Examine the settings and characters that the writers have chosen for their stories in “The Speckled Band”, “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, and “The Red Room”. Consider the effects that each writer has created, and how they contribute to the atmosphere. We read three short mystery stories, which all tried to keep the reader interested by building up the suspense. Each story had its own way of keeping you gripped until the end. “The Speckled Band” keeps the reader interested by a murder being committed, and the reader doesn’t know who did it.
As usual Sherlock Holmes investigates, and as always discovers who the murderer was. The ending to ‘The Speckled Band’ was a solution as Sherlock Holmes revealed who the murderer was, and how he killed Miss Stoner. “The Man with the Twisted Lip” has an unusual twist to the story. Sherlock Holmes begins to investigate what he thinks is a murder inquiry, but finds no body. Later on in the story he realises that in fact there was no murder, but the person who went missing wasn’t actually missing, just in disguise.
This story ending was also a solution (even though there hadn’t actually been a murder) as Sherlock Holmes solved the investigation. “The Red Room” keeps the reader gripped to the story, as H. G Wells actually tells the story from two points. One point could be that the visitor is experiencing problems with ghosts, but the other point could be that the visitors mind is just playing games with his imagination. I think that what this author has done is very good, as it makes you want to read on to find out if there are actually ghosts in ‘The Red Room’, or if it was just his imagination.
All in all I think that this story didn’t have a solution, but ended in a cliffhanger, as you still don’t know what actually went on in ‘The Red Room’. London in 1886 was an awful dark place to live in. There was a lot of crime, including drugs, murder, attacks and prostitution. The Victorians feared crime a lot. Poverty was also an issue and people lived in dirty cramped conditions. Public hangings were also very common. Jack the Ripper was someone who went round killing and attacking woman in the streets. He murdered lots of prostitutes and sent body parts of victims to the police to show off his crimes.
The police couldn’t catch him, which led to many Victorians disliking the police, as they didn’t protect the community/public. When Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes first started writing and selling his stories in 1887, Victorians loved him as he always solved the cases and always caught the evil people. When Arthur Conan Doyle tried to kill of his character in 1883, the public weren’t happy and sent Arthur Conan Doyle death threats telling Arthur Conan Doyle to keep his character alive. Sherlock Holmes still remains very famous and has even had websites dedicated to him.
Suspense is built up in the story by using a variety of language types such as; similes, nouns, adjectives, onomatopoeia and also by a personification. Arthur Conan Doyle uses a list of strong, vivid verbs. The list of verbs makes the sentence seem consistent and continuous, “howling”, “beating”, and “splashing”. The “howling” wind is a use of personification, and this gives us the effect that something unpleasant is going to happen. Arthur Conan Doyle using the verb “splashing”, which describes the rain. The word “splashing” is onomatopoeia, as he is appealing to our senses.
In the next sentence Arthur Conan Doyle uses a line of nouns and adjectives, which draws suspense to the story. It does this because he makes everything seem worse and more realistic than it actually is. He quotes, ” there burst forth the wild scream of a terrified woman. ” Arthur Conan Doyle puts in the adjectives to describe the scream of the woman. He says “the wild scream of a terrified woman. ” By putting these adjectives in, it creates more suspense and meaning to the story, because everything he writes is very dramatic!
Arthur Conan Doyle also increases the drama and suspense where he writes “horror stricken”, which suggests somebody who is scared and unable to move. The Arthur Conan Doyle writes a line full of dramatic verbs and adverbs, which are about Helen’s sister and draw attention to her and her pains, and therefore adds even more suspense to the story. “She writhed as one who is terrible pain, and her limbs were dreadfully convulsed suggests real agony. Arthur Conan Doyle then writes, “Suddenly shrieked”.
By using two very strong and powerful words it makes you want to read on and see why she “suddenly shrieked”. Arthur Conan Doyle also writes “Oh, my God! Helen! It was the band! The speckled band! ” He uses speech and punctuation, and even more importantly he uses explanation marks, which add to the drama. By using explanation marks after nearly every word it makes everything seem so much more dramatic and important, and by this creates and adds to the suspense to the story. ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’ is yet another story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
The story seems to be about a missing man (Nevel St Claire), which leads to a murder inquiry. Sherlock Holmes later discovers that Nevel St Claire wasn’t and didn’t actually go missing, but was in fact disguised as a beggar. There are lots of different settings in this short story, all of which are described completely different. For instant, the area of East London is described as ” a vile alley lurking”, which gives us the idea that people in this area/alley get up to no good. The choice of words ‘lurking’ and ‘vile’ reinforce this.
