Common Themes In Sherlock Holmes Stories Essays Examples

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle carries plenty of themes about family, marriage and other related social issues. Several stories take the message of husbands and wives keeping secrets from each other. The story The man with the twisted lip mentions of a respectable man named Mr. Neville St. Clair who hid from his wife the secret that he used to visit an opium den. When Mrs. Clair had spotted her secretive husband at an opium den, she approached it but upon reaching the den (Doyle). In the story The Adventure of the Second Stain the secretary of state Trelawney Hope keeps the secrets of his work from his wife. He could not discuss details of his work with his wife. Lady Hilda, the wife later visits Holmes to enquire about some documents her husband was supposed to be having. She asks Holmes never to let her husband know anything about her visit (Doyle).
The other important theme is wealth and privilege, giving preference to material values, especially to money. The story The Adventure of the Speckled Band serves as a clear example to the point. Smart but heartless Dr. Grimesby Roylott tries to seize the property of his stepdaughters, so commits a terrible but smartly conceived crime. He kills one of the stepdaughters by using a tamed swamp viper. It is difficult to make a chemical analysis of its’ poison, moreover, the bite marks are imperceptible to the investigator. Holmes rescues the second stepdaughter. After visiting the girl Holmes reads her mother’s will. From it he learns about direct stepfather’s interest in his stepdaughters remain single. In case of their death Roylott becomes the owner his wife’s capital. Holmes finds the key to understanding the motives of the crime, neutralizes the offender and saves the girl (Doyle). In A Case of Identity a heartless fraud is motivated by the same considerations – a cruel selfish stepfather, trying to keep the income from his stepdaughter’s money, changes his appearance, plays the spark to her and acts as her fiancé. At the door of the church, where they had gone to the betrothal, he disappears. The bride comes to Holmes with a request to find the missing groom. With the same magic key investigator establishes motives of the crime. They are the same – money and wealth (Doyle). A lot of other stories are written on the same basis – The Adventure of the Empty House, The Adventure of the Priory School. But more broadly this theme is developed in the story The Hound of the Baskervilles. Consequently, Conan Doyle knew and showed that crime and wealth are organically linked.
The theme of upper and lower classes is also highlighted in the stories. The criminals, whom Holmes fights, are mostly aristocrats, representatives of the ruling class. In the Red-Headed League a clever criminal, who tried to rob a bank, is a former aristocrat, with royal blood in his veins (Doyle). In the story The Adventure of the Speckled Band there is a representative of one of the oldest names in England. Professor James Moriarty also belongs to the representatives of the ruling class. In the story The Boscombe Valley Mystery it is directly stated that the crime was the source of wealth of John Turner – a large landowner. In the past he was the head of a band of robbers (Doyle). Conan Doyle in his stories reveals the vices of society, especially upper classes.
In the short story The Adventure of the Priory School is about the kidnapping of the little Lord of the orphanage. This kidnapping was organized by the son of the lord seeking in this way to get his father bequeathed to him the land (Doyle).
Sherlock Holmes adventures bear the theme of family relations. The story Watson's Daughter presents a classic case of love and deep ties between a girl named Sherlock Marian Watson and how she was connected to her father though she missed him. Holmes told her "you do have his eyesyou have his heart too" to explain the strong attributes that the girl had borrowed from the father (David). The father loved the daughter so much that Holmes had noted that he had named her after his greatest friend. The love between fathers and their daughters is also shown in the story A Scandal in Bohemia where the Clotilde Lothman, the daughter of the King of Scandinavia obtained her respect and honor from her father's kingship.
After the previous given examples, there should be made some comments about the theme of the treatment of women in the stories. Very often women appear in the stories in roles of the victims of the crime. They are often fooled by men and because of their weakness and impressibility become Sherlock Holmes clients. The detective has no feelings to the opposite gender, so he does not care about their good-looking appearance. The only woman that “in his eyes [eclipsed] and [predominated] the whole of her sex” was Irene Adler (Doyle). It means that women were considered to be not as smart, well-read and intelligent as men.

Works Cited

Beckwith, David B. Chronicles Of Sherlock Holmes. [U.S.]: Xlibris Corp., 2011. Print.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. A Case of Identity. The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes. 1st ed. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. A Scandal in Bohemia. The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes. 1st ed. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Adventure of the Priory School. The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes. 1st ed. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Adventure of the Second Stain. 1st ed. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes. 1st ed. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Adventure of the Speckled Band. The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes. 1st ed. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Boscombe Valley Mystery The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes. 1st ed. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.