Annotated Bibliography on The speckled band

Annotated Bibliography on The speckled band

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The speckled band. Lulu. Com, 2017.

“The Speckled Band” is among the most popular stories of Sherlock Holmes written by Arthur Conan Doyle. Basically the story rotates around the use of trickery and intelligence to come up with solutions to evil deeds which are committed under ambiguous settings to easily be revealed. The scenario focuses on Helen Stoner’s case, a woman who lived with a bullying and dictatorial stepfather by the name Grimesby Roylott. The lady is fearful when she decides consult Sherlock Holmes to seek a solution on a back-story of her sister’s mysterious death. In             Grimesby Roylott was the husband to Helen Stoner’s mother. When Helen and her sister were young we get to know that their mother had bestowed all her wealth to the husband, Roylott on a condition that annual sums will be paid to the two sisters after being married. Eight years down the line, the mother to the two got involved in a railway accident and died when Roylott took the two sisters to stay with him. Roylott had turned very violent and antisocial with time, although he had been associated with itinerant gypsies.

Things turn around when the sister to Helen, Julia is about to be married. Mysterious events take places place and which leads to her death. According to Helen, her sister mentioned to her that she had perceived whistling sounds when she was sleeping in her bedroom. And after a while Helen is woken by a scream from her sister’s bedroom which is followed by a metallic sound. When Helen rushes to rescue her sister, unfortunately the sister dies shortly with her last words as “it was a band! The speckled band!” the death baffles everyone. With Helen believing that the “band” she mentions is a reference to “band of gypsies associated with their step father”

Later, when it’s Helen’s time to get married, she witnesses the same whistling sound heard the night her sister died. This makes her to seek advice from Holmes and Watson. On seeking the will of deceased wife, Holmes gets to be confirmed that the suspicion of Roylott is behind the sisters being married and taking the share of the wealth entitled by her late mother. The analysis by Holmes reveals some mysterious settings both in the room where Julia had died as well as Helen’s room. First is a bell pull and then ventilators connected to Roylott’s room rather than outside. A dog-lash which is coiled to a whip shape is also spotted in Roylott’s room, a large iron safe and saucer of milk. Through these intelligent proofs, it is later on realized how Roylott was carrying out his agenda of to kill the sisters using a deadly snake and which kills him after being invoked by Holmes without his knowledge.

This story enlightens on the use of intelligence to solve some of life scenarios which are more than obvious to solve. Like in the case of Helen, if it were not for Holmes intelligence approach, the death of Julia would have been assumed and this would have led to death of Helen in the same settings as well. Intelligence approach should be utilized where normal approaches to problem solving fail to work

Hodgson, John A. “The Recoil of” The Speckled Band”: Detective Story and Detective    Discourse.” Poetics Today 13.2 (1992): 309-324.

In this article, Hodgson took a central position in criticizing the work of Doyle “The speckled band”. Just like any other reader, Hodgson in this article starts appreciating the work of Doyle and for his strives to capture the attention of his readers. However, there are several events in this work of Doyle he opposes. Much as they seem realistic to any normal reader, digging deep has proved to be a tattered pieces of words against what he wants to prove. He praises Doyle of letting sensationalism to dominate this adventure and which enabled him achieve the detective interests in the book. He has also praised him of being a master reasoner and an interpreter.

The use of a bell ring hanging on the rooms of the two young ladies is one reason behind the criticism. Being used as one of the many ways which he uses to pass his detective interests, this approach can be seen as unrealistic, because it was not possible for a person to have stayed inside the room without noticing a bell hanging. Additionally, Doyle has used many other instances within the book aiming to achieve his detective interests which are also unnatural. For instance, the snake in the dog-slash has been presented to have the ability of hearing low whistle while the reality is that snakes usually have no ears to be in a position of hearing low tone whistles.

On the point of snakes also, it has been predicted to have been surviving on an enclosed place, which is contrally to the reality since snakes can’t survive in airtight places. Then also, the death of Grimesby Roylott has been criticized because of its unrealistic, this is because in normal considerations no snake poison can have the ability of killing an adult such instantly. These few areas and more others have been pointed out by Hodgson as setbacks of this work of Doyle.

This article is important as it irons out some of the mistakes in the book. Criticism on its own has many advantages to the future of literature. Although in most cases it is perceived as malicious opinions towards the original writers and in some instances creating hatred, it helps in pointing out errors in the past works which could act as drawing boards in future to avoid such mistakes.

Work cited

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The speckled band. Lulu. com, 2017.

Hodgson, John A. “The Recoil of” The Speckled Band”: Detective Story and Detective    Discourse.” Poetics Today 13.2 (1992): 309-324.