 20th century then there is going to be a whole new language by 30th century because words go out of fashion when nobody uses them. Lots of new words are also being made all the time.
