Working on both cases he proves that he has plenty of brains as well as brawn in how he manages to deduce large amounts of information from the smallest of clues. In “The Man with the Twisted Lip” he deduces a lot of important details from a letter that Mrs St. Clair receives. “This man has written the name and there has then been a pause before he wrote the address, which can only mean that he was not familiar with it.” He discovers all this just by looking at the colour of the ink and this shows that he is also quite observant. He is again incredibly observant in “The Speckled Band” when he spots spatters of mud on Helen Stoner’s coat, “There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left hand side of the driver.” This shows that he spots the smallest of details and then ties them together to come to a conclusion. It also proves he thinks logically and has a good general knowledge as well to know how a dog-cart throws up mud.
Another characteristic of Holmes that would have been important in a Victorian gentleman is how he protects truth and morality. In “The Man with the Twisted Lip” he tries to help Neville St. Clair because he sees that he hasn’t actually done anything wrong so it would be immoral to punish him. He also protects truth all the time because it is his job to uncover the truth when he solves his cases. However, in “The Speckled Band” he shows that he tells the truth even when it is not in his best interests, “In this way I am no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr. Grimesby Roylott’s death.” This is a very risky thing to admit and it proves that he is very honest. Closely linked to this is the fact that Sherlock Holmes is always very reliable. He gives all of his attention to a case until he has solved it and in “The Man with the Twisted Lip” he sits up all night focusing on the case until he thinks he has solved it and then immediately leaves to prove his theory.
Holmes also tries his best to make society safe from villainy, and often puts himself in harms way to do it, which would have been seen as a very gentlemanly thing to do. In “The Speckled Band” he sends the snake back to kill Dr. Roylott so that he can’t kill anyone else and is no longer a danger to Miss Stoner. Although this may have been seen as quite immoral to kill the doctor, he was doing it to try to save someone else.
I think the Victorians would have thought quite highly of Sherlock Holmes because he has most of the characteristics of an ideal gentleman of the time and I think they would have admired how he tried to protect others and to discover the truth.
Sherlock Holmes treats the criminals in the two stories very differently. Once he has revealed Hugh Boone to be Neville St. Clair he first asks him why he did it and then tries to reassure Mr. St. Clair and to help him avoid any problems that might ruin his reputation. “If you convince the police authorities that there is no possible case against you, I do not know that there is any reason that the details should find their way into the papers.” I think Holmes acts like this and chooses not to push for Neville St. Clair to be punished because he sees that he wasn’t really doing anything wrong and he wasn’t endangering anyone; he just wanted to make some money so he could live the life of a gentleman and give his family a good life as well. I think this is why he helps Mr. St. Clair out and just asks that he stops begging and is truthful with his wife.
However, Sherlock Holmes treats Dr. Roylott with a completely different attitude. He did not show him much respect and mocked him a bit when they first met, “Your conversation is most entertaining…when you go out close the door, for there is a decided draught.” Here he was being quite openly sarcastic and I think he is trying to bring Dr. Roylott down a peg or two and show him that he isn’t scared of him. I think he sees that the doctor is a very selfish and violent man and this is why he treats him that way. I think the reason he decides to send the snake back to kill Dr. Roylott is because he can see that he is a villainous man and he is a threat to people.
After he has killed Dr. Roylott he says, “I cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon my conscience.” I think this shows that he believed that he was doing the right thing in killing Dr. Roylott because he thought that after what he had done and how he had treated his Stepdaughters he deserved to die. This shows that he is a good judge of character because he could see that Mr. St. Clair was a good man where as Dr. Roylott was a villain. I think in Holmes’ view he had made the right morale decision in killing Dr. Roylott because he was protecting others, however I feel that some Victorians would have seen it as being immoral because he was being just as bad as the doctor and a gentleman wouldn’t kill someone.
In “The Man with the Twisted Lip” the character of Neville St Clair is described as quite a wealthy man with a wife and children. It is also said that he is, “a man who is popular with all who know him.” This suggests he is very polite and friendly towards others. All these things are the characteristics of an ideal gentleman in Victorian times. He also doesn’t have a specific job, but it does say he is, “interested in several companies,” this, and the fact that he has a very large house out in the country, both suggest that Neville St. Clair is a wealthy man who leads a respectable life. For these reasons I think the Victorians would have thought highly of Mr. St. Clair because he was a very good example of a Victorian gentleman.
On the other hand, Hugh Boone is the complete opposite. He is very ugly and is described with, “a pale face disfigured by a horrible scar, which, by its contraction, has turned up the outer edge of his upper lip.” This disgusting appearance added with the fact he is poor and works as a beggar would have meant that the Victorians would have looked down on him. He was a cripple, was unemployed and had no family and lacked pretty much all of the characteristics of the ideal gentleman, except for the fact he was quite witty, so he obviously had a reasonable degree of intelligence. The Victorian people might not have thought he was a bad person because they took pity on him, as we know from the fact that he earned a considerable amount of money begging. However, once they heard about his crime I think they would have viewed him as low-life scum and would have had no respect for him. In regards to giving Neville St. Clair a second chance and a fresh start after posing as Hugh Boone, I think they would have approved of it because it was the morale way to treat him, although they would probably have looked down on Neville St. Clair after what he did because he was tricking people into giving him their money when he was perfectly wealthy, so they wouldn’t have respected him as much.
In “The Speckled Band” Dr. Roylott has a large house, is a qualified doctor and has a considerable wealth to his name and the Victorians would have thought highly of him for this. He was also born into a very respected and wealthy family, so he was basically a gentleman at birth; however, the characteristics he exhibits in the story are not those of a gentleman at all. When he comes to Sherlock Holmes’ house he is impolite, bad tempered and impatient, “I will go when I have had my say. Don’t you dare meddle with my affairs.” Here he is demanding Holmes to do things and is very aggressive, as he bends the poker after this and threatens Holmes. He is also aggressive to his stepdaughters, “You have been cruelly used.” Holmes says this after he discovers the injury Dr. Roylott inflicted upon Helen Stoner’s wrist. I think the Victorians would have disagreed with this behaviour and seen it as cowardly. He is also very controlling over his stepdaughters, but the Victorians would have overlooked this because, at the time, a father always decided what was best for his daughters. The Victorians would have also disapproved of him letting his house go into disrepair and allowing the gypsies to live on the grounds because a gentleman would have been expected to take care of his property.
Dr. Roylott is completely different to Holmes as he shows no respect to others and is inconsiderate, where as Holmes is always polite and caring to others just like a gentleman should be. Dr. Roylott kills one of his stepdaughters and then attempts to kill the other using a poisonous snake; he commits these murders in order to keep all of the inheritance from his late wife (who is also his two stepdaughters’ mother) to himself. Sherlock Holmes, however, sends the poisonous snake back to Dr. Roylott so it bites and kills him instead. I think Victorians would have been disgusted with how Dr. Roylott murdered his stepdaughter out of greed and they would have lost all respect for him because he acted so immorally. However, I think they would have also disagreed with Holmes killing him, because they would have thought it was immoral as it made Holmes just as bad as the doctor.
Another thing the stories reveal is that the ideal qualities of a Victorian woman differed greatly to those of a gentleman. A Victorian woman should have been polite just like a gentleman, but they were also meant to obey the men in their lives e.g. husband or father. They were responsible for looking after things around the house like cooking and cleaning whilst the husband handled all the important business. They relied on men and any money they made would go to their husband if they had one. Most of the women in the stories matched these qualities of the ideal women. In “The Man with the Twisted Lip” Dr. Watson’s wife is described as, “laying her needlework down in her lap.” This gives her appearance of a perfect housewife just like the ideal Victorian woman was expected to be.
The stories also show that women expressed themselves through appearance very often. In “The Speckled Band” Helen Stoner shows that she is upset and mourning her sister’s death through what she wears, “dressed in black and heavily veil.” This shows that fashion was very important to Victorians and it gave clues to their feelings as well as their wealth. Helen Stoner’s physical appearance is also given in detail, “her face all drawn and grey, with restless, frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal.” This shows that Miss Stoner is very afraid and distraught and the likeness to a hunted animal emphasizes how helpless she appears.
An important feature of women in Victorian times was their lack of independence. This is showcased quite a lot in the stories; firstly when Helen Stoner speaks of her lack of money, “At present it is out of my power to reward you for your services.” This is because Dr. Roylott will be in charge of all the money and she relies on him to survive, which is also why she probably still lives with him because otherwise she wouldn’t be able to look after herself until she is married. Another example of this lack of independence in women is in “The Man with the Twisted Lip” when Kate Whitney requests Dr. Watson to find her husband in the opium den, “How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place, and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him.” This shows quite obviously that women would rely on men to help them do a lot of things and the way Kate Whitney is described as a “young and timid woman” makes her seem incredibly helpless. Another thing in the stories that shows that Victorian women lacked independence is that the people that request Sherlock Holmes’ services as a detective are both women and they both appear very distressed and unable to sort out the problem themselves so they rely on him, a man.
In Victorian times there was a quite obvious male dominance over women and this is shown in the stories as well. In “The Speckled Band” Dr. Roylott bullies and controls Helen Stoner to do what he wants her to. We see this male dominance in both stories through that fact that all of the powerful and important figures that are mentioned are men e.g. the policeman, the criminals and Sherlock Holmes himself. Both stories show that women were second class to men in Victorian times and their role was simply to act as housewives and assist men, while men took care of the important business. They showed that women relied on men for nearly everything and they were made out to be weak and incapable of supporting themselves at all.
In both stories we learn a lot about Victorian Britain and what was happening there at the time. There is evidence of Britain’s colonisation of other countries around the globe and the influence this had on Britain in The Speckled Band when Miss Stoner talks about how Dr. Roylott worked as a doctor in India for a long period of time and how he imported exotic animal across like the cheetah, the baboon and obviously the snake. This suggests that it was common for wealthy British people to import exotic goods to England from other countries in the British empire and even to go out and work in those countries.
In The Man with the Twisted Lip we learn that, in Victorian times, police forces had been established and constables were walking around the towns trying to quell the criminal activity that took place. However, the inspectors were not able to solve the case and Sherlock Holmes pointed out a few flaws in how they operated (not arresting Hugh Boone straight away for example) which suggests they were not incredibly effective at the time.
One thing about Victorian times that is highlighted in the stories very strongly is the huge difference in wealth and social standing between the rich and the poor in Britain; especially in The Man with the Twisted Lip. In the story we see a very large contrast between the large country house of Neville St. Clair who is considerably well off, and the opium den on Upper Swandam Lane where Hugh Boone was supposed to have stayed. Neville St. Clair’s house is a lot better looking and is looked after a lot more than Upper Swandam Lane. The house is really big with plenty of rooms, so it obviously cost a lot of money. They also have a stable boy which shows they could afford horses. Upper Swandam Lane, however, is really dirty and cramped and the furniture in the opium den is described as being, “like the forecastle of an emigrant ship,” which makes it seem really plain and basic where as the furniture in Neville St. Clair’s house is all very posh and luxurious, with double beds and loads of cushions to make everything really comfortable. This shows that there was a very large financial divide between the rich and the poor and this divide was certainly a lot bigger than it is today.
In conclusion, I think that both stories give a very good insight into what life was like in Victorian Britain and they show the stereotypical positions of both men and women during this time. They also show the reader how important the class system and pride and respect were to Victorians, especially to men who are seen to strive to be a perfect gentleman. However, I think the purpose of these stories was to show how Victorian people judged each other based on appearance and wealth and how they could often misjudge people based on those characteristics. The Speckled Band shows how Dr. Roylott, who was quite wealthy and born a gentleman was actually a greedy villain and The Man with the Twisted Lip shows how a lowly beggar that everyone looked down upon was also a wealthy gentleman that everyone respected and all he had done was change his appearance. So I think that both stories show that appearances can be deceiving and you shouldn’t judge someone purely by their wealth or looks and I think this would have been difficult for the Victorians to comprehend because the stories show how wrapped up they were in being the ideal gentleman or lady.