{"id":2533,"date":"2023-10-01T11:55:50","date_gmt":"2023-10-01T15:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/?p=2533"},"modified":"2023-10-01T11:55:50","modified_gmt":"2023-10-01T15:55:50","slug":"xenophobia-in-the-speckled-band","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/2023\/10\/01\/xenophobia-in-the-speckled-band\/","title":{"rendered":"Xenophobia in the Speckled Band"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Throughout the Speckled Band it is clear that anything foreign or exotic is dangerous and that can be especially seen in the descriptions of Dr. Roylett. \u201c[T]he wandering gipsies\u201d (135) are instantly the first suspect of Holmes and Watson even though Holmes himself admits, \u201cI see many objections to any such a theory\u201d (140). Despite these misgivings, Holmes continues this line of investigation until it is proven completely impossible. He admits this near the end of the story saying, \u201cThe presence of the gipsies…were sufficient to put me upon an entirely wrong scent\u201d (151).\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally, the ultimate cause of death ended up being a \u201cswamp adder…the deadliest snake in India\u201d (150). The knowledge Dr. Roylott used to kill his daughter \u201cwould only occur to a clever and ruthless man who had an Eastern training\u201d (151). To Holmes, an eastern education automatically creates an evil, snakelike person who is ready and willing to kill. Foreignness seems to equate to enhanced nefariousness. Helen Stoner claims, \u201cViolence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary…and in my stepfather\u2019s case it had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics\u201d (134). <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I think Arthur Conan Doyle chose to repeatedly portray exoticness as dangerous because at the time the short story was written the British empire was losing power. If England was portrayed as superior to the countries they were losing their grasp on, the British people could still feel superior globally.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Throughout the Speckled Band it is clear that anything foreign or exotic is dangerous and that can be especially seen in the descriptions of Dr. Roylett. \u201c[T]he wandering gipsies\u201d (135) are instantly the first suspect of Holmes and Watson even though Holmes himself admits, \u201cI see many objections to any such a theory\u201d (140). … Continue reading Xenophobia in the Speckled Band<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5332,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[169399],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533","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\/5332"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2533"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2533\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2533"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2533"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/secretlives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2533"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}