Dramatic Stories by Conan Doyle

The folllowing sample essay on English Coursework discusses it in detail, offering basic facts and pros and cons associated with it. To read the essay’s introduction, body and conclusion, scroll down.

In “The Speckled Band” Conan Doyle introduces Helen Stoner, the victim, and she is wearing a thick black veil over her face. This makes her look quite dark and mysterious. In “The Red Headed League”, the victim is also introduced at the beginning of the story. The victim, Jabez Wilson is quite a poor person unlike Helen Stoner who is quite rich.

You can tell he is poor because he says he owns a small “pawnbroker’s business”. However “The Blue Carbuncle” is quite different. The victim gets introduced later on. First, Sherlock Holmes has a hat and a goose which were found by Peterson the commissionaire. These belong to the victim.

Sherlock Holmes English

Holmes deduces all he can from these two objects. Conan Doyle does this to intrigue the reader and to show the reader how clever Sherlock Holmes is, that he can tell how a man looks like and how clever he is, just from looking at a hat.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uses a lot of weird and mysterious clues in his stories. His intended effect was to try and lead the reader astray. Also to let the readers try and solve the clues and figure the mystery out themselves, but of course he doesn’t make it easy. The main reason Conan Doyle uses clues is to build tension.

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The story with the strangest clues was “The Speckled Band”.

When Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson go to Stoke Moran to analyse the bedrooms, Sherlock Holmes finds a vent that leads into another room, a bell pull that doesn’t work and a bed that’s clamped to the ground. The clues that Conan Doyle used here would confuse any reader whether they were clever or not. Conan Doyle often used flashbacks in his stories to give the history of his characters. At the beginning of the story “The Speckled Band” Helen Stoner gives a flashback about family. Also in “The Blue Carbuncle” Sherlock Holmes gives a flashback about Henry Baker, from what he deduced from his hat.

The writer effect is to give the reader a detailed history of his main character. The endings Conan Doyle creates for his stories are quite dramatic in different ways. “The Speckled Band” ended with danger, “The Red Headed League” ended with punishment and “The Blue Carbuncle” ended with justice. In “The Speckled Band”, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson both spend a night at Stoke Moran they get into a lot of danger. Watson didn’t really know the danger they were in because he didn’t fear what Holmes feared. At the end when Holmes and Watson go into Dr. Roylott’s bedroom Holmes says, “The band!

the speckled band! “, “It is a swamp adder! “, “the deadliest snake in India. ” This is when the reader finds out about the danger they were in, especially after the snake had killed Dr. Roylott. At the end of “The Read Headed League” Sherlock Holmes had captured the criminal, John Clay. “Well, would you please, sir, march upstairs, where we can get a cab to carry your Highness to the police-station? ” This quote shows that the criminal was punished, most probably imprisonment. In “The Blue Carbuncle” after Sherlock Holmes had made the criminal, James Ryder confess to all that he had done.

Using his deductive reasoning, he let him go free or in other words put him to justice. Sherlock Holmes did this because he knew that James Ryder wouldn’t commit another crime again. All of Conan Doyle’s stories follow most of the ten “Knox’s rules” written by Monsignor Ronald A. Knox in 1929. Each story introduces the criminal early, but in a way that reader wouldn’t know that it was the criminal. None of the stories have anything supernatural or preternatural. No undiscovered poisons are used, or anything which will need a long scientific explanation at the end. In all the stories, the mystery was solved by Sherlock Holmes himself.

He did not get any help and he did not solve anything with the help of coincidence or an accident. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did break one of the rules, rule number 9. “The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader. ” Watson, in these stories is a doctor. It takes quite a lot of hard work to become a doctor, no one that has the intelligence below the average reader can become one. “Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours?

” This shows that Watson is quite a successful doctor and he has his own practice. “I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing. ” Most of the language used in the three stories “The Speckled Band”, “The Red Headed League” and “The Blue Carbuncle” is old fashioned. That is because these stories were written in the 1880’s and 1890’s. Nowadays language is much different than of how it was in the 1880’s and 1890’s. In the three stories, the old fashioned word that was used the most was “pray”. Pray was another way of saying please. You can tell that the language is old fashioned by looking at the dialogue.

“It is to him that this trophy belongs. ” “It is his hat. ” “No, no, he found it. Its owner is unknown. I beg that you will look upon it not as a battered billycock but as an intellectual problem… ” The old fashioned language is quite efficient for detective stories; I think that if they were written with today’s language, the stories wouldn’t be as good. All of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s descriptions are quite detailed; he uses a lot of similes. In “The Speckled Band” one simile is, “Then suddenly another sound became audible — a very gentle, soothing sound, like that of a small jet of steam escaping continually from a kettle.

” The writer is comparing the sound of the whistle to the sound of a kettle letting out steam. Here is one simile from “The Red Headed League”, “with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose, and there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out like the bill of some strange bird. ” Here the writer is comparing Sherlock Holmes to a bird. A simile from “The Blue Carbuncle is, “Holmes unlocked his strong-box and held up the blue carbuncle, which shone out like a star… “. Here the writer is comparing the diamond to a star. The writers intended effect is to give the reader a detailed description of what is going on.

Sherlock Holmes was a character based on a man named Dr. Bell who was a professor of medicine at Edinburgh. Sherlock Holmes is a very calm and precise gentleman. He is not the type of man that just wants to get rich. Detection is his hobby; he does it to help people and to bring criminals to justice. Sherlock Holmes is a man that cannot be provoked easily; we can see this by taking a look at “The Speckled Band”. When Dr. Grimesby Roylott charges in and starts threatening Sherlock Holmes, he doesn’t really care. He acts as if nothing is happening, which shows that he is very good at controlling his temper.

While Dr. Roylott is calling him names, he just sits there and smiles. You are Holmes, the meddler. ” My friend smiled. “Holmes, the busybody! ” His smile broadened. “Holmes, the Scotland Yard Jack-in-office! ” Holmes chuckled heartily. “Your conversation is most entertaining,” said he. “When you go out close the door, for there is a decided draught. ” Sherlock Holmes’s power of deduction is very amazing indeed. If we look at “The Blue Carbuncle” Sherlock Holmes deducts what a man looks like, how clever he is and that his wife doesn’t love him that much by just looking at his hat, which is quite remarkable.

Watson is the narrator of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Everything in the stories is told from Watson’s point of view. Watson and Holmes are very dear friends and Holmes is always relying on Watson. This shows that Watson is a very reliable person. “Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the City first, and we can have some lunch on the way. ” This shows that Sherlock Holmes is always relying on Watson to travel with him and he always asks him to carry his gun. “Do not go asleep; your very life may depend upon it. Have your pistol ready in case we should need it.

” Watson is a doctor, we can tell this straight away because in the story he is called Dr. Watson. And also Sherlock Holmes talks about his patients. “Watson? Could your patients spare you for a few hours? ” After reading and analysing the three Sherlock Holmes stories “The Speckled Band”, “The Red Headed League” and “The Blue Carbuncle”, I think I have learned a lot about detective writing in the 1880’s and 1890’s. I really liked reading about Sherlock Holmes; I think it is very clever how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created him with his unique abilities.

I especially like Sherlock Holmes’s deducting abilities. I now no why detective writing was so popular at the end of the nineteenth century. The mysteries that Conan Doyle created were very interesting, especially the mystery of “The Speckled Band”. I thought this because in the speckled band story Conan Doyle created a lot of tension which keeps building up, this made me want to read on in a faster way to find out what happened. This is how it affected me as the reader. Out of the three stories I prefer “The Speckled Band”.

This is because the story is much more interesting and intriguing than the other two. I like the clues that Conan Doyle created, which were really very puzzling at first. Once I got to the end of the story I understood the whole thing. The other two stories were interesting, but not as much as “The Speckled Band”.Ali Mohsen 10N 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.