Although it is clearly a product of its time, The Speckled Band holds :: Free Essay Writer

Although it is clearly a product of its time, The Speckled Band holds the interest of a modern audience and s a fine example. â€Å"Although it is clearly a product of its time, The Speckled Band holds the interest of a modern audience and s a fine example of the detective story genre.† Do you agree with this comment on Conan Doyle’s story? The Speckled Band has a Victorian context and in the Victorian times stories had different aspects, which they found appealing, but as a modern audience we are attracted to other aspects of stories. Because of these different appeals we know that The Speckled Band is a product of its time. The Speckled Band keeps the modern reader guessing the solution to the crime. This is very entertaining for the reader as they must try to find the answer before Sherlock Holmes does. Sherlock Holmes is characterised as an almost super human person with amazing powers of deduction this makes us admire him. Watson (Holmes’s accomplice) is a key character as he is someone who we relate to as he goes on the same journey as us. The speech in the speckled band is in a formal tone, â€Å"my name is Sherlock Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate Dr Watson† this is different to our modern stories as we like to show less restrained emotions, so some readers may find the tone boring. The sentences spoken are long and complicated in structure they have an exaggerated style, â€Å"I observe that you are shivering†. We see again that The Speckled Band is a product of its time as there is a lot of old fashioned language, like â€Å"sorry to knock you up† and â€Å"haggard†. One of the popular appeals in Victorian times was melodrama and there is lots of this in the story. The helplessness of Helen Stoner and the fact that she needs Holmes to â€Å"advise [her] how to walk amid the dangers which encompass [her]†would appeal to the Victorians a lot as in those times women were considered the more vulnerable sex, but a modern audience may find this over the top because it is over exaggerated to us. The modern audience may find it even more overdramatic that Helen Stoner needs Sherlock to â€Å"throw a little light through the dense darkness which surrounds [her]† the modern audience sees this melodrama as too forced and false. But Victorians loved it as in their times men were considered as strong, brave and the ones who would stand up for women. This also shows that The Speckled Band was a product of its time.