Sherlock Holmes Research Paper

One of the most, if not the most, famous detectives of all time is Sherlock Holmes. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel A Study in Scarlet, the reader gets a first impression of Holmes and his approach to solving a certain case. Although he is peculiar, there is no doubt that anyone in the 19th century could pick up clues and solve the mystery, especially since science and deduction was not widely acknowledged by people . To reach success in his cases, Holmes spends countless hours reading and studying subjects relevant to his work and practicing the art of observation, which is an art itself. At this time, most people thought a genius would be someone in the performing arts area, such as theatre. In A Study in Scarlet, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Furthermore, Holmes’s level of expertise required time and dedication, which helps achieve his murder case. In order to solve this murder, Sherlock Holmes uses deductive reasoning and observation, which work better than the methods that the professional detectives use. The other detectives can not look at “RACHE” and deduce that it was the murderer or know it was the German word for revenge. The story takes place in late nineteenth century London, which was a period of splendid isolation, so she was not involved in international affairs. It would seem unusual for the characters to know a language such as German, and the story does not mention of any character knowing German. Nevertheless, Holmes somehow is familiar with the language and concludes it meant revenge. Doyle lived in this period and yet chose a foreign word for Sherlock Holmes to

James Krasner argues that Doyle purposely wrote the story in a way that a single character would grab the attention of the reader and “By limiting the plot to a single number, he makes it necessary to emphasize exposition, the emergence of the tale, much more than other serials" (Krasner). Doyle perhaps wanted the readers to focus on how Holmes would study every small detail and make big conclusions, such as the cigar being a Trichinopoly because of the nature of the ask or the way RACHE was written vs. the fact it was German for revenge. When Watson initially read about deductive reasoning in the papers he was baffled and could not believe in such nonsense; this may be symbolism of people’s attitude toward deductive reasoning and science during this period. In this particular short story, Watson does more so observe Holmes and ask various questions, ranging from how an eccentric man could possibly have any sense to details of the investigation. Eventually after seeing how effective Holmes was at solving the mystery, Watson opens up and encourages Holmes to publish his case. This was most likely what Doyle wanted the outcome to be; he wanted people to recognize that science can lead to astounding