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Sherlock Holmes Essay

This creates mystery and encourages the reader even more to solve the mystery. The writer uses descriptive writing to create tension. As shown before the writer describes Dr. Roylott as a horrible and uncontrollable man. He uses descriptions to draw an image of the character which makes the reader feel scared of him. Also, he describes the house as "grey, lichen-blotched stone, with a high central portion and two curving wings like the claws of a crab, thrown out on each side. " The language used creates tension by describing the house in a haunted way.

The reader probably expects something really nasty to appear but obviously this does not happen. The writer's description of the vigil night creates a lot of tension as there is a death waiting. The part where Julia is found looking terrified makes the reader's heart beat faster. There are many other parts of the story that create tension. The writer also uses dialogue to create tension. Dr Roylott warns Holmes "Don't you dare meddle with my affairs" This piece of dialogue creates quite a lot of tension as it make you think that Dr. Roylott will do something cruel or tear the place in his moment of anger.

Also, another crucial piece of dialogue is when Holmes says of the case: "These are very deep waters" This suggests that something terrible could happen therefore they have to be cautious at all times. It makes the reader become more alert for any clues that might pop up or any weird things happening. Lastly, Julia says,"It was The Speckle Band! " This creates a lot of tension and makes the reader think is the suspect or the thing that killed her still lurking in the house or has it disappeared for now. The narrator plays the reader's feelings by carefully choosing his words to create tension.

Watson's opinion is not always right as it can be biased. As he is Holmes's, assistant he might be putting his own feelings into the narration which makes him an unreliable narrator. This is because Holmes is clever and will always be one step ahead of the game. As well as that, when the red herring happened, Watson did not say that they thought the culprits may be the gypsies. "But what, then, did the gypsies do? " proves this. Also, his information about the crime scene may be incorrect as he says "You have evidently seen more in these rooms than was visible to me.

" This clearly states that he has not seen every bit of evidence in the rooms and is withholding the conclusion to make the story more suspenseful. All of these things create tension which is what makes the story effective. The writer uses a clever change of pace to create tension. This is shown when Holmes and Watson go into Roylott's room with a pistol. The pace gradually builds up making everyone's hearts beat faster as they found him lying dead on the chair with a swamp adder sitting on top of his head. This makes the reader expect to find something horrifying as they have taken a pistol with them.

The writer uses all his skills and narrative tricks in the climax of the story. When Holmes enters Julia's room he sees the iron bars, the brown set of chest drawers, low ceiling, and a fireplace. The pace gradually gets faster as we expect to find a crucial piece of evidence which could help us solve the mystery; this gives everyone (including the reader) an uncomfortable feeling as they do not know what to expect of the outcome. The agonising waiting game builds up the tension to a boiling point of where Holmes hand closed like a vice upon Watson's wrist in his agitation as they saw a movement (the baboon).

This shows that the nerves are now showing in Holmes and that the tension is certainly getting to him. Lastly, the horrible scream and finding Dr. Roylott's body was the tensest moment of the whole waiting game. "A hoarse yell of pain and fear and anger all mingled in one dreadful shriek made the situation unbearable. " This makes us think that Helen has been attacked by Roylott. "The band! The Speckle Band! " That phrase brings awareness to the reader who is trying to figure out what it means and how it is linked to the murder of Julia Stoner.

The reader wants to solve the mystery as much as Holmes, but is bawled over to see Roylott's body sitting on the chair. Once again Holmes always solves the mystery with style. The writer creates suspense throughout the story by raising questions. Who's done it? How was it done/ Will she be safe? Will the villain get caught? Roylott looks dangerous- is he involved? Will Sherlock Holmes succeed? Will Holmes and Watson be safe in the end? All the questions make the reader think for themselves without the information been given out directly to them. It makes the genre more appetizing.

We are allowed to follow the detective's steps as he gathers and pieces the clues together giving the reader a chance to solve the mystery themselves. The Adventure of the Speckled Band does fit into the literary tradition as an early model of the genre; we have demonstrated just how traditional the story is, and how effective it is for the audience. The genre had evolved in response to a changing readership meaning that positions in murder stories have changed. For example, more women are becoming detectives and men are sometimes found as victims in a murder mystery.

The audience does not expect the typical villain or victim but some twist to the mystery that will make them wonder, but fundamentally, the ingredients have not really changed. Holmes has been very popular back in the day, and still is the favorite character for many readers today. This is because Holmes is intelligent and has deductive reasoning. Also, he has fabulous observing skills which help him to solve difficult cases. To add to that, readers treat Holmes as real person and take out facts about them from stories. All these reasons show why he was the most famous fictional detective ever created.

I think that this Story was very effective as it created tension and suspense, which made me more eager to reading the story. I thought that the description of Julia's death was very good, as I could image the scene in my head clearly. I thought the way that this story was written, was done in style, as the writer new when to turn it down and when to increase the tension to engage the reader. Although. It thought this story was interesting; there were a few parts that disappointed me. One these parts were when Helen Stoner went to talk to Holmes.

I thought there would have been a bit more suspense there and more sense of tension in the atmosphere. At first I didn't really understand what the Speckled Band was, but as I read on I soon began to realize that it was a snake. Overall, I thought that this murder mystery was very descriptive and energetic. It attracted by attention and kept me reeling. Show preview only The above preview is unformatted text This student written piece of work is one of many that can be found in our GCSE Miscellaneous section.

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