In the speckled band the Doctor came to talk to Holmes saying, “’I will go when I have had my say. Don’t you dare to meddle with my affairs. I know that Miss Stoner has been here- I traced her! I am a dangerous man to fall foul of! See here.’ He stepped swiftly forward, seized the poker, and bent it into a curve with his huge brown hands.” (Doyle, 141). Within this quotation the Doctor uses very threatening adjectives such as ‘dare’, ‘meddle’, ‘dangerous’, and ‘foul’. He uses this vocabulary to exemplify his power to Holmes to scare him away from solving the mystery involving the death of the Doctor’s step-daughter. This fear of the law was common during the Victorian era because families wanted to maintain respect to their family name. In the Lady Audley’s secret, they keep Lady Audley from going to court for attempting to murder George for the same reason of maintaining respect. The use of power here is also consistent with gothic fiction. Here the power is used to compel Holmes into stopping his search for the truth. He proves this by showing his strength in bending the poker. The description of the Doctor also creates an image for the reader when getting to the end of the short story, which makes it make more sense that he would be playing with this dangerous snake from India. Without this quotation the reader wouldn’t have the characterization to make the ending believable.
2 thoughts on “Every Family Has its Secrets”
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I agree with the fact that many people in the Victorian age had a fear of the law. At this time in society, the fear of social ostracization was a very extreme worry. I would like to add to this point by bringing up how much it was used to control people. Lady Audley managed to get off without prison time because she brought up the fact that she was mad and used that as a defense. Someone as powerful as Mr. Audley marrying a mad woman would certainly tarnish his reputation. If a criminal was able to convince a victim, or the family of a victim of a crime, that bringing that crime to light would hurt that person or those people’s reputation, then there is a high likelihood that they would stay silent.
This is a very valuable point to acknowledge for the time period! Taking into consideration that activity of authorities in a family and legal affairs would create scandal, it is evident that including the police in the events that took place in “The Speckled Band” or even with the Audley’s would quite literally lead to just more issues. The investigation of Lady Audley by a private investigator is normal for the time period, but what is interesting now is that we would not think to privately investigate a murder by ourselves in today’s day and age. If anything our first response to something we deem unusual or illegal is to call our local authorities. The fear of law that we see in Lady Audley’s secret and The Speckled Band plays a part in how we as readers are able to connect with the time period. This fear of the police at the time being included creates many problems throughout the story and really it is what drives the “investigations” that go on throughout both stories.