Character Analysis: The Speckled Band

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Detective Must Be Memorable Detectives need to be clever and wise to set them apart from the crowd around them. Detectives must catch the reader’s attention so they will be remembered throughout the story. If a detective is memorable, readers will look back at what they did to solve a crime and apply it to other investigations.
The Speckled Band In “The Speckled Band” Sherlock Holmes helps a damsel in distress. Helen Stoner is in danger of being murdered by her step father Dr. Roylott, and if Holmes does not come to her rescue she will end up like her sister Julia, dead. Holmes is able to save Helen from her ruthless step father, and at the same time find out how her sister Julia was murdered. With Holmes protecting Helen from danger he is …show more content…

Readers learn of a mystery where a maid and a butler go missing after the butler is found rummaging through some family documents of Reginald Musgrave. What makes Holmes stand out is how he goes about in solving the Musgrave’s family ritual. Holmes even tells Watson, “I was already firmly convinced, Watson, that there were not three separate mysteries here, but one only, and that if I could read the Musgrave Ritual aright, I should hold in my hand the clue which would lead me to the truth concerning both the butler Brunton, and the maid Howells” (Doyle, 1994, pp. 206- 207). It seems that Holmes has already solved the mystery even without doing any investigations against the disappearances of the maid and butler. However, the thing that makes Holmes memorable is how he was not able to find the missing maid. Sherlock Holmes stands out because he was able to solve the Musgrave Ritual when Reginald Musgrave himself could not, and how he was not able to find the maid because when you think of Sherlock Holmes you imagine someone who does not let people slip past his …show more content…

During “The Final Problem” Sherlock Holmes is trying to crack down on the biggest criminals in all of London, Professor Moriarty. However, when Moriarty threatens Holmes and has some of his agents try to kill him, Holmes wants to go on a little escape to try and avoid Moriarty’s wrath. This is what makes Holmes so unique. One investigation he runs toward danger, and the next time he is running away from it. If that was not enough Moriarty even traps Holmes and attempts to murder him after he has caught all of his agents. It is weird how Holmes think because he even foreshadows that something like this might happen to him and tells Watson in his letter he writes to him. Holmes writes to Watson, “…if I may make a full confession to you, I was quite convinced that the letter from Meiringen was a hoax, and I allowed you to depart on that errand under the persuasion that some development of this sort would follow” (Doyle, 1994, p. 228). Sherlock Holmes becomes memorable in “The Final Problem” because everyone presumes he was murdered by the most cunning man in all of London, and how he did nothing to stop Moriarty from murdering him after he knows that Moriarty will come looking for him after he caught all of his

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