The Sherlock Holmes Essay Example for Free

The Sherlock Holmes Essay The other story being The Red Headed League where Holmes and Watson were on the hunt for finding the mysterious Duncan Ross, who had formed the Red-Headed League, who disappeared a few weeks after Jabez Wilson had spent his days there writing encyclopaedias, in the end turning out that Ross was digging a tunnel from Wilsons shop and , disguised as John Clay , broke into the bank but was caught by Holmes Sherlock Holmes had sprung out and seized the intruder by the collar Its no use John Clay, said Holmes blandly; you have no chance at all. I think the Detective Fiction writers use themes like deceit or greed because it connects to everybody in the worlds life because we all lie to our friends or family, or we can relate to greed because we all use it one time or another in life. To sum up the themes that you can notice in Conan Doyles stories can be classed as nothing above what we all see and know in the Detective Genre, and Conan Doyle doesnt use the themes to make Sherlock Holmes stand out from what we read today but instead uses it to connect to the roots of detective fiction. In the Detective Genre the characters are one of the most important things, if the character is unique and stands out so will the story. But if all the characters in one story has the same attitude, intelligence or even the way they speak, the story would lose interest to the reader because their would probably be no motive for anything to happen in the story. In the stories Conan Doyle wrote the characters were always original in personality and features, and how he uses them tends to differ in the way he uses them than other detective stories, for example the villain is used differently in every story a lot more ways than any other writer does. An example of this is Dr. Roylott from The Speckled Band being a large, rough man thats almost obnoxious and talks like See that you keep yourself out of my grip. Also with a close opposite to Holmes attitude, as in this quote You are Holmes the meddler. My friend smiled. Holmes the busybody. His smile broadened. Holmes the Scotland Yard jack-in-office. From this we can tell that Holmes mocks Roylott for his opposite and aggressive behaviour. Another quote that shows Roylotts rage is He stepped swiftly forward, seized the poker, and bent it into a curve with his huge hands. This shows that Dr. Roylott results to his anger and strength to sort problems. From this we can also see the difference between his aggressive natures to Professor Moriartys more mature and relaxed nature in the way he was described in The Final Problem. I think the characteristics in the Detective Genre is vital to the plot and how it unfolds, and in the case of Sherlock Holmes and the way that the villains separate from the clients or the way the clients behave in different ways to each other, these are the way that Conan Doyle created that makes Sherlock Holmes unique and the reason why his stories are so popular today. In the Detective Genre the narrative is always important, and the best always depends on where the narrative comes from. For the story to be surprising and for the reader to keep interest, you need the narrative to come from a character in the story with a roughly close intelligence to the average reader, otherwise if the narrating character was too stupid it would be impossible to get to get the plot of the story, however if the narrator was too clever, then their ideas would be explained to us and cause confusion with the plot or spoil the end all together. Thats why in Sherlock Holmes, Watson is the perfect host for a narration because for most for the time he is with Holmes and the action, but since he is as smart as the average reader, and he doesnt give the plot away and leaves our minds and imagination to figure it out for our selves. However not all narratives have to come from a persons point-of-view, but in His Last Bow the narrative wasnt from a person but instead had a free roam of the whole scene between Von Bark and a disguised Sherlock Holmes, which I thought was a better effect than the others because unlike a story in the Detective Genre, we didnt get any clues and because we werent listening to Watsons thoughts we was able to see Holmes skills when he is in disguise. It is common for the detective to speak intelligently and have the brains to match in Detective Fiction, and is also common in this genre for the detective to pay attention to tiny detail, an example of this is when Holmes observes Helen Stoner in The Speckled Band when he says No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove which, as any other detective, he uses in his conclusion of her journey here. You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you arrived at the station. From this you can tell the overall intelligence Conan Doyle had whist writing his stories and the mind he had progressed onto Holmes and the stories really show how wise he is, and this, in most ways this makes him stand out even more than the other theories I have that separate him from the Detective Genre. In conclusion to the paragraphs, the Sherlock Holmes stories to typify the Detective Genre, but it is the fact that Conan Doyle had a mind far greater than the other detective writers, he dared to go beyond than any other detective writer did and disobey the commandments of a Detective Genre story, because of this the Sherlock Holmes novels were made more powerful whether due to the descriptive settings, the original but far fetched characters, even its completely powerful narrative, they all are the reasons why the stories Conan Doyle wrote are classed far beyond the average story in any genre and placed in the worlds most loved novels of all times. To what extent do the Sherlock Holmes stories youve studied typify the genre of Detective Fiction? 1 By Matthew Lomax Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Arthur Conan Doyle section.