Difference between revisions of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"

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Latest revision as of 09:01, 15 March 2021

The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes book

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a series of twelve short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. It was first published on 14 October 1892 and had been published in twelve monthly issues of The Strand Magazine from July 1891 to June 1892.[1] The characters that always show up in the stories are Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, his assistant. The stories are narrated in the first-person narrative from Watson's point of view.

Stories

All of the stories in the Adventure of Sherlock Holmes are narrated from the point of view of Dr. Watson.[2] Holmes is portrayed as offering a fresh and fair approach in an unjust world of "official incompetence and aristocratic privilege".[3]

Controversy

The Adventure of the Three Gables

In this story, Holmes meets a man called Steve Dixie, a former slave. Conan Doyle refers to Steve Dixie, who is a black man, as negro. As well as Holmes mentioning that he does not like the smell of him.

“The door had flown open and a huge negro had burst into the room. He would have been a comic figure if he had not been terrific[…]

I won’t ask you to sit down, for I don’t like the smell of you, but aren’t you Steve Dixie, the bruiser?”

“That’s my name, Masser Holmes, and you’ll get put through it for sure if you give me any lip.”

“It is certainly the last thing you need,” said Holmes, staring at our visitor’s hideous mouth.”

The Yellow Face

The Adventure of The Yellow Face. Illustration by Sidney Paget

In this story, a man keeps seeing a creepy, yellow, expressionless face in the neighbor’s house. He thinks it probably is a ghost and suspects his wife to have something to do with it. Turns out the wife has been married before and had a child by her first husband, a child she couldn’t leave behind when she moved from America to England.[4] The first husband of this woman was a black man. Hence the child that is watching the man with a creepy, yellow, expressionless face in the neighbor's house is a black child wearing a mask. Citing from the original book Sherlock Holmes for Christmas: The Christmas Special (Including All Other Sherlock Holmes Adventures):

"It was a cosy, well-furnished apartment, with two candles burning upon the table and two upon the mantelpiece. In the corner, stooping over a desk, there sat what appeared to be a little girl. Her face was turned away as we entered, but we could see that she was dressed in a red frock, and that she had long white gloves on. As she whisked round to us, I gave a cry of surprise and horror." "The face which she turned towards us was of the strangest livid tint, and the features were absolutely devoid of any expression. An instant later the mystery was explained. Holmes, with a laugh, passed his hand behind the child’s ear, a mask peeled off from her countenance, and there was a little coal-black negress, with all her white teeth flashing in amusement at our amazed faces. I burst out laughing, out of sympathy with her merriment; but Grant Munro stood staring, with his hand clutching his throat."[5]

References

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Sherlock_Holmes
  2. Caplan, Richard M. (1982). "The circumstances of the missing biographer or why Watson didn't narrate these four Sherlock Holmes stories". Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. 6 (6): 1112–1114. doi:10.1016/S0190-9622(82)70095-7. PMID 7047594.
  3. Dudley Edwards, Owen (2013) [2004]. "Doyle, Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan (1859–1930)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/32887.
  4. https://africasacountry.com/2014/03/whitehistorymonth-sherlock-holmes-a-racist
  5. Doyle, Arthur Conan. Sherlock Holmes for Christmas: The Christmas Special (Including All Other Sherlock Holmes Adventures)