Overview of Material:
The Victorian era saw prosperity and a renewed sense of national pride arise in Great Britain; however, the prosperity of the period did not come without cost.
Changes in science—Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution and the process of natural selection boiled humanity down to its most animalistic roots—and industry brought about a new age for England, resulting in an influx of outsiders and an upheaval of old British ideals.
The new social order turned London-- the former epicenter of British culture-- into a place Watson called a “Cesspool in which the loungers and idlers of empire are inevitably dredged” (A Study in Scarlet). Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle and other notable authors of the era all commented on the social changes occurring in England, and the waning years of the Victorian age saw many writers attempt to negotiate the boundaries between the traditional, known ways of British Imperialism and the unknown, new ideals present in British society.
It is within this chaotic, transitional state that the character of Sherlock Holmes exists as the champion of both rationality and irrationality, simultaneously embodying the role of British masculine and foreigner; the hunter, and the hunted. Holmes gave the fragmented society of Late-Victorian era London a figure to look up to, showing how the principles of imperial Britain would survive in the ever-changing society.
Changes in science—Charles Darwin’s theories on evolution and the process of natural selection boiled humanity down to its most animalistic roots—and industry brought about a new age for England, resulting in an influx of outsiders and an upheaval of old British ideals.
The new social order turned London-- the former epicenter of British culture-- into a place Watson called a “Cesspool in which the loungers and idlers of empire are inevitably dredged” (A Study in Scarlet). Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle and other notable authors of the era all commented on the social changes occurring in England, and the waning years of the Victorian age saw many writers attempt to negotiate the boundaries between the traditional, known ways of British Imperialism and the unknown, new ideals present in British society.
It is within this chaotic, transitional state that the character of Sherlock Holmes exists as the champion of both rationality and irrationality, simultaneously embodying the role of British masculine and foreigner; the hunter, and the hunted. Holmes gave the fragmented society of Late-Victorian era London a figure to look up to, showing how the principles of imperial Britain would survive in the ever-changing society.