The Piece of text I chose to analyze for this blog post comes from the short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle the Speckled Band. The specific quote that I feel sheds light on what is going to come in the story comes in the first paragraph when Holmes is initially describing the case. He says “It is perhaps as well that the facts should now come to light, for I have reasons to know there are widespread rumours as to the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tends to make the matter even more terrible than the truth.” The first thing that sticks out to mw is the intrigue that this statement gives the reader at the start of the book. By claiming that the rumors of his death are far worse than what actually happened makes us the readers believe that a terrible fate awaits Dr. Roylott. Not only that but for me this goes back to a similar theme of most sensation novels that I have come across. The idea of the outrageous and the overexaggerated is so clear to me in this instance especially in the latter part of the quote when Holmes speaks about how the matter may be even more terrible than the truth. Drawing back to Lady Audley’s secret this sentence led me to believe that something quite sinister and quite frankly ridiculous will go down regarding Dr. Roylott.
This story was a perfect example of what a sensation piece should be as it grabbed my attention from the very start and perfectly leaned into the ridiculousness of what makes a sensation piece great. This quote by Watson and the foreshadowing of the sensitization of Roylott and his actions had me expecting something insane which Doyle indeed delivered, upon.
I agree with this post entirely. To me, this was one of, if not the best, pieces of work that we read all year. I thoroughly enjoyed reading these, as stated in your post, because of the intrigue brought upon me in the beginning. There were some points where I found the text to be a little bit slow, but I had to keep reading due to what you mentioned above, where they talk about the death of Dr. Roylott and how the rumors do not do the death itself justice.