Modern day reader Essay

Arthur Conan Doyles Sherlock Holmes stories were written over a hundred years ago. They ar antiquated and aside dated and do nothing to offer a modern day reader. Discuss.One hundred years ago the lifestyle in England was very different. fagot Victoria was in power, the quality of living was at a lower standard, and the technology was not as updated, compared to todays modern world. Crime was plethoric in this period, with thieves and pickpockets everywhere.The police force werent much help either. They were considered corrupt and unsuccessful in their investigations. This gave them a bad reputation, and made them unpopular with the local public. This helped to straighten out crime as high as it was, and it also made people feel unsafe. The citizens within the community wanted somebody who could solve the toughest crimes, and somebody who wasnt riddles with corruption. Sherlock Holmes matched this criterion perfectly. That is why Arthur Conan Doyles creation of the Sherlock Hol mes stories were tremendously admired back then.The book itself was designed for an audience of that time period, and because certain things draw changed, for example literature, there will be definite difficulties presented to us in the text. For one, the sentence structure used in the stories was very peculiar, because in quite a few occasions there were uses of extremely long, descriptive sentences that went on for over 3 lines. This is very strange because modern day writes tend to lengthen their sentences up to, maximum, two lines. Also when you were reading it you were running out of breath because of the limited spaces to breathe whilst you were reading. Another problem that we encounter whilst reading this piece of text is the reference to things that existed in the old times, but not today. This may interrupt the reader in understanding what is going on.Vocabulary is one other major a factor which could present the modern reader difficulties. The choice of words used in t he older time is not vastly different, but there are some differences, as the modern reader may struggle to interpret the definition of words.Modern day writers use Doyles texts so that they give the gate embellish some of the techniques Doyle uses in their writing. They use Doyles Sherlock Holmes book because the techniques used in the book grasped the attention of many people with the description, and other various techniques. I believe that the books are still popular (not as much as when they were first introduced though) because the Sherlock Holmes series still appear today, most recently on television.The techniques used in the Sherlock Holmes stories are key to bringing the characters to life, and creating a tension-gripping atmosphere. The techniques used also gain and maintain the readers interest in a number of ways done suspense and making the reader question his or her mind, through excitement of what is happening and the thrill of the investigation, or through some o f the interesting, unusual characters that some of the stories present us with, for example Dr Roylott in The Speckled Band.One of the predominant reasons why I believe that Doyle can capture and maintain the readers interest, not only in the time period it was wrote, but now is because of the structure. Each story has a crash structure, which the stories follow, although Doyle has tended to adapt some of them as he feels necessary. The structure is effective because the way that all of the stories are set out, they still leave us with many inquiries in out head, such as how Holmes worked out the case. For example, in The Speckled Band, Holmes discusses to Watson how he figured all of the traps out, how he figured out about the snake, and what he found out about certain features of the bedroom to make him come to certain conclusions.He says I had come to these conclusions before ever I had entered the room. An direction of his chair showed me. What this illustrates is that the que stions that the audience had developed whilst reading the book are answered by Holmes in his description of the events that occurred and the discoveries he made. It also indicated to us some of the points that we may have missed out in the book, or some of he points that we didnt seem to think were important. For example when Helen Stoner in The Speckled Band says that she has a ventilator in her room, we make nothing of it. We eventually find out though, that it is essential to the case.