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Sherlock Holmes Values

521 Words3 Pages

Just as present day, the Victorian era possessed values, mores, and beliefs according to the norms of society. The collection of stories, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes, the motion picture directed by Guy Ritchie, exemplify the values, mores, and beliefs of Victorian era London. These works embody cultural differences in character and plot separating 21st Century America and London in 1892. The main character in the collection of stories and film, Sherlock Holmes, differs greatly between each work. In The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Holmes possesses various Victorian character values and morals. Holmes establishes himself as an extremely polite gentleman, which is common for this time period. In The Speckled Band, he warmly greets Helen Stoner and is pleased to offer her a …show more content…

Typical Victorian literature kept the reader’s awareness of the crime equivalent of the characters in the stories. In The Read-Headed League, Holmes asks Jabez Wilson to discuss himself, his knowledge, and the effect the advertise had on him (Doyle 24). Viewers have become very impatient in 21st Century America and expect a spur of action right out of the gates. This is presented in the film within the opening minute as Blackwood partakes in criminal activity (Ritchie 0:1.00). The audience witnesses the crime take place prior to Holmes’s discovery of the incident. Present-day society has become to accustom in the viewing of on-screen death. Guy Ritchie exhibits not only death, but the execution of Blackwood via hanging (Ritchie 0:27.31). In contrast to 21st Century America, the Victorian era literature did not inform the reader with the details of death only that death occurred. In The Speckled Band, the young woman is pronounced dead without a merciless description of how she died (Doyle

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