Gender Depiction in Conan Doyles Short Stories - Research Paper Example

Gender Depiction in Conan Doyle’s Short Stories The work of Arthur Conan Doyle provides a discernment and intuitiveness into the mindset of the Victorian man and his concept of women in connection with distraught crime. The Victorian people were not quite ready to admit the thought that a woman could participate in a violent crime with having nothing wrong with her mentally. This is illustrated in Doyle’s famous Sherlock Holmes stories such as “Man with the twisted Lip” and “The speckled band.” In these stories, a woman acts as an assassin and criminal of the case Holmes’ is investigating. (Adrian C. 1954) Conan Doyle was definitely the product of the cultural atmosphere and surrounding he lived in. His depiction of women as mostly negative and passive characters in the Sherlock Holmes stories clearly illustrates the Victorian concepts of domesticity. However, this was not the only way Conan Doyle presented women; he also portrayed a few as outlaws, but only in those ways which were digestible by the Victorian mind. In Victorian England, women of high status were not supposed to effectuate crimes, especially the violent ones. All these aspects are clearly depicted in Conan Doyle’s work who presents a view of gender ideals in relation to crime. (Jasmine Y. 1990) In several ways, Sherlock Holmes’ stories serves as mirror for the behavior and attitudes of England’s public of that time in regards to women and their engagement in crimes; as both victims and perpetrators. Sir Arthur Doyle would only rarely present a woman in his stories as Holmes’ main adversary. They were usually depicted as victims of crime or merely bystanders. When he did, these were mostly not the perpetrators of the crime. In fact, the most famous female criminal in the stories of Sherlock Holmes was Irene Adler, who was a blackmailer of aristocratic people. On the whole, in Doyle’s writings, women were observed as being emotional, and incapable of unmitigated degeneracy that men were capable of. This is a buttress of Victorian concepts, in which women involved in fierce crimes were seen as “hideous perversion.” (Adrian C. 1954) In areas other than crime, Arthur Doyle reinforces the gender roles of that era with examples like Watson saying, “Because you are within my reach again…these riches sealed my lips. Now that they are gone I can tell you how I love you.”Thus illustrating that how a man must be at the same social rank as the woman, or above her, for a match to be authentic. One of the emblems of Sherlock Holmes series was deductive reasoning. Holmes would be faced with a bewildering and mysterious case requiring his intelligence to piece together clues and solve the case. Yet most of the architects of the perplexed crimes that Holmes faced were men. Women were not very often observed as capable of producing such ingenious plans to encounter Holmes. (Adrian C. 1954) In one case a man was used to illustrate as a woman’s husband for his health inspection, and upon the enquiry about the dead body the agent of the insurance company realized that the dead man was not the one who showed up for the insurance physical. This contrivance had come to light along with the arrest of two women. These women had committed a crime that would have accorded Conan Doyle’s fundamental motive for his fictitious assassins and criminals: avarice. These women had plotted a plan to kill Thomas Higgins, whom they had insured to five different insurance companies for a net of 108 pounds and 4 shillings. These women had committed crime just for the insurance money. (Jasmine Y. 1990) Yet why is it that a crime like this would not be committed by a woman in Conan Doyle’s Stories such as “Man with the twisted Lip” and “Speckled Band” but as a rule would be executed by a man? Perhaps the reason was that, although the act of killing for insurance money was common, it would be easier for the readers of Sherlock Holmes series to accept it was a man. In the minds of Victorian people there would have to be an abysmal problem that would cause a woman to deceive her sex in such a way. It was in England of these times that if a woman committed a crime of violence, there had to be something psychologically wrong with her. Sherlock Holmes stories epitomize this thought. Every villain Holmes seemed to face was in total control of their faculties, which was the only reason that their crimes were commendable of his attention. (Dalhinger 2004) The thought that there was something wrong with women who had committed crimes are best illustrated when cases of infanticide, and excitingly enough, shoplifting are examined. Another aspect in which women were appraised insane in relation to crime was in the case of shoplifting. With the increase of consumer culture in Britain, came the rise of shoplifting, which was one of the first fields in which woman’s crime was observed to be an element of mental illness rather than criminality. (Dalhinger 2004) The use of “Kleptomania” defense tried to be booked for the middle class women who found herself charged with shoplifting. The thought that a respectable woman, who had been caught for theft of something she did not need, was an abomination to a society who could see no reason for a respectable woman to steal something which she can easily buy. Instead, look at the problems in the society which produced the problem of middle class shoplifting, the judges required a new solution to this seemingly rising crime of middle class. The solution was the marriage of criminal justice and professional medicine. However, the involvement of this criminal behavior did not reach to the lower classes, which were usually charged with thefts without the concept of kleptomania every being considered. (Jasmine Y. 1990) This state of mind and mentality was surely known to Arthur Conan Doyle, which would help annotate the lack of female criminals in his stories. With all these well defined examples of female delirium in relation to crime, it would be difficult for him to think of a perfectly sane woman who would be able to commit crime that would be commendable of Holmes attention. Shoplifting was surely not one of these worthy crimes, because in Victorian mind any middle class woman who had ability to commit such a crime would most certainly be considered psychologically ill. Same was the case for instances of infanticide. Perhaps, Doyle was a product of the more sexually circumspect early Victorian period; when the thought of sexuality was seen as vulgar and sexual crime was observed as being only violent crime. (Adrian C. 1954) Nevertheless, this is one area in which Arthur Conan Doyle seemed to stray from the popular ideologies of that time, and stick to a more conservative one in the face of an explosion in interest of sexuality and sexual crime. When Conan Doyle was busy writing Sherlock Holmes, it was during an era in which the woman was always the victim in violent crime, even if she had been the one who had committed the crime. Her actions and activities were interpreted away by saying that she had been forced to it by an evil man, or that she had some mental illness. Doyle’s stories reflect this. The criminals for Sherlock Holmes had to be intelligent, clever and calculating, they had to be in total control of their faculties. This is why the basic female antagonists for Holmes were not the perpetrators of violent crimes. Iren Adler was blackmailer and Miss Hattie Doran had run off with a man she loved, instead of marrying another man. This is also the reason that the women who were the victims of crimes in his stories were victims due to the greed of an antagonist, and not from any other motivation. (Dalhinger 2004) Conan Doyle’s stories “Man with the twisted lip” and “The speckled Band” were truly the products of their time. They illustrated the moral, and world, view of the Victorian society with regard to women and crime. A woman as a fierce criminal went against the thoughts of the Victorian Era and Conan Doyle. In order to make a woman a violent criminal, and one who was in total control, and in full possession of her faculties, would have been seen as ridiculous. Doyle focused on the intellectual aspects of crime, which therefore excluded women to a great extent, and his Victorian concepts only allowed for the small number of selection of motives for the crimes that the Holmesian criminal would commit. (Adrian C. 1954) References: Doyle, Arthur C. The Man with the Twisted Lip. London: Penguin, 1995. Print. Doyle, Arthur C, and Dean Morrissey. The Speckled Band. New York: St. Martins Press, 1987. Print. Adrian C, and John D. Carr. The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes. New York: Random House, 1954. Print Hall, Jasmine Y. A Study in Scarlet Letters: Women and Crime in the Works of Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Wilkie Collins, and Charles Dickens. , 1990. Print. Dahlinger, S E. Violets & Vitriol: Essays About Sherlock Holmes and Conan Doyle. Ashcroft, B.C: Calabash Press, 2004. Print. Bottom of Form Read More