Sherlock Holmes stories. How has Conan Doyle made the stories engaging for the reader?

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By Rachel Peter                                                             English                                                          Mrs. Pearson

How has Conan Doyle made the stories engaging for the reader?

The Sherlock Holmes stories were first published in strand magazines in the year 1891. The author Conan Doyle, was inspired by other writers including R.L Stevenson, who wrote adventure stories, and Edgar Allen Poe who wrote horror and crime stories. He was also influenced by real events, such as the Jack the Ripper case which was happening at the time.  Many people at that time thought it was nosy and disrespectful to read real life stories about dead people, so these fictional stories made them feel less guilty. The fictional stories also calm the public because many real life cases weren’t solved but the Sherlock Holmes cases always were. This gave people hope and made them less scared.

Conan Doyle engages his readers by portraying life in Victorian England in an engaging way. In the ‘man with the twisted lip’ the reader is introduced to opium dens. Opium was a legal drug at the time of the Victorians. They used to go the little dens underground which women were deprived of using: ‘There were bodies lying in strange fantastic poses, with bowed shoulders and bent knees.’ Dr Watson said ‘Isa Whitney made good of an opium den in the farthest part of the east of the city.’ This showed that Watson morally disapproves of these drugs. The fact that they smoked in the east is that they don’t want to smoke I an respectable area so the have opium’s ‘farthest part of the east of the city.’

Colonialism was portrayed in ‘The Speckled Band’ as Dr Roylott set up a medical practice in India. Another thing about Victorian times was the difference in authority and rights, and how the white upper class could easily get away with murder. An example of that was colonialism; in the story Dr Roylett killed his native butler who was Indian. However Dr Roylett was English and people like him were seen as powerful. So when he killed his butler he could easily get away with the capital punishment. However if he was an Indian he would have got a death sentence. This is because in the Indian culture who ever murders shall be repaid by being sentenced to death.                                                                       Britain was as patriarchal society where the men were dominant and the bread-winners, and governed their own families by paternal right. An example is of Dr Roylott, his wife died, and she had left a lot of money. However the money had to go to his daughters when they marry. That is when the complications happen as Dr Roylott did not want to give the money away.

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Arthur Conan Doyle indulges and engages his readers into his books, Doyle’s talent was seen as he was describing his characters in an interesting way, e.g. ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’. Holmes was disguised as an old man and he was very thin. ‘Also much wrinkled bent with age, and an opium pipe dangling between his knees’. He went to the opium bar where people drink and smoke cocaine, he thinks that the dens are dark gloomy and socially unpleasant place to be. This is shown of the sentence; ‘approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to ...

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