Realism Blog Post

When reading “The Speckled Band”, it is clear that it does not immediately fall into the realism category. Almost everything that happens in the story is so bizarre that there would be no way for it to happen in real life. Though if we were to come at this story with the task of connecting it to realism, we could. For example, the emotions the characters feel in the story. Sherlock sympathizes so much with the main character he offers his services for free. Helen oozes out fear, because her stepfather is coming after her. The raw emotions that we see from the characters are what make this story realistic, not Sherlock’s unattainable knowledge or the exotic animals used as murder props. It doesn’t seem as if Doyle intended to fall under the realism umbrella, it seems as if he wanted to stray far away from it in the plot of the story, but in making his characters so open with their emotions we can connect this story to realism. Although this story is not flat out realism it still draws audiences in with the insane plot and keeps the audience with the relatable traits of the characters, even though some of them are harder to relate too than others.