How does Conan Doyle create suspense and tension in the Sherlock Holmes stories?

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Saimah Sarwar 11Y                                                                                                                                         20/11/09

How does Conan Doyle create suspense and tension in the Sherlock Holmes stories?

Suspense is to create a state of excitement or anxious uncertainty about what may happen. This brings the audience more into the story and makes them want to continue reading. Crime fiction stories have and need suspense to draw in the readers and make the story much more interesting. This is what Conan Doyle is most noted for: his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, which are generally considered a major innovation in the field of crime fiction.

Born in Edinburgh, Scotland, on 22nd May 1859, Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle graduated with a degree in medicine from Edinburgh University in 1881. Dr. Joseph Bell was one of his professors who was an expert in diagnosing disease using careful observation. Bell showed Doyle how to create deductions about patients by observing them closely. People suspect Bell to be one of the models for Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes first appeared in 1887 in ‘A Study in Scarlet’. The Sherlock Holmes stories became very popular and famous. The Stand Magazine published the short stories in 1890 bit by bit, and this made the public want to read them more as the suspense made them buy the magazine again and again so they could find out what happened next.

I will be explaining how Doyle uses tension and suspense in the Sherlock Holmes stories and how this makes the audience continue reading. In addition, I will also be describing the methods that Doyle uses. Furthermore, I will be comparing and contrasting the following stories: ‘Silver Blaze’, ‘The Red-Headed League’ and ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’.

The introductions of all three stories differ, yet they all pull the reader into the story and make them continue reading. The beginning of ‘Silver Blaze’ is speech; ‘I am afraid, Watson that I shall have to go,’ this raises many questions in the reader’s head such as, why is he going? where? how long for? and so on. The sudden statement is followed with quick, sharp questions and answers; ‘Go! Where to?’ and ‘To Dartmoor – to King’s Pyland.’ These are sentences that utter surprise and intrigue the reader to ask even more questions. So the reader feels they must keep on reading.

Instead of starting with speech, ‘The Red-Headed League’ starts with a description of a ‘very stout, florid-faced, elderly gentleman with fiery red hair.’ This creates an image in the reader’s mind and they wonder why Holmes is ‘in deep conversation’ with such a man. Also, it is rather odd that Watson would mention the colour of the man’s hair, perhaps the reader thinks it has something to do with the story and so reads on.

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‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ starts off extremely different to the other two stories. ‘To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman.’ This story does not start with speech such as in ‘Silver Blaze’, or with a description like ‘The Red-Headed League’. No, this story starts with Watson informing us about something, Holmes’s feelings and his relationship with this woman. The reader is intrigued as to why Holmes refers to her as ‘the woman’, why ‘the’ is written in italics and why Watson is mentioning her to us. Also we want to know this woman’s name, which when the reader reads on ...

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