LITERATURE AND THE CITY

             London, unlike what most people would linkage it toward the British culture and British culture only, the city of London has been an actually a highly culturally integrated city. By the expansion of the empire, the city also immerse and absorbs the cultural others, some successful, and some aren’t. In the collection of Conan Doyle’s 56 short novels of Sherlock Holmes, it covers a wide insight to London and the great British Empire. Within his writing, he had also highlighted Racial, political, economical problems in the novel. Although some of the events in his novel took place and related in other places of the British Empire’s colonies, but to understand London as a highly global integrated city in the history context, I would consider it quite necessary to analyse other places within the allegiance of the crown. By doing such analysis, this essay will be focusing on the racial aspect and the empire element in relevant of the city, and proving that the cultural other had great influence to Doyle, and other writers of the same era.

             City is an object composed of several of historical biological constructions, social, economical, and still other elements. In order to understand the city as an object of study, the background of such must be clarified. To analyse the city of London in the late 19th century, it was quite necessary to notice of the background of the British Empire. During the 19th century, the British Empire was described with the phrase “the empire on which the sun never sets”, and it was recorded that British Empire owned about a quarter of land on Earth, as it territory was worldwide, it show much influence all around the world. As the process of colonisation, through education and other methods, the British culture was spread; on the other hand, such influence was also brought back to British. Within the process of colonisation, the British became one of the greatest countries of “international” integrations. In the late 19th century, British spread to the world, and the world also goes to British. Trade, Immigration and the break of classes and races were the major themes that took places in the process. Through close reading of many of the texts of the Sherlock Holmes series, this essay hopes to provide a more solid view on this aspect.

             From the very first beginning of the series, The Study in Scarlet, it had hinted us as the reader that the Empire background is an important part of the story, but the question lies in how much does it hold? By close reading of his texts, it would give us much greater view of both the great British Empire and London as it writes from Sumatra, China to Australia and London. Along with the topic of immigration from British’s colonies, provide a more solid type of view.

             In the four long novels, in "The Study in Scarlet", the beginning of the whole series, it was introduced to the reader that Watson was back from the war in Afghanistan, which is the first appearance of the empire. As the text later reveals, the criminal was a Mormonism believer that came back to British from America to seek revenge, noting out the global notion. Within this case, one of the clues to the murder was the German word “RACHE” on the wall. In the second volume, "The Sign of the Four", it was a case related to Indian Rebellion of 1857, and the treasury of the colony. The third was not much related to the notion of the empire nor the culturally otherness. As for the fourth one, "The Valley of Fear", the victims was an immigrant from America, which appear in England for fear from his enemy.

             As for the collection of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, it contains twelve short novel pieces. Within the collection, there are five of the short novels that contain a notion of the cultural other. "A Scandal in Bohemia", "The Five Orange Pips", "The Man with the Twisted Lips", "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor".

          In the later collection of The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, it also has "The Adventure of the Yellow Face", "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott", "The Adventure of the Resident Patient", "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter" and "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty".

             Later, The Return of Sherlock Holmes also contains much content of the global notion. "The Adventure of the Empty House", "The Adventure of the Dancing Man", "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist", "The Adventure of the Priory School" and "The Adventure of Black Peter".

             His Last Bow contains "The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge", "The Adventure of the Red Circle", "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans", "The Adventure of the Dying Detective", "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax", "The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot" and "His Last Bow" that have touch upon the foreign elements.

             As for The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, the relevant stories are "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire", "The Adventure of the Illustrious Client" and "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier".

             That is, counting from the above; Conan Doyle had written three long novels and twenty five short stories that contain knowledge of other places. The stories that were mentioned above were counted in a more conservative way, meaning that the characters which were merely immigrants from the European are not included into the count. The counted ones must contain must have a decent description towards the characters’ background settings. In which, some of the character’s background story had mentioned their life before they moved to Britain. By saying so, some of the stories were relatively more important than some others in sense of discussing over the idea of the empire.

             In the short novel of "The Man with the Twisted Lips", there was a scene where Watson walks into the opium den, and a Malaya handed him a pipe. The background of this character was not told, yet it could be roughly understood as that this Malaya was brought back by the coloniaser in Malaya, which was under the rule of the empire. Another aspect of this story is that, the setting of the opium den was located near the docks. Further, while speaking of the area of docklands, it overlaps the east end of London, which is also a symbol of the poor and the place for immigration. According to the Historic UK website, “In the 1800s a small Chinese community had settled in the established slum of Limehouse in London’s docklands, and area of back streets pubs, brothels and opium dens. These dens catered mainly for seamen who had become addicted to the drug when overseas. ” Hence, it was quite possible that the opium den was opened by the Chinese.

              Such kind of setting was also embedded within several other stories, for example, in "The Dying Detective"; Sherlock Holmes received an ivory box that contains contagious tropical disease. And in "The Adventure of the Speckled Band", the injurer, Sir Roylott brought the speckled snack known as the swamp adder back from India as a tool to commit murder.

             In "The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier", the client James M. Dodd seeks Holmes’ help to look for a friend that served the military together in the just ended Boer war. Another one was "The Adventure of the Yellow Face", telling a story about the white man’s superiority, Mrs. Munro’s first husband was a black man, and she hides her daughter from Mr. Munro, afraid of being exposed. As for "The Adventure of the Gloria Scott", it stated the relationship that Britain had made it the oversea prison. As the story reveals, the old Mr. Trevor was found to be one of the rebels on the Gloria Scott, who made a fortune and returned to England.

             "The Adventure of the Empty House" is especially one to be mentioned, for it tells the story about the two years that Sherlock Holmes had no message. Through his narration, the story leads us further. After the fall with Professor Moriarty at the waterfall, Holmes explained that he went to Florence, Tibet and still other places, and told Watson about some of the cases he had went through. Each of the tales contributed to the national relationship between British and the other countries.

             Besides some of the subjects or characters that were clearly stated as the notion of the empire, there are still other elements that are hidden under the scene. Trade is one of the particular elements. Such as the drugs that Holmes was using was a part of it. In "The Study of Scarlet", it listed quite a number of drugs, and most of them were in the trading system at the Victoria era. The other part that is related to the background of the empire is that the characters that appeared in the series have a high percentage of sailors and soldiers.

             In Writing the Urban Jungle, McLaughlin stated,

By understanding the author through his collection of the Sherlock Holmes series, we could get a closer look to what Conan Doyle think and feel. And, most importantly of all, we could get to know what kind of information he might have received. Since Sherlock Holmes being part of the fictional character of the detective genre, we can argue that most of the content written within the novel was simply made up. And the narrative structure was developed in order to develop the detective genre. However, as we touch upon the author’s writing experiences, just like McLaughlin had mentioned, it is the border between real and fantasy that is important. 

             Along with the reason mentioned above, another thing that we needed to notice is that the essence of the work. The Sherlock Holmes was a serialised work that was very popular at the Victorian time, which even Conan Doyle tried to stop the work by raising up his paid for his work, it didn’t worked. Another fact was that when Sherlock fell into the waterfall with Moriarty, it was said that the entire country grief over his death. Hence, it could explain that even the audiences were very pleased of the setting given within the novel. That is to say, that most of them found this piece of work reasonable for them to project the idea of the cultural other. Though what these audiences have in mind might not be what the reality is, like falling into the trap of Orientalism, but that might also give us how the media spread out the information and news of the other.

             To conclude, by examining the works of the Sherlock Holmes series, it reveals the knowledge of Conan Doyle, and possible knowledge level of the people. In fact, almost half of the content of the Sherlock Holmes series are related to elements outside of Britain, and about one-fourth of it were writing about the British Empire. By analysing deeply into the history and the context of the work, covering a wide range of various elements, including political, economical, colonial, racial and criminal issues, it is quite agreeable that the Sherlock Holmes could help us understand the city of London back in the Victoria era. Though through narration, it may not be that realistic and have some distant with reality. Yet, it could still help us to understand the views of people on their own times.