Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

ENGLISH LITERATURE SINCE ROMANTICISM SPRING 2024

 Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

• Doctor by training
• Sherlock Holmes is modeled on Doyle’s
teacher, Joseph Bell.
• The Strand Magazine
• Kills off Sherlock to focus on historical
fiction
• But his historical fiction never catches
the public’s imagination.
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is
well received by the critics and by Bell.
2
 “The Speckled Band”

• Thriller
• Locked room mystery
• Conan Doyle’s favorite story
• Fans rate this story as Conan
Doyle’s best story
• Edgar Allan Poe’s influence

3
 Characters in “The Speckled Band”

Sherlock Their client: Julia: Helen’s Dr. Roylott:

Holmes Helen dead sister Helen’s and
Dr. Watson Julia’s
stepfather

4
Dr. John Watson’s Roles

No.
1 Narrator

No.
2 Companion and
helper

No.
3 Foil

5
“In glancing over my notes of the seventy odd
cases in which I have during the last eight
years studied the methods of my friend
Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some
comic, a large number merely strange, but
none commonplace…”

6
Sherlock’s Methods

Observation: details and

omissions

Deduction and inference

Confirmation of
hypothesis

7
 Themes

Violence and
Greed
oppression

Reasoning and
The Gothic
science

8
 Gothic Elements

• An abbey, castle, or ruined estate

• Connections with the dark past
• A murder in the dark
the supernatural can be explained scientifically
• Signs of death
• Groans or shrieks
• A Male villain who is often supposed to be the female character’s
guardian or protector
• Uncanny physical resemblance of evil
• Oppressed heroines
• Supernatural powers, ghosts

9
Conan Doyle’s twist

No.
1 The supernatural can be
explained scientifically.

Science will overcome

No.
2 fear and the apparently
supernatural.
Happy ending: the villain
No.
3 is punished. The heroine
becomes the sole heir of
the estate.

10
 Homework

Introduction to
Modernism in volume 3
of Norton Anthology (pp.
3-30)

Next week: Quiz 2 covers

weeks 3-5

11