What Is It About The Character Of Sherlock Holmes That A Victorian Readership Found So Engaging? How Do You Account For The Enduring Appeal Of The Baker Street Detective?

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What Is It About The Character Of Sherlock Holmes That A Victorian Readership Found So Engaging? How Do You Account For The Enduring Appeal Of The Baker Street Detective?

        In this essay I will explain why the Victorians found Arthur Conan Doyles’ Sherlock Holmes character quite so compelling and why the stories are still so popular today. Victorians will have found Sherlock Holmes’ very interesting because he was an upper class educate4d gentleman and this was the sort of person who was very well respected in Victorian times, and they would also have loved how he solved all his crimes, because there police force were so unreliable.

        The stories are still so popular today because we modern readers enjoy the thrill of a mystery and the tension of a case, which Conan Doyle creates. In the rest of the essay I will analyse the structure of the stories, the social aspects of the stories and the character of Holmes himself. I will use examples and quotes from the stories “The Man With The Twisted Lip,” “The Speckled Band,” “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” “The Red-Headed League” and “The Noble Bachelor.”

        In the 19th Century the Victorians views on many things were different. This includes the police force. Many Victorians thought the police were lazy, useless fools, which for the most part, was true. The police in the 19th Century hardly ever solved the crimes that were committed in Victorian England and therefore the Victorian people felt very insecure about what might happen to themselves, especially as Jack The Ripper was around at that time, murdering people as he pleased. The Victorian police also did some stupid things when investigating mysteries, such as photographing the eyes of the deceased in the hope that when the photo was developed the murderer would be reflected in the dead persons’ eyes! This of course, is nonsensical. Another stupid thing the police did, while trying to catch Jack The Ripper, was that when on one occasion he left a message for the police in the victims blood, it was washed away under the chief officer’s orders because it was inappropriate, before anyone had a chance to analyse it! Also to try and catch Jack The Ripper, the police dressed male boxer’s up as prostitutes in the hope that Jack The Ripper would try to kill them, but that the boxer would beat him up and Jack The Ripper would be caught. However, this is clearly stupid, as male boxers look very unlike female prostitutes, and also in those days they would not have been able to disguise them as well as we today can, so this was an idea which was not ever going to work, but the police believed it would and would also never admit to being wrong.

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        In this section I will analyse the structure of Arthur Conan Doyles’ Sherlock Holmes stories. Nearly all of the stories follow loosely the same general structure. They start with Watson looking through the casebook and focusing on one particular story, usually the most “fantastic” or “amazing,” such as “The Speckled Band.” He then begins to retell the story. After this the ‘vulnerable’ female usually enters, such as Kate Whitney in “The Man With The Twisted Lip.” This is when Holmes usually first becomes involved and instantly impresses the client by saying something amazing yet simple, e.g. in “The Speckled Band” ...

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