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Bobby Ethelton
Mr. Miller
English 11 (B2)
17 December 2014
Women: The Two Extremes
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle published his stories of Sherlock Holmes between 1887 and
1927, in an era when women’s roles and rights within society were changing within a maledominated culture. Women's complex and controversial roles are clearly portrayed in Doyle’s
stories: “A Scandal in Bohemia” and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” In these stories,
Doyle portrays the two-edged social conflict concerning the treatment, role, and portrayal of
women in London during the nineteenth century. He shows the epitome of both the traditional
and culturally-molded woman within society in “Speckled” and “the New Woman” out of the
traditional bonds of socially-accepted roles for women in “Scandal” through means of control,
success, and education of the women.
During Doyle’s life, “the Woman Question” was a fervent debate about women’s role in
society. The values and qualities of women at this time were “tenderness of understanding,
unworldliness and innocence, domestic affection, and, in various degrees submissiveness”
(Lynch & Stillinger 1608). John Stuart Mill stated that such attributes “place[d] women in social
and political subjection to men” (Mill 1108). Women were under the men and dependent upon
them…
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Works Cited
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” The Complete Sherlock
Holmes, Volume I. Ed. George Stade. New York: Barnes and Nobles Books, 2003. 30725. Print.
---. “A Scandal in Bohemia.” The Complete Sherlock Holmes, Volume I. Ed. George Stade. New
York: Barnes and Nobles Books, 2003. 187-205. Print.
Lynch, Deidre Shauna and Jack Stillinger. “The ‘Woman Question’: The Victorian Debate
About Gender.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th ed.,Volume E. Ed.
Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2012. 1607-10. Print.
Mill, John Stuart. “The Subjection of Women.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th
ed., Volume E. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2012. 1105-15. Print.
Patmore, Coventry. “The Angel in the House.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th
ed., Volume E. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2012. 1613-14. Print.
Ruskin, John. “Of Queens’ Gardens.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 9th ed.,
Volume E. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: Norton, 2012. 1615-16. Print.