\u201cFrom this point onwards I will follow the course of events by transcribing my own letters to Mr Sherlock Holmes which lie before me on the table. One page is missing, but otherwise they are exactly as written, and show my feelings and suspicions of the moment more accurately than my memory, clear as it is upon these tragic events, can possibly do.\u201d<\/p>\n
In this blog post I am going to relate the epistolary form of the latter part of the novel to our in-class discussion about Victorian Era anxieties about time. In addition, I am going to argue that the form speaks to the increasing amount of free time that the reading middle class gained during the Era.<\/p>\n
In class on Wednesday we discussed the significance of the introduction of the moving picture to Victorian audiences, specifically in the form of the video showing the arrival of a train. Over the course of that discussion, we ended up talking about the conundrum this presented in the context of time: A singular and past event was able to be relived in the future an unlimited amount of times. I believe that the epistolary format is representative of the same development. Letters are fixed in time and are clearly dated, but much like a video, they present a clear perspective of the subject in current time. Watson\u2019s letters thus serve as remnants of past events, yet at the same time they present an avenue to immortality for the persons involved. To tie this back into our introduction to Victorian culture that we received in the form of the handout, this matches the Victorian quest of leaving a lasting legacy.<\/p>\n
Additionally, this form of storytelling could be seen as the product of its audience. The time period was marked by the expansion of labor laws and subsequent rise in leisure, which has we know radically increased literacy rates. By telling the story through letters, Doyle invites his readers to make their own attempt at solving the mystery as the clues unfold, far removed from Holmes ability to simply explain it away for the reader. By providing this degree of interactivity, I think it could be argued that Doyle was deftly expanding the popular appeal of his work while simultaneously filling a popular need.<\/p>\n
In summary, I think this passage serves as a window into the Victorian psyche much like Lady Audley\u2019s Secret<\/em>, they merely illuminate different cultural anxieties. At the same time, I also think it serves as an enticing incentive for following along with the mystery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cFrom this point onwards I will follow the course of events by transcribing my own letters to Mr Sherlock Holmes which lie before me on the table. One page is missing, but otherwise they are exactly as written, and show my feelings and suspicions of the moment more accurately than my memory, clear as it … Continue reading Epistolary Style<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2179,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123782],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2016-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}