How does Arthur Conan Doyle make the story The Adventure of the Speckled Band a classic mystery story?
The Adventure of the Speckled Band was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle an author who has written many other short stories. Like in many other short stories this specific one is also featuring Sherlock Holmes whose character is a detective. He is presented smoking a pipe, using a magnifying glass but mainly using logic to help him solve many mysteries. Sherlock Holmes isnt just a fiction character detective but also an example of people to show how things can be so obvious, but if you do not look you will not see. The Adventure of the Speckled Band shows this as Sherlock Holmes identifies many clues which others failed to come across, for example the fake bell rope and other items in the womans room.
This short story is about a woman called Helen Stoner who visits Sherlock Holmes seeking help as she feels in danger and states it is fear, Mr Holmes. It is terror. As she is explaining her reasons for help we find out a little more about Helen Stoner. She is terrified as she had a twin sister who died two years previously, and as the killer is still unknown her fear is that they will strike again. This story is in the mystery genre. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote this short story he used a variety of techniques to help build tension and suspense. He includes things such as physical evidence, misleading and delayed information, red herrings etc.
The author wrote The Adventure of the Speckled Band in first person narrative including Sherlock Holmes. However Sherlock Holmes is the main character but his right hand man Dr Watson is the narrator in this story, so it is from his perspective. As it is from his perspective and Dr Watson is unaware of Sherlock Holmes ideas this helps the readers understand the story. It also adds to the mystery as if this story was written in Sherlock Holmes perspective the reader would know all of his ideas which would make the story lack mystery and suspense.
Conan Doyle says A lady dressed in black and heavily veiled this tells the reader that Helen Stoner is a classic victim of crime and that the story was going to involve a death. This would be portrayed to the reader as in the Victorian days when people were dressed in black shown that they were mourning over close family or friends passing away, this similar to today as people still wear black clothing to attend funerals today in the 21st century. Conan Doyle clearly shows the womans fear by using a device, simile like those of a hunted animal. This makes her fear obvious as comparing it to a hunted animal shows how extremely scared and possibly desperate to stay alive. This creates an image of a frightened woman which begins to reveal what the story is about. The word pitiable has been used to show that Watson, the narrator of this story is beginning to feel sorry for this woman. She is in a terrible state and is described as looking weary and haggard as she probably cannot sleep due to the fear and anxious feelings. Helen Stoner does not even feel safe in her own home unless in her room with the doors locked as she is aware there is a Baboon and Cheetah running about, as so we learn Dr Roylott has an interest in exotic animals. Further into the story Sherlock Holmes says You have been cruelly used this is suggesting that Helen and her stepfathers relationship isnt quite as it should be and implies he perhaps abused her and generally mistreated her. This helps build up suspense throughout the story.
In The Adventure of the Speckled Band Conan Doyle expresses that males are shown as the stronger gender and have the most authority. This was in no way meant to offend, but this gender discrimination was normal then as it was just the way Britain worked in that era Conan Doyle lived in. this idea of men been more powerful is shown when Helen Stoner explains about her mothers death. This is because Miss Stoner tells Sherlock she inherited money from her mother, however she will only receive this if she marries and until then her stepfather Dr Roylott has the power and authority over this because of his gender. The relationship between Dr Roylott and the twins is clearly not a good or healthy one as shown throughout this story he clearly does not care about them and is a potential suspect for the death of Helens sister.
Conan Doyle presents Dr Roylotts character as an arch villain, he does this by using a variety of techniques throughout the text. He uses techniques such as powerful adjectives, metaphors and imagery. For example he makes Dr Roylott look like a typical bad guy by describing him as ugly and evil. A large face, seared with a thousands wrinkles, burned yellow with the sun, and marked with every evil passion. In my opinion this is an obvious hint to why he is a suspected murderer. Also to help build up the image of Dr Roylott, Doyle uses various quotes from other characters which shows their thoughts and feelings about him. This also gives the reader more understanding and more of am image. He beat his native butler to death and narrowly escaped a capital sentence this quote is very effective at creating a mystery. This is another reason he could of potentially murdered Helen Stoners sister, as this proves he is capable of murder. Dr Roylott threatens Sherlock Holmes by saying I am a dangerous man to fall foul off!, after demanding Holmes to tell him what Helen had previously told him. The author made Dr Roylott sound a convincing suspect here, also the fact that he seemed anxious and intimidated by Helen talking to the detective added to this suspicion, as if he had nothing to hide he wouldnt have insisted on knowing what Helen had said.
The Adventure of the Speckled Band is set in a large, remote house based in the countryside. This makes this story a classic mystery as there are no other houses surrounding which means that if anything happened within that household nobody else would ever know. Adding to this story been a mystery is the description of the house, Old ancestral house in Stoke Moran as in many other mystery stories old houses are common crime scenes. Dr Roylott owns a few acres of bramble covered land on the family estate he owns which he allows gypsies to camp on. This wasnt a problem to him, however at the time of this story gypsies scared off many people as they were known as vagabonds. The gypsies are Red-herrings which is how they play another role in this story. Conan Doyle uses the gypsies to deflect the attention of the audience to this that the gypsies could also be potential suspects. Throughout this story we found out that the gypsies wore spotted handkerchiefs around their necks. When Julia Stoner said it was the speckled band this could possibly be what she was referring to. This would make the audience suspicious of the gypsies activities, which again helps build tension in the story. Sherlock Holmes later tells us that one of his suspects is the band of gypsies, this is another part of the story which increases suspense as the readers want to find out if his theory is correct or not. Earlier in the story Helen mentions that the killers are A Speckled Band so the use of the word band helps create mystery as the readers wonder if the gypsies are the killers or not. The night the murder took place the author used pathetic fallacy as he described the as It was a wild night. The wind was howling outside, and the rain was beating and splashing against the windows. Similarly in other classic mystery stories detrimental things usually happened when the weather was bad, and when it was less likely that people were about. He uses pathetic fallacy as the weather reflects on the atmosphere in the house when Julia Stoner was murdered.
Many clues and red herrings have been planted throughout this story by Arthur Conan Doyle which has been detected and unscrambled to help solve this mystery by Sherlock Holmes. Various clues Sherlock Holmes found was not seen by many others. When he visits Helens home he first finds a fake bell placed above the bed and a ventilator which does not ventilate in the girls bedrooms. These seem highly suspicious. After more research has been carried out he gathers more details and writes down every little detail from the big objects to the tiny cracks in the floorboards.
At the time this story was written many people thought to believe that serpents were devils of Satan. And after Sherlock puts all the information together he solves the mystery which adds to the surprise, as everyone is shocked to find out the killer is a snake. The difference in this story compared to others is that the murder weapon is a swamp adder which is a snake; this isnt really a classic murder weapon. However if the audience have read other stories with Sherlock Holmes they would have been expecting a strange and different ending as in the mystery genre they are always a little different.
The Adventure of the Speckled Band is written with the language from the Victorian period but is English. Conan Doyle uses standard punctuation and various sentence forms; he did this to help create suspense and tension in this text. However it is different to mystery stories which are written nowadays in the 21st century as the language style changes over the years.
I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle composed this mystery story The Adventure of the Speckled Band because it includes many elements which any other mystery text would include. Conan Doyle created a good mystery story due to the effective elements and various techniques he included throughout. Conan Doyle used these to help create tension and suspense, which made the reader want to keep reading to find out the result of who committed the murder. The red herrings used throughout also helped keep the reader in groused as they had various suspects in their mind of who committed the murder. This general story and how the murder was solved would have pleased many people from a Victorian audience.
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