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 a black gap like the mouth of a cave.’ Also ‘I found the latch and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy of an emigrant ship’. This is strange for the readers as they do not expect a detective that solves mysteries and problems to admit that he also smoke cocaine. Further the author gave Holmes a personality that surprises readers. He says ‘I suppose … that you imagine that I have been addicted opium smoking and to cocaine injections’. This shows that he has a dual personality. He is two sided, smoking cocaine then solving a mystery which is eccentric.
Conan Doyle uses contrast in ‘The Red Headed league’ to represent Holmes, it states and ‘extreme languor to devouring energy.’ This suggests that one minute Sherlock was tired and lazy, the next he was bursting with energy. Conan Doyle is also good at using sexual imagery. Where it states ‘lust of the chase’, that would suddenly come upon him, this shows that he is passionate about his job and loves it the way a man loves a woman. He also uses effective animal imagery, ‘Hunt down’ describes him as a vicious as a predator hunting down its prey.
Conan Doyle describes settings in an interesting way. In ‘The Red Headed League’ he uses exaggeration when he says ‘every man who has a shade of red in their hair into the city answered the advertisement.’ He also uses good personification e.g. ‘fleet street was choked.’ This is good because the reader knows that Fleet Street is not human because only humans choke when there is too much food consumed so suffocating. However ‘fleet Street’ choked means it was crowded up with people and hardly any space. This is a good way too keeps the readers engaged and thinking. Color imagery to gives a better image of the scene e.g. Irish setter, brick, liver, clay. So it is not just saying red or blue bricks however adding metaphors. So it is making the reader imagine the colors it their head on what it looks like. Conan Doyle also uses a range of similes e.g. ‘court looked like a casters orange barrow it gives the reader a picture on how many red headed people, its crowded this showed how the court may have looked like.
Furthermore he describes the settings of his stories in a way that interest the readers. In the speckled band, as Conan Doyle uses pathetic fallacy. Pathetic fallacy is when nature reflects the mood, like; the wind was howling, rain was beating splashing against the window. This is a bit like personification which gives an impression that the weather is horrible, reflecting the awful tragedy that is occurring in the house. The weather represented the mood and atmosphere of the scene in the story. The house was described as, ‘the building was of grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central potion and two curving wings, like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side, in one of these the windows were broken and blocked with wooden boards, while the roof was partially caved in, a picture of ruin.’ The poor state of the house represents the deterioration and poor mental health of Dr Roylett.
The stories are all structured in a similar way. In Sherlock Holmes stories is usually detective work it usually follows as.
A client introduces the case to the detectives. In "The Speckled Band" there are two victims, one already dead, the other, Miss Helen Stoner, fearing for her life. When we first see Miss Helen Stoner in the story, she is dressed in black and heavily veiled. We can tell that she is terrified straight away when she talks. The first thing she says is "It is not cold which makes me shiver", "said the woman in a low voice". "It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror". The impact on the reader for this shows exactly how she was feeling, and how scared she was because she believes that she is going to die like her sister that died two years before. She believes that her sister was either frightened to death or killed by gypsies, because when this woman Helen found her sister the last words that she said were: “Helen! Oh my God, Helen! It was the band! The speckled band!”
Next the detective analyses the client to demonstrate their detective skill. This was shown when he observed a train ticket in Mrs. Helen right glove. He also worked out that she took a cart before reaching the station because her jacket was muddy. He worked that one out because he said ‘ there is no vehicle save a dog cart which throws mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left hand side of the driver’. This gave Helen stoner a shock as to the series of accurate information. This shows that Sherlock was a bit of a show off demonstrating his extraordinary skills. Being as clever as that is essential for a successful detective.
After that the detective visits the crime scene. At night Sherlock went to Dr Roylotte’s house. He gave the woman set instruction to lock herself in her room so the detectives would sleep in her sisters’ room for the night. So Sherlock wanted to investigate why there is a constant whistle during the night. Holmes investigated the whole house and he build up a plan to catch the murderer. Holmes had found out that there was an air-vent that was inside the house between the sister’s room and the stepfathers. Holmes now was in the room that Helen was supposed to be in and suddenly the light was lit in the stepfather’s room, and then Sherlock jumped and hit the bell robe under the air-vent which revealed a snake.
The detective thinks about the case and identifies a culprit. That was when tried to work out why Dr Roylott would keep a cheetah and a baboon and soon he cleverly found out Dr Roylott wanted it for protection and to keep anyone away from his home.
Next the culprit is caught after being persuaded. In the story Holmes ran to the other room and there was the stepfather dead and with a speckled band on him. It was no band it was an Indian snake that the Dr Roylott used to kill Helens sister and was going to kill Helen with.
Finally, the detective unravels the plot and announces how and why the culprit committed the crime. In this case Holmes has come to a conclusion that before he had entered Roylott’s room. An inspection of his chair showed the detectives that he had been in the habit of standing on it, which of course would be necessary in order that Dr Roylott should reach the ventilator. The metallic clang heard by Miss Stoner was caused by her stepfather hastily closing the door of his safe upon its terrible occupant. Holmes also heard the creature hiss he lit the light and attacked it. That resulted in him driving it through the ventilator. So therefore the snake became irritated and attacked the first person it saw which has been Dr Roylott.
Conan Doyle structures his stories this way it builds up suspense. Deliberately making readers feel unsure or anxious about what will happen next. He does this by creating mysterious settings, use of strange characters like Dr Roylott and his snake. Also providing hints incase people have difficulty understanding or unraveling the story, this makes us want to read on but does not give away the story until the end.
Conan Doyle structures his stories this way because it builds up suspense. It makes the reader want to read on, and also playing along makes the reader unraveling the problem and try working it out, however if the writer said the problem in the beginning it would not be very interesting and the suspense won’t be there. The introduction of Watson is brilliant. Mostly he is presented as a sympathetic character. He is more affectionate, less practical and more romantic than Holmes. For example in chapter 2"The man with the twisted lip" when he thinks of his wife, forks that were in grief came to my wife like birds..."
The purpose of Sherlock holes stories is to differentiate the class division during the Victorian times. For example the different ways and roles men and women, whites and natives were treated from each other. The mystery is not given to the audience directly for example the reader is told that Dr Roylott has a cheetah and a baboon, however they are never told that he had a snake. That is effective as it wants to make the reader read on as Conan does not just give the answers away. Also to inform the audience of the different social issues that occurred in the era. Further it shows us the police force in early stages that the police don’t often solve the crimes it was mostly done by the detective. There were no forensics back then so the detectives had to work on instinct and deduction to work it out. They subjected themselves to risks that would not be allowed bin age of health and safety. The man with the twisted lip is also seemingly different its stories show negative, but amusing side of its detective work. Reading along the audience’s immorality is questioned.
In conclusion Conan Doyle has succeeded in making the Sherlock Holmes truly marvelous and adventurous stories full of suspense. It gives total awareness to the audience, making them know things that they never knew before. Sherlock’s books draw people attention by making it mysterious which requires a lot of reasoning before reading on.