English society and lifestyles Essay

He also demonstrates his strength by bending a fire poker in half, this proves that he is dangerous and willing to go to any length to get what he wants. Because of his butch, scary description in the first part of the story, he may come across and un-educated. He is actually very cunning, he thinks of all the fake things in his room, these lead to the deaths. He is very clever, even Holmes addresses him as cunning. Jabez Wilson Jabex Wilson is a character in the story ‘the red headed league’ he is the owner of a local pawnshop, he is given a false job in the story. The fake job he is given, although simple pays very good money, he takes the job and leaves his partner in charge of his pawn shop, him taking the job shows that, like anybody in Victorian England, he would do anything for money, he also took on his assistant , Vincent spaldling, because he offered to come at half wages. Vincent Spalding Vincent Spalding is the character of Wilson’s’ assistant in ‘the red headed league’. He tricks Wilson into leaving him the shop so that he can dig to a nearby bank. He is actually john clay in disguise, john clay is a famous bank robber who is wanted by the police. he is very cunning with the way he works, he fixed a fake advertisement, fake job, fake identity all for one job, this in some ways shows that he has determination and devotion to what he does. The place of servants The place of servants throughout these stories, is not very obvious. in ‘the speckled band’ the manor house in which Helen Stoner and Dr Roylott live, is said to have a room for the maid. this shows that housing was provided for servants. It shows that although there is a definite hierarchy between master and servant, considerations are made on the part of food, and housing. The role of women In the three stories which I studied the role of women varies, in ‘the man with the twisted lip’ Mrs. St Clare comes across as the type of woman that stays in and cooks and cleans at her husbands demands, she has dinner for him at his arrival home in the evening and doesn’t ask where his money comes from or what he does, she just accepts that it is money. Whereas is ‘the speckled band’ Helen Stoner is much more independent of her self, she rides on the train and dog cart in the early hours of the morning without permission, she tries to find out for herself the cause of her sisters death and seeks out her own help even though she is fully aware of her stepfathers capabilities. The nature of Law and Order Compared to real Victorian England the police in the stories come across as very laid back, in †the red headed league’ they are fully aware of the happenings and still offer to make all of it ‘disappear’ even though it is a very large investigation, and is very important. Although the police are satisfactory to the community, Holmes always seems to outsmart them, as it were, always get there first. But yet he is not a part of the police service, he isn’t running a private service for money because he only asks for the expenses to be paid. this shows his devotion to the service and how he doesn’t do it for the money. Transport and communications The transport in the stories is quite modern in some parts, in the speckled band, Helen stoner uses a train to reach Holmes, this shows that train run at all hours, because she was traveling at early hours of the morning. She also used a ‘dog cart’ or horse and carriage. Communication was not really mentioned in the stories but telephones are mentioned a few times, this shows more than telegram communication is used . 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 Arthur Conan Doyle section.