The Man with the Twisted Lip by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
In ‘The Man with the Twisted Lip’, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle used the disrespect of the Victorian public with regards to the Police to create his own successful amateur detective. The reason for this clear lack of respect is that the notorious Jack the Ripper was roaming the streets of London, and the police could do nothing to stop him. Indeed
Jack the Ripper was never caught by the Police. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also uses the fear that Victorians had of the knowledge that Jack the
Ripper was present on London streets. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle uses words such as,
“lurking” and “sluggishly”
to describe Upper Swandam Lane and the way the River Thames flowing, adding to the feeling of disquiet and revulsion within the reader. Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle also describes Upper Swandam Lane as being,
“vile”
All three of these words make the reader feel uncomfortable about the settings because the words represent life and creatures that are evil and dangerous. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also tells us of a,
“low room thick and heavy with the opium smoke”
In the Victorian period, opium was legal and was smoked by many people. The thick smoke in the room made it difficult to breathe clean air. The word,
“sottish”
is used to describe an opium smoker who clearly has no control over his mind and body. This could be a hint that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not approve of the smoking of opium that took place in that time.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle also describes those opium smokers as being,
“bodies lying in strange fantastic poses, bowed shoulders, bent knees, heads thrown back and chins pointed upwards, with here and there a dark, lack-lustre eye turned on the newcomer”
This sentence gives the reader a further suggestion that the people in the opium den are intoxicated under the influence of opium, and also
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s dislike of the habit of opium smoking.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle describes the path down to the opium den as,
“a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave”
This could be likened to a descent into hell, reminding the reader of the dreadful descent into the railway cutting in ‘The Signalman’, and suggesting that the opium den is not a place where religious people could be found.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle manipulates the importance that Victorians placed on social values and respectability. The Victorians were very proud people, and knew that money meant respect. This is shown when the character of Neville St.
"[...] on the white tiles up through the tunnels, ignoring the escalators[...] (Bradbury, page 76)"
What is human nature? How does William Golding use it in such a simple story of English boys to precisely illustrate how truly destructive humans can be? Golding was in World War Two, he saw how destructive humans can be, and how a normal person can go from a civilized human beign into savages. In Lord of the Flies, William Golding uses the theme of human nature to show how easily society can collapse, and how self-destructive human nature is. Throughout the story Golding conveys a theme of how twisted and sick human nature can lead us to be. Many different parts of human nature can all lead to the collapse of society. Some of the aspects of human nature Golding plugged into the book are; destruction, demoralization, hysteria and panic. These emotions all attribute to the collapse of society. Golding includes character, conflict, and as well as symbolism to portray that men are inherently evil.
Many of the stories that have been told for centuries, or have recently been created, incorporate the story of a young innocent character who embarks on a journey and becomes a hero, known as The Hero’s Journey; a series of steps that all heroes follow. This journey not only shows the main character becoming a hero but also shows the hero move along a path similar to that of adolescence, the path between childhood and maturity. The Hero’s Journey was created by a man by the name of Joseph Campbell. He wrote a book called The Hero with One Thousand Faces, a novel containing a variety of stories that follow the steps of the Hero’s Journey. One famous creation that follows The Hero’s Journey is the science fiction film trilogy: Star Wars, created by George Lucas. Lucas depicts the struggles that take place along the path of adolescence through the story of a protagonist Luke Skywalker, who strives to become a Jedi Knight to show that Campbell’s Hero’s Journey reflects the struggles that youth go through whether they are depicted in a story or not.
Normally when most people think of vampires, they envision a deathly, pale creature with fangs. But Thomas Foster seems to think differently, who argues that it is not necessary for a vampire to embody a stereotypical vampire. Surprisingly enough, even humans can be these types of monsters. From Foster 's perspective, being a vampire not only includes an individual 's aesthetics, but also their actions, personality, intent, and overall representation of personal identity. The classic novel, The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, presents an excellent example of this occurrence, where the character Roger Chillingworth meets the criteria of a vampiric figure, based on Thomas Foster 's ideas of vampirism, found in his book How to Read Literature Like a Professor.
Innocence is a trap. It is strangled with the ideals of perfection and suffocates the cravings of curiosity. Goodness is expectant and evil is poisonous. However, good and evil resides in even the most innocent of people. Both are nefarious and pestilent to easily corrupt targeted souls in sinister actions. Both equate to uncontrollable factors. Goodness tends to covet the sensations of evil since it depreciates its own purity. In the oscillating novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, goodness was trapped by evil just as Jekyll was trapped as Hyde. Jekyll’s pure spirituality desired the holy richness of evil and all its wrongdoings. His laboratory experiments discovered his desire to feel the sensation of evil without truly being evil. His laboratory experiments discovered a way for him to escape. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde fought the battle between good and evil proving the apparent strengths and weaknesses that overall transformed two souls into a single corpse.
“A bloody scourge…rigorously, and until his knees trembled beneath him, as an act of penance.” (Hawthorne, 141) In the Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Minister Dimmesdale starved himself, whipped himself, and tortured himself to get rid of the guilt caused by his sin with Hester Prynne. Hawthorne describes the minister’s guilt as the evil that anchored him down and shows how Dimmesdale tortures himself but can never get rid of it. His guilt came from many things. First was his guilt for committing the crime with Hester Prynne. Second is his guilt for not being with her at the time that she was put upon the scaffold. Last was his guilt from not revealing himself to his own daughter and from having to stay out of her life due to fear of being shamed by the community. Hawthorne’s views on guilt and Dimmesdale are mostly that his guilt controlled his life completely until the very end when the power of the sin and guilt took over to the point where he couldn’t control himself.
In the novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain, the characters all value some things specific to his character. Jim and Tom are peculiar characters because they have distinct ways of looking at things. In that Jim values family and friendship, Tom values following the rules, and Huck values the natural world.
The functioning of the average human mind has intrigued and plagued philosophers and thinkers over centuries, one of the most curious and fascinating studies have been made into personages with dual personalities, schizophrenia being one of the factors. Similarly, in the book, The Strange Case, as well as in the film, Psycho, the books are taken place in late Victorian London, but Psycho is in late 60’s in the USA. The respective authors in these two texts portray that duality of human nature exists in society and humanity through the use of characterization and setting.
Are there many ways that themes and symbols can be shown in stories? Geoffrey Chaucer uses many different themes, symbols and styles in writing all of tales in The Canterbury Tales. By using these things, Geoffrey utilizes several specific symbols to illustrate various central themes. The characters in the tales make the same mistakes that ordinary people would make, and they receive the same or even worse consequences. One message that is portrayed is greed can make people to evil actions. An example of this is in "The Pardoner's Tale," when the three friends wind up killing each other because of their greed for the money. The second message that is displayed is that one should be careful when meeting strangers and to be cautious of the sincerity of false flattery from those that one does not know. For example, in "The Nun's Priest's Tale," Chanticleer falls for false flattery from Sir Russell Fox, but then he gets even with him when he to uses it to trick Sir Russell Fox. The third and last message that is shown is that reformation in a person can occur because of some type of punishment. This theme occurs in " The Wife of Bath," in that the lady that the knight has to marry is old and ugly, but because of this punishment of having to marry her, he eventually starts to like her. As shown with the three friends in "The Pardoner's Tale", greed stabs friends in the back and deceives them into doing wrong. There are two occasions in which the three friends plot against each other so one may receive more money than the others may. First of all, the three friends find a collection of gold coins under a tree, which they decide should be theirs and they choose to try to take it. They realize ...
First, Holmes is the first scientific detective. Second, all of his cases ended up solved so therefore there are no flaws in his method. Well after researching in and out of books and web sites, I finally found the "true" way Holmes solved crimes. The site I found such spectacular information is Sherlockian.Net. This sight was helpful and it made me understand most of the stories by Conan Doyle.
Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of famed novel, The Scarlet Letter, came from a long line of puritans. The family name of Hawthorne, was one of strict puritanistic ideals, which translated into topics covered in his literary works. When Hawthorne’s father died of yellow fever at sea when he was only four, his mother became overly protective and pushed him to isolation. All of Hawthorne’s fictional characters are believed to be figurative confrontations of good and evil. Almost all of his characters can be classified as one of these two types. Most of Hawthorne's early stories were published anonymously in magazines and giftbooks, 19th century, lavishly decorated compilations of collected essays, short fiction, and poetry. Through both emotional and physical drama and literary elements such as symbolism, Nathaniel Hawthorne conveys his thoughts about who can truly judge a person for their sins, saying that it is not society’s job to judge but rather God himself.
During the nineteenth century, Nathaniel Hawthorne graced America with The Scarlet Letter. Out of all of his works, the commended author’s most enduring and well-known novel is The Scarlet Letter. The narrative was set in the 1600s around the same time as the historical Salem Witch Trials. Over the years, this classic story has been reviewed by numerous essayists. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s most popular novel reflects the injustice of the Salem Witch Trials and received notable analyses from major literary critics.
Civilization can be destroyed as easily as it is created. Without the walls of society, humans are capable of committing actions that they would have never thought possible. Lord of the Flies focuses on a group of boys who are alone on an island without authority. The novel reveals what can become of humanity without the presence of authority. In Lord of the Flies by William Golding, the protagonist Ralph symbolizes leadership, civilization, as well as the loss of innocence. Ralph is the closest resemblance to authority that the boys have on the island. His appearance plays an important role in him signifying authority, “You could see now that he might make a boxer, as far as width and heaviness of shoulders went, but there was a mildness about his mouth and eyes that proclaimed no evil” (Golding, 10). His appearance changes throughout the novel as well as his character. Ralph portrays the most significant character because the majority of the novel revolves around him. He becomes the leader of the group of boys in the beginning of the novel, until he starts to struggle for power with the antagonist, Jack. Ralph experiences a journey that causes him to lose his innocence and he discovers many things about humanity. Ralph’s symbolism of leadership, civilization, and the loss of innocence reveals what can become of society. Evil is within all of humanity, humanity can transition from civilization to savagery without the walls of society present.
“The offing was barred by a black bank of clouds, and the tranquil waterway leading to the uttermost ends of the earth flowed somber under an overcast sky – seemed to lead into the heart of an immense darkness.” (96)
The Scarlet Letter is a blend of realism, symbolism, and allegory. Nathaniel Hawthorne uses historical settings for this fictional novel and even gives historical background information for the inspiration of the story of Hester Prynne in the introduction of The Scarlet Letter, ‘The Custom-House’. The psychological exploration of the characters and the author’s use of realistic dialogue only add to the realism of the novel. The most obvious symbol of the novel is the actual scarlet letter ‘A’ that Hester wears on her chest every day, but Hawthorne also uses Hester’s daughter Pearl and their surroundings as symbols as well. Allegory is present as well in The Scarlet Letter and is created through the character types of several characters in the novel.