Arthur Conan Doyle
A Study in Scarlet
A story by the great English writer Arthur Conan Doyle, which was published in 1887. It is in this work that the reader first gets acquainted with the great detective Sherlock Holmes and his faithful assistant Dr. Watson.
Plot:
Who is the killer? What is the cause of the mysterious death?
Dr. Watson talks about his army service. During the Afghan war he was severely wounded in the arm and had to return to civilian life in London.
Here he faces a financial problem: he has nowhere to live. Salvation comes to him in the form of an old friend, Stamford, who introduces him to the enigmatic Sherlock Holmes, just looking for a companion to rent an apartment.
He settles with Sherlock in an apartment on Baker Street, in the building №221 B. This is where the adventure begins.
Here he faces a financial problem: he has nowhere to live. Salvation comes to him in the form of an old friend, Stamford, who introduces him to the enigmatic Sherlock Holmes, just looking for a companion to rent an apartment.
He settles with Sherlock in an apartment on Baker Street, in the building №221 B. This is where the adventure begins.
A letter is brought to their houses, in which police detective Tobias Gregson asks Holmes for help. Dr. Watson has no idea that he deals with the greatest detective of all times. He is sure that Holmes is a chemist.
The two of them arrive at the scene of a mysterious crime. In the dead man's pockets they find two letters testifying that he and his secretary Joseph Stangerson were about to sail from Liverpool to New York; they also find a woman's wedding ring at the scene of the crime, and the inscription RACHE (German for «revenge») in blood on the wall next to the body. However, no signs of violent death were found on the corpse. Sherlock, however, is convinced otherwise.
The two of them arrive at the scene of a mysterious crime. In the dead man's pockets they find two letters testifying that he and his secretary Joseph Stangerson were about to sail from Liverpool to New York; they also find a woman's wedding ring at the scene of the crime, and the inscription RACHE (German for «revenge») in blood on the wall next to the body. However, no signs of violent death were found on the corpse. Sherlock, however, is convinced otherwise.
Topic & issues:
1. Revenge
2. Unhappy love
3. Deductive and abductive reasoning
4. The dangers of organized religion
5. Is one man's life worth the lives of others?
Characters:
1. Sherlock Holmes
2. Dr. Watson
3. Policemen Lestrade and Gregson
4. Jefferson Hope, the murderer
Peculiarities of text composition & genre features:
At the beginning of his work « A Study in Scarlet» Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uses a vivid description of the measured life of the two main characters (Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson), which abruptly changes to the investigation of a mysterious murder.
For narration, Arthur Conan Doyle uses simple sentences or non-unionized sentences. This gives the actions dynamism. Also this technique is necessary to recreate the thought process of the detective: he instantly analyzes what he has seen, quickly recreates the picture of what happened. Thus, for us, Sherlock Holmes seems even more brilliant.
This text can be divided compositionally into two parts: description and narration.
In the first part we only get acquainted with the main character, get to know his character, his appearance and his attitude to the world.
In the second part, the plot develops much more rapidly. The greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes, falls into a series of fascinating adventures in the course of investigating a murder.
At the beginning of his work « A Study in Scarlet» Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uses a vivid description of the measured life of the two main characters (Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson), which abruptly changes to the investigation of a mysterious murder.
For narration, Arthur Conan Doyle uses simple sentences or non-unionized sentences. This gives the actions dynamism. Also this technique is necessary to recreate the thought process of the detective: he instantly analyzes what he has seen, quickly recreates the picture of what happened. Thus, for us, Sherlock Holmes seems even more brilliant.
This text can be divided compositionally into two parts: description and narration.
In the first part we only get acquainted with the main character, get to know his character, his appearance and his attitude to the world.
In the second part, the plot develops much more rapidly. The greatest detective, Sherlock Holmes, falls into a series of fascinating adventures in the course of investigating a murder.
Extra:
Jefferson Hope is driven by love, but a more appropriate way to characterize his motivation is revenge. As a lonely, withdrawn, strong and independent man, he takes Lucy and John Ferrier's fate badly. He decides that he will devote his life to bringing their murderers to justice. His passion for revenge drives him for decades. Nothing, including lack of money or information about the whereabouts of his chosen victims, or the need to travel all over Europe in pursuit of them, will stop him. He calls himself judge, jury and executioner. He does not believe that God or the law can hold people accountable for their actions. This desire for revenge is almost primal, it is all-consuming, and it most likely leads directly to Hope's fatal aortic aneurysm.
Jefferson Hope is driven by love, but a more appropriate way to characterize his motivation is revenge. As a lonely, withdrawn, strong and independent man, he takes Lucy and John Ferrier's fate badly. He decides that he will devote his life to bringing their murderers to justice. His passion for revenge drives him for decades. Nothing, including lack of money or information about the whereabouts of his chosen victims, or the need to travel all over Europe in pursuit of them, will stop him. He calls himself judge, jury and executioner. He does not believe that God or the law can hold people accountable for their actions. This desire for revenge is almost primal, it is all-consuming, and it most likely leads directly to Hope's fatal aortic aneurysm.
