RR 1 Essays - Fictional Characters, Fictional Detectives, Fiction

Reading Reaction Reading Reaction on "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" The short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," was interesting and reminded me of the books that I enjoyed reading as a young child. One of my favorite books that I can recall was a collaboration between Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys as detectives working together. This short story brought me back to those days, nonetheless. I liked "The Adventure of the Speckled Band" because of the plot and it's corny, yet dark, humor. However, I also did not like the story because of its dated language and its drawn-out length. The story, I found had some underlying crude humor which I always find enjoyable when being forced to read something. Dr. Watson is a character who exhibits these notes of humor, which has led me to favor his character. When they are indulging themselves in the case, Holmes apologizes to Watson for bringing him along because they will be in a rather dangerous position. However, Watson merely laughs it off by saying that he has no idea what is going on. Holmes humbly says that they've seen the same things, just thought about them differently and Watson does not seem to lose his trust in Holmes regardless of possible danger. This just makes me laugh because no matter the situation, it appears that their relationship as partners is much wittier and stronger than some risky business would lead on. A partial quote that really stuck out to me was, " the very horror of my situation lies in the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another" (Doyle, 1892, p. 2). This quote is relatable to anyone who is trying to figure any given situation out. I, myself, feel as though I am delusional with all the little things, I attempt to tie together in order to place the correct blame. I could argue that this is the basis for the short story entirely. If Helen just assumed the death of her sister was merely an accident, then she wouldn't feel as though her life was also in danger; thus, she wouldn't have reached out for the help of Sherlock Holmes. Reflecting back to my thesis, I spoke of disliking the proper and dated language. With that, I will clarify that I do appreciate the origin of this short story and its importance to the history of early literature, however in today's language we do not use certain phrases that commonly appear in the story. It was hard to read smoothly when I had to question multiple times what a word meant. I assume, though, that save means but and that pray means please because of the sentence structure in which they are formulated. In addition to the language, the length had me bored and hurt my eyes after a while. A personal preference of mine is reading books with uncommon fonts or bigger spacing, otherwise I easily lose track of where I am at and end up rereading the same paragraph three times. Overall my reaction to the short story was that I enjoyed it once I got it read. I did not have many complaints and the ones I did have were not super huge either. I would consider reading more of these stories for enjoyment (and I do not read for pleasure, so that is saying a lot).