What do the Sherlock Holmes stories tell us about Victorian Britain?
Victorian Britain - Prose Study Coursework
What do the Sherlock Holmes stories tell us about Victorian Britain?
The essay will examine how much the Sherlock Holmes stories can tell us about Victorian times. It will provide an overview of what Victorian Britain was like, as depicted by three Sherlock Holmes stories: The Cardboard Box, The Man with the Twisted Lip and The Speckled Beard. They were written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was so popular and well respected for the writing of these books he was knighted for it. These stories were written during the 1880s to the early 1900s during Queen Victoria's reign.
The Sherlock Holmes stories fall under the detective genre which means there will be a mysterious crime, a charismatic investigator, the process of deduction and the revealing of the culprit and the motive behind it.
The Victorians respected their class very highly and thought that whatever class you were born into was the class you should stay in. The vast majority of people lived in extreme poverty - around 70% of people were working class, 20% middle class and a mere 10% upper class. The Sherlock Homes stories appealed to a lot of people, but particularly those in the higher class, because they often depicted upper class people where something had gone wrong or they had committed a crime and not lived up to the expectations of their class. This gave a secret element of thrill to those in higher society.
The Man with the Twisted Lip would appeal to the Victorians as it delineated a higher class person who had another life as a professional beggar. This quote "Isa Whitney, brother of the late Elias Whitney, D.D., principal of the theological college of St. George's was much addicted to opium." This tells us that although he was high class and well respected by his peers he was an opium addict, so he had a darker side to him, which appealed, because many Victorians behind their high class had a craving for the gothic. This identified that the story is about a higher class person who falls into disrepute and as it was mainly upper class people that read the books, like the other Holmes stories, we can assume that the Victorian upper class preferred to read about their own class.
The Speckled Band is about an upper class family that have lost most of their money. This would appeal to the readers because its an upper class family that is on the brink of becoming a lower class.
The Cardboard Box has a family of middle class women (3 sisters), granted middle class status, because their father was a general in the army. Two of the sisters loved a sailor called Jim Browner, one of whom married him. The third sister thought it was absolutely preposterous that they, a well respected middle class family, should have anything at all to do with a lower class sailor. One particular passage showed some of Jim Browner's lower class qualities of being a vicious drunk "the last six months that she was here she would speak of nothing but his drinking and his ways." This indicates that the people of Victorian Britain liked reading about this sort of thing, the mixing of two different classes because it should not be done and was a bit mischievous.
In Victorian times there was a lot of poverty and crime about, with over 70% of all people in this time living in extreme poverty. In cities there were ghettos in which disease and crime were rampant. Victorian towns and cities were dangerous and full of beggars. With this there came a strong feeling of "us and them" between the classes, although all the other classes either frowned upon, hated or pitied the poor.
In The Man with the Twisted Lip, there is a lot of poverty and crime depicted within it " 'There is a trap ...
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In Victorian times there was a lot of poverty and crime about, with over 70% of all people in this time living in extreme poverty. In cities there were ghettos in which disease and crime were rampant. Victorian towns and cities were dangerous and full of beggars. With this there came a strong feeling of "us and them" between the classes, although all the other classes either frowned upon, hated or pitied the poor.
In The Man with the Twisted Lip, there is a lot of poverty and crime depicted within it " 'There is a trap door... which could tell a few tales of what has passed through it upon moonless nights' 'what! You do not mean bodies?' 'Aye, Watson, bodies' ". This highlights that in Victorian Britain there was a lot of crime and murders, many of which went unnoticed by the police, largely because they were murders of the poor and were not to be bothered with. The other two stories do not depict as much poverty or say that much about the everyday crimes of that of Victorian London, other than focussing on the main crime the story is based on. Although in The Speckled Band, the step father to the two sisters was once very wealthy but had squandered away all his money that had been left to him by his ancestors, he once worked in India and in a fit of rage "he beat his native butler to death, and narrowly escaped a capitol sentence".
The British Empire covered 20% of the earth's surface, which made it the biggest empire in the world and along with it made Britain the richest country in the world. The people of Britain in this time often referred to the British Empire as Pax Britannica, Latin for British peace. In doing so they thought that by taking over other poorer countries and bringing peace to their inhabitants, they were comparing themselves to the ancient Romans and their mighty empire which they called Pax Romana.
The Victorians started to believe in muscular Christianity and the white man's burden; this means that they thought that it was their duty to take over poorer, less civilised countries and spread the great ways of Christianity to the inhabitants of the places we conquered. This though was just an excuse to go to other countries and steal their goods to make Britain wealthier. With this there came the attitude that they were better than and superior to other races and foreigners especially non-white races. We can see this is the case in The Man with the Twisted Lip where it depicts a foreigner working in an opium den "a sallow Malay attendant had hurried up with a pipe for me and a supply of the drug". This is typical of the Victorians stereotypical attitude towards foreigners; they always put them in roles as bad or low lives. "the rascally lascar who runs it has sworn to have vengeance on me". A lascar is an east Indian sailor and this lascar owns the opium den and also commits numerous numbers of other crimes, including murder, as we can see by the quote above. This reinforces what I said earlier as Conan Doyle cast a foreigner to run the opium den and not an English man, with the lascar committing murders like a low life.
The Sherlock Holmes character informs us a lot about Victorian Britain as he was described as an infallible person, perfect in every way. The popularity of the Holmes books shows us that the Victorians valued virtuous people, whereas modern day society tend to prefer characters that are more human and have flaws. Holmes somehow manages to solve the crimes using the smallest and simplest of clues that the majority of other people would miss, by using his amazingly intellectual brain. There is an example of this in The Speckled Band, how Holmes manages to solve the whole crime from a dog lead and a saucer of milk, this also links in with suspension of disbelief. Holmes is also descried as physically very strong and we can establish this from The Speckled Band "he picked up the steel poker, and with a sudden effort straightened it out again". This is Holmes bending a steel poker which would necessitate an immense amount of strength. Another thing which makes Holmes seem more than human is that he appears to read minds by studying people's facial expressions. We see this take place in The Cardboard Box "leaning back in my chair, I fell into a brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts 'you are quite right Watson' ", this is Holmes agreeing with what Watson had said to himself in his mind, although it would have been almost impossible to know exactly what he was thinking about at that moment of time. Along with all his other amazing qualities Holmes is also the master of disguises, as it portrays in The Man with the Twisted Lip "the old man at my side, very thin, very wrinkled, bent with age... his form had filled out, his wrinkles were gone, the dull eyes had regained their fire, and there sitting by the fire, and grinning at my surprise was none other than Sherlock Holmes." All these different depictions shows us that not only could Holmes work out a case with barely any clues, or that he is incredibly strong without even looking it, or the fact that he can read peoples minds, but that he is also the master of disguises. Collectively, these points go on to prove how Victorians liked characters, because to them he was their idealistic person of who they wanted to be - he was perfect in every way.
Victorian Britain, although supposed to be a very 'proper' country, contained a very gothic element about it. The people loved the architecture of it, with grand ornate styles and spires and gargoyles as common features. The gothic style of writing was also popular then as it contained a lot of death; the style was powerful and dark, whereby black and darkness in books nearly always represented gothic elements. This is as true of the Sherlock Holmes stories as it is with some of the other famous stories of the time, such as 'Dracula' and 'Frankenstein', both written in the Victorian era and quite often depicting gothic writing. Seen here in The Man with the Twisted Lip "a lady, clad in some dark-coloured stuff, with a black veil, entered the room" shows us that people also dressed in a gothic manner then. The Speckled Band also has many gothic references in it: "it was a wild night. The window was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the windows." This sets a gothic scene to when the woman gets killed, so the death and gothic style weather are being associated together here as is quite often done in films and books. "But what in the name of the devil!" the devil is associated with gothic so they are also bringing a more demonic aspect into it. In The Cardboard Box we see more uses of gothic writing as the last two pages in the story are about death "I struck again, and she lay stretched beside him. I was like a wild beast then that had tasted blood." Blood is also commonly used with death which then links in with the gothic theme.
In Victorian times people were more susceptible to being lied to and were a lot more gullible, which is probably why they could believe a lot of the writing more. This is because the Victorians suspension of disbelief was far greater than any of ours today. The Sherlock Holmes mysteries were perfect for their time, but the Holmes character was also reflective of perfection, whereas in today's society we generally prefer our characters to have more flaws, to make them seem more human, although Sherlock Holmes classically still appeals to many. The Cardboard Box describes Sherlock Holmes not only as a very good detective but also as an ear expert, which today we would not believe as very few people could be this clever or perfect, but then the Victorians liked it to be like that and they would believe it, "each ear is as a rule quite distinctive, and differs from all other ones. In last year's anthropological journal you will find two short monographs from my pen upon the subject. I had therefore examined the ears in the box with the eyes of an expert, and had carefully noted their anatomical peculiarities. Imagine my surprise then, when, on looking at Miss Cushion, I perceived that her ear corresponded exactly with the female ear which I had just inspected." This illustrates Sherlock Holmes talking about his knowledge of ears, such intelligence of which is highly unlikely if he is also admitted as being a very good detective. In The Man with the Twisted Lip, Holmes has somehow managed to figure out that the dirty beggar, Boone, was in fact the well respected, upper class Neville St Clair "Holmes stooped the water jug, moistened his sponge, and then rubbed it twice vigorously across and down the prisoner's face. 'Let me introduce you' he shouted, 'to Mr Neville St Clair, of Lee, in the county of Kent.' "
Somehow even though it has deluded every other detective and policemen working on this crime, Holmes had managed to figure it out when no one else could. This again is highly unbelievable that he could have figured it out as he had an insufficient amount of clues. But what is even more unbelievable is from The Speckled Band, where all the clues Holmes had was a dog lead, a bowl of milk and a whistling sound. Somehow he managed to figure out that from this a snake was ordered by the whistling sounds and fed on the milk, and was controlled using the dog lead, and that the snake went up through a fake vent into the next the bedroom and climbed down a fake bell pull to bite the victim and then ordered back by the whistle and tempted back into a safe by the saucer of milk. It is unlikely that anyone, even Sherlock Holmes, should have been able to figure that out with the clues he had. "Finally he took the bell rope in his hand and gave it a brisk tug. 'Why it's a dummy,' said he. 'Wont it ring?' 'No it's not even attached to a wire. This is very interesting you can see now that it is fastened to a hook just above where the ventilator is.' " No one else had realised that the bell rope did not work, no one had even realised it wasn't hooked up to a wire but one quick look around the room by Holmes and was enough to see that it was not and he also noticed that there was a fake ventilator when he didn't even know where it led to. All these things show us that many people of Victorian Britain were a lot more susceptible to unbelievable things whereas today we tend to prefer things to be more realistic and more huma. We prefer a character to be flawed, whereas Victorians preferred their characters to be perfect, e.g. Sherlock Holmes.
So, in conclusion the Sherlock Holmes stories can tell us a lot about Victorian Britain. We can identify that it was a place where class was everything, and that you should stay in the class you were born into. The upper class citizens were the people that mainly read these books and they appeared to like the seedier side of things, as they thought it was a true aspect of what really happened, which they preferred not to accept, but if it was in a book it was acceptable. The British people thought that they were better than every other ethnic group and saw it as being okay to discriminate against them and be racist whereas today we would not accept it and it is a crime. There was a lot more common crime in those times as well, which came up a lot in the stories as each was based around a crime, with even the higher class people committing crimes like going to opium dens among other things. Poverty as well was a lot more rampant in the Victorian times as no one seemed to be bothered about the poor, as it was part of their everyday life to be or to see a lot of poverty in the streets. The stories also told us about the Victorians' love of all things gothic, the architecture, dark clothes and writing; gothic writing contained a lot of murder, ghosts, evilness and darkness. They were also depicted as being a lot more gullible than we are today and would believe almost anything that they were told in stories and were not bothered if it did not seem real. We can see this from Holmes perfect character and how he did not even have one flaw. To summarise, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories combine many elements which give us a very good representation of Victorian life.
Ross Bowman
