Sherlock Holmes has a peculiar and eccentric way of solving the mysteries that are brought to his attention by the somewhat incompetent Scotland Yard. Unlike the Yard, Holmes does not take the crime scene at face value. Rather, Sherlock Holmes uses his outstanding observational skills and immense background knowledge of sciences that he rigorously studies in his alone time. The first occasion that Holmes shows his superior crime-solving skills is when Lestrade and Gregson, two members of the Scotland Yard, are already present at the scene of Joseph Strangerson’s death when Watson and Holmes arrive. After looking around, Lestrade makes what he finds to be an extremely important discovery. Painted on the wall with blood was the word “RACHE”, …show more content…
which Lestrade deems that whoever wrote it did not have time to finish the word “RACHEL”. He is convinced that “when this case comes to be cleared up you will find that a woman named Rachel has something to do with it.” (Pg. 60) Holmes finds this especially humorous and after coming to the conclusion that Strangerson was poisoned, he informs Lestrade that Rache is German for revenge. Instead of jumping to the first idea that comes to mind, Holmes looks for all of the clues before coming to a conclusion. Holmes also has an eye for incredibly small details that either others do not see or cannot piece into the mystery.
After examining the crime scene, Holmes briskly came to the conclusion that Strangerson was murdered. He came to this result by first inspecting the foot prints on the floor. With these, he could paint a picture of the killer in his head: a six foot tall, middle aged man with small feet for his height. Then, after smelling the victim’s mouth and looking at his shocked facial expression, he could tell that the man was murdered,” Holmes explains. (Pg 257) Then, once finding the wedding ring in the room where Enoch Drebber was murdered, Holmes understood the reasoning for the crime. “Clearly the murderer had used it to remind his victim of some dead or absent women.” (Pg 257) This act of revenge also makes the writing on the wall make even more sense than before. With this in mind, Holmes retrieves the details of Drebber’s previous marriage, in which he learns about Jefferson Hope. With the knowledge that Hope was a cab driver in London, he could piece together that the mysterious cab in the street on the night Strangerson died was Hope’s. Holmes uses miniscule particulars that would go unnoticed by others to come to important
conclusions. Towards the end of the novel, Holmes explains to Watson how his way of thinking differs from most other detectives or individuals in general. Holmes explains how many would hear a sequence of events and then “put those events together in their minds, and argue from them that something would come to pass.” (Pg. 253) Instead, Holmes argues that only a special few, including himself have the ability to “reason backwards”, which entails the opposite. Holmes can see the result and from there, can imagine and find the steps in which the murder took to commit the crime. This way of thinking is important because it uses one’s own mind and prior knowledge, rather than being clouded by first conclusion an individual comes to just by seeing the evidence. Holmes tells Watson that he “approached the house… with my mind entirely free from all impressions.” (Pg. 254) Keeping his mind clear, Holmes has the ability to take in all the evidence and understand the crime completely.
On page 39, it describes the moment in which bullies from his school force him to go face to face with a skeleton in a doctor’s office. Such a terrible experience truly could have scarred Holmes, but at the same time his comfortability with an representation of death could have prompted his killer roots. Also, the “accidental” death of Holmes’s childhood friend, at an event that Holmes was present, was another red flag in terms of potentially becoming a psychopath. We learn more of Holmes’s younger upbringing through the text in which it states,"He drifted through childhood as a small, odd, and exceptionally bright boy....in the cruel imaginations of his peers, he became prey" (Larson, 38) Holmes was essentially an outcast, a person who has been rejected by society or a social group. He was the target of many because of his oddness and rather unique characteristics. With no solid upbringing, and a probable fascination with death, Holmes was bound to be the infamous serial killer he became in his future.
Holmes and Holmes developed this typology based on various characteristics of the crime scenes and the victims themselves of 110 interviews of selected offenders and serial murders (Canter & Wentink, 2004). David Canter and Natalia Wentink conducted an empirical test of this typology and developed several criticisms to their work. Their empirical test concluded that the features described for each category tend to co-occur within each other. For example, the characteristics of a lust killer include a controlled crime scene, evidence of torture, the body being moved, a specific type of victim, no weapon left at the crime scene, and rape; all of these features are also included for the thrill killer. This makes it difficult to categorize these
Exploring the Reasons Behind the Popularity of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Stories Although not a real detective, the character of Sherlock Holmes gave the general public a sense of security because in the stories he is seen to solve cases quite easily, such as in "The Man With The Twisted Lip." Watson says "I wish I knew how you reached your results" and Holmes replies, "I reached this one, by sitting upon five pillows and consuming an ounce of shag. " This gives the readers a sense of security because it seems as if Holmes makes no effort to solve the crimes but they are still solved with the minimum of fuss. At the time of writing the concept of detectives was new, and when the stories were written there was almost no confidence in the police force. This point is brought up in "The Man With The Twisted lip," the police force caught a criminal and then proceeded to let him go.
...he met the detective, fell victim to Moriarty’s games. “Moriarty is playing with your mind too. Can’t you see what’s going on!” (Sherlock). During Holmes’ last days before his faked suicide, he pleads with John to see reason through Jim’s manipulations, as does Desdemona with Othello’s accusations. Even Sherlock’s oldest friend Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade was doubting Holmes’ credibility.
The first floor consisted of a drug store, candy store, jewelry store and restaurant. The second floor was a labyrinth of narrow hallways, rooms lined with sheet iron of asbestos, trap doors, and lethal gas jets. Seven feet below the building, known as the “chamber of horrors”, was a room that contained a dissecting table, torture devices, jars of poisons, a crematorium, and a wooden box that contained female skeletons. After a search of the ashes, investigators found a watch that had belonged to Minnie Williams along with a ball of hair that had been carefully wrapped in cloth. Police detectives found two naked footprints in a pile of quicklime outside of the vat of corrosive acid. Other human bones and jewelry were found that could be traced back to Holmes’s mistresses; Ned Connor was called upon to identify a bloody dress that Julia had owned, and Pearl Connor’s bones were found in a hole in the middle of the floor. Following his conviction for the death of Ben Pietzel, Holmes confessed to 30 murders and six attempted murders. However, some investigators now believe that he killed over 200 people. His trial took six days, and Holmes was eventually given the death sentence on November 30, 1895. On May 7, 1896 at 10:25 a.m., the coroner pronounced Holmes dead after being
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.” This quote by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, from “The Hound of Baskerville” shows that people are generally oblivious to things in their surroundings, except for Sherlock Holmes. Both The Great Mouse Detective (GMD) and Sherlock Holmes (SH) have characters, Sir Basil of Baker Street and Sherlock Holmes, who are good at conducting observations.
The criminal profiler Thomas Cronin identifies Holmes as a very unique criminal as he states that criminals are smart, but they are not discipline enough to finish college and the fact that he finished medical school, makes him even more unique. Holmes was able to hide his dark nature as he had an important facilitator which was his career and charm that brought him plenty of victims.
After concluding the role of Sherlock Holmes as a detective in the story of the Speckled Band, I know that he was one of the most famous detectives in the world, and he bought into the world of detectives different skills and abilities, also, bought his own natural talent and set some very high standards, which detectives these days find
An examination of Sherlock Holmes' abilities and techniques. allied to his personal characteristics, enable him to solve crimes. There are many reasons to explain why Sherlock Holmes is one of the world's most famous fictional detectives. However, the main reason for This is that not only are the stories complex, but the actual character of Sherlock Holmes has extreme depth, with some subtle. elements of his character only becoming apparent when he is in certain situations.
He too uses forensic methods. of investigation like a scientist, and also uses scientific tools. such as a convex lens. Holmes unravels myths with his ‘swift’. intuitions,’ like many other scientists of the time, such as Darwin.
Holmes likes attention and never tells anyone his methods, so he appears to be psychic. Dr. Watson is a medical doctor who met Holmes in a previous case, and they have been friends ever since. With his knowledge of medicine, he helps Holmes solve cases that have anything to do with drugs or lunacy, especially since “doctors make the best criminals”. They have ways to make undetected poison and can easily leave their patients to die.” I can relate to Holmes the most because he always likes to solve mysteries, just like the time when I wanted to solve my Secret Santa clue immediately.
The first reasons that it shows that Holmes methods were realistic some people are just really observant. The thing that helps him solves cases most is that he is observant and he notices things that most people don’t pay attention to. Like he sees the mud on someone's shoes and uses what he knows about him to make a conclusive. One example is that in the story A Scandal in Bohemia, he notice that Watson had six parallel cuts and put that together with what he knows about him and came up with the conclusion that he was working in the medical profession. Another example is in the story The Red-Headed league by listening to the story and go to where Mr. Wilson work he figured out that Mr. Wilson’s assistant is trying to rob the bank. Holmes is just very observant and used all of his senses to find the criminal.
Having set up expectations with its title, ''The Confessions of Mycroft Holmes'' then plays with them mercilessly. Marcel Theroux's subtle and intelligent book is subtitled ''A Paper Chase,'' and while that undersells the novel's underlying seriousness and sadness, it does catch the way the reader is led on, an...
Sherlock Holmes was, and still is, a consulting detective. He was brilliant, and had a knack for solving difficult cases. In the short story The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, he introduces himself. “My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what other people don't know.”
When his good friend Dr. Watson described him, it included adjectives such as, “Bohemian, accurate, curious, and has as calculating nature.” Holmes was always thought to have a curious ability for analytical reasoning which helped him to succeed when unraveling crimes. He was also known to have the ability to “lie to police, conceal evidence, or break into houses when he felt morally justifiable.” Sherlock Holmes worked hand in hand with Scotland Yard in London, England. He was considered a respected and talented investigator.