The Character of the Hero and His Detective Skills in Stories of Sherlock Holmes

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The Character of the Hero and His Detective Skills in Stories of Sherlock Holmes

Sherlock Holmes is a well-known and loved detective who features in

sixty-eight of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous detective stories.

Written in the early 19c and set in London, the adventures of Holmes

and his companion Dr Watson (with whom shared a flat with during some

of the tales) are ingeniously written. Conan Doyle was born in 1859 in

Edinburgh, Scotland; he went to Stonyhurst School and did a degree in

medicine at Edinburgh University. He began writing during the time he

was in medical practice using it as a way to pass the time he had free

during his work. However his writing soon took over from medicine and

he became famous for it. Conan Doyle was influenced by Edgar Allan Poe

who similarly to Conan Doyle created a detective with odd habits and

amazing powers of deduction, which are two of the recognisable

characteristics of Sherlock Holmes.

In all of his many adventures Holmes uses interesting and unusual

detective skills including disguise ('A Scandal In bohemia') (this is

the story of a King from Germany who was involved with a woman by the

name of Irene Adler she has in her possession a picture of herself and

the King which she is planning to reveal before the king planned

wedding to a Princess daughter to another king, Holmes plans to

retrieve it and return it to the King.) and very good powers of

observation ('The Speckled Band') (a story of a family Named Roylott .

One of the daughters of Dr. Roylott had suffered from a suspicious

death the previous year prior to her forthcoming wedding when she had

been found dying by her sister she had given her last words of "it was

the band, the Speckled band." Her s...

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...ite different as Holmes gets a

result from sitting in Dr. Roylotts house all night he sends the snake

through the vent just as Holmes had anticipated and prepared for

meaning he was ready to attack when it emerged. He swiped at the snake

and sent it back into the Dr's room causing it to kill him. This was a

positive result for Holmes as he had prevented a young woman from

being killed.

Personally I prefer different elements in each story. I like the

tension and drama that is shown throughout "The Speckled Band" but I

like the way also that there is a lot of wit and intelligence in " a

Scandal In Bohemia" with people scheming and plotting there is a lot

of planning but it does not have the dark qualities of "The Speckled

Band". I think these are two very different stories and although they

have similar structures the eventual outcome is very different.

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