In ‘Wrong Pigeon people were probably just as racist because not that much will have changed in between the writing of the 2 stories, in that manner anyway. The book ‘Wrong Pigeon’ is written in a much more varied and possibly simpler way than ‘The Speckled Band’ because it is written for amuch more varied audience than ‘The Speckled Band ‘ simply because not as many people were educated at the time when Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was writing books and couldn’t read. Harder words are used in ‘The Speckled Band’ than in ‘Wrong Pigion’ for example ‘avert’ and ‘stop’.
Also lots of words used in Sherlock Holmes now have different meanings examples of this are GAY which used to mean happy but now means homosexual and also Holmes describes Dr Watson as his intimate friend.
In Wrong pigion Phillip Marlowes attitude to women is completely different to Sherlock Holmes. Phillip Marlowe agrees that women should be protected; he proves this by only taking Ikky Rossensteins case on because he is concerned about Marlowe having a woman helping him.
Marlowe also however believes that although women should be protected they also can do some things to help and play a role in things. He proves this by letting Anne Riordan help him to spy on the two-mafia agents.
In the Sherlock Holmes story, however the woman is portrayed as a helpless person who needs protecting and has no part to play. Also the way in which Sherlock Holmes would speak to a woman would be completely different in comparison to the way in which Phillip Marlowe Would speak To A woman. For Example Holmes Is Always Polite and courteous and he says things like ‘you must not to fear ‘ we will soon set matters right’ Whereas Marlowe says things like ‘my god’ and ‘damn you’.
Marlowe also seems to be attracted to Anne as well. For example he says to her ‘stop moving your legs around, or else Ill put a pair of slacks on you’ She also seems to be a sexual distraction to him and can stop him from doing his work for example at one point in the story they almost kiss but then they pull apart and he says he’s not good enough for her.
Sherlock Holmes however probably wouldn’t dream of going out with one of his work associates.
Sherlock Holmes doesn’t use strong language at all but Marlowe however uses it all the time for example he says ‘God dam you’ and ‘go to hell’
Holmes obviously lives in a less dangerous time than Phillip Marlowe does because he doesn’t feel the need to carry a gun whereas inadvertently ‘Wrong Pigion’ is based around them as Marlowe is always talking about them right the way through the story.
Marlowe also seems to be a lot more streetwise than Holmes is. He knows a lot of things relevant to the city that he lives in for example back onto the gun subject, in the story when Grimes, a member of the mafia comes up to him the first thing he narrates is ‘he pulled out a Colt- Woodsman with a short silencer on it’
Anne Riordan also seems to be quite streetwise. You get the impression that if Helen Stoner was mugged she wouldn’t know what to do but Anne probably would give as good as she got.
On the other hand Holmes knows more about selected things that he finds useful for the sort of cases he takes on like chemistry, anatomy and he seems also to be adept in psychology as well because he always seems to know what the criminal in all of his stories is thinking and he can anticipate their every move.
Phillip Marlowe seems to just find out about the case as he is going along and at the end of the story he is tricked by Ikky anyway. That wouldn’t happen to Holmes as I think that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tried to portray Holmes as a kind of 19th century Super Man and I doubt that Holmes is ever double crossed in any of his stories.
Holmes appears to be quite a well off person as he lives in a nice flat/apartment in the centre of London and he has a maid. He seems to be quite a clever well-educated person. One clever way of making Holmes look good that the author uses is putting Holmes with somebody who is supposed to be a doctor and obviously quite a clever person. Holmes makes doctor Watson look very incompetent in comparison to himself.
Although Marlowe is very streetwise and is able to look after himself the author doesn’t portray him as a particularly bright spark.
Holmes seems to be well off enough to pick and choose which cases he picks up and only ever picks up the ones which he finds interesting whereas Marlowe isn’t well off and he has to take any cases that come his way. If Marlowe had been better off money wise, you get the impression that he wouldn’t have taken on Ikkys case because from the start he obviously didn’t like him.
Back when ‘the Speckled Band ‘ was written there probably weren’t phones because if there had been Helen Stoner probably would have just rung Sherlock instead of travelling all the way to see him. Holmes seems to really care about the people involved in his cases whereas you get the impression that Marlowe doesn’t care if Ikky lives or dies as long as he gets his money.
Marlowe works in a crummy office in a crummy part of town. In the story, it mentions that there are a lot of private detectives in the city and this just proves that the city is very rough. You could imagine that if he had enough money Marlowe would leave the city.
In ‘Wrong Pigion’ sarcasm is used quite a lot for example Anne Riordan says ‘oh sure I meet killers every day, I invite them in for Whiskey sours and caviar on hot toast’
Sarcasm isn’t used in Sherlock Holmes very much because its not really part of his character, also in those days I think that the phrase they would have used is ‘sarcasm is the lowest form of wit and Holmes is quite a witty character so Arthur Conan Doyle wouldn’t want to make Holmes look bad.
Holmes is either a very conceited character or very realistic about his abilities.
Neither Holmes nor Marlowe seems to get on very well with the police. Both seem to try as hard as they can to avoid them. You get the impression that Holmes thinks they are a load of duffers. When I think of Marlowe and his relationship with the police what springs to mind is that possibly in the past he may have done something or been arrested for a crime he hasn’t committed because he doesn’t seem to trust them very much. The fact that he has a friend in the force may help him to get insider information and good hints for some of his cases.
In my opinion, there aren’t really any links between the two stories. There is completely different historical backgrounds, the characters are completely different and lets face it one story is about a crime ridden city in America and the other is a clever story set in England with a good twist in the end.
I think that ‘The Spackled Band ‘ was better. I thought it had a good ending and a good plot. I didn’t really like ‘Wrong Pigion’ I didn’t really like the end of the story and it went over my head a bit. Also I didn’t really like the American slang as I found it a bit hard to understand.
