England, for nearly all of modern history, was a world leader in colonialism. As many in the era put it, and rightly so, “in His Majesty’s dominion, on which the sun never sets” (Noctes Ambrosianae 527). With this, like in so many other societies, came overt racism towards the foreign countries and peoples the empire ruled over. This response was especially evident in the literary works of the period—for example, Oliver Twist, East Lynne, the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and more specifically, the various works involving Sherlock Holmes (Betensky 2019). While racism is seen in many of the Sherlock Holmes stories, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” contains the type of period typical racism most easily recognized by a modern reader. Using “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” “The Adventure of the Three Gables,” and “The Adventure of the Yellow Face,” this essay will explore the historical context for racism in Britain, the context in respect to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle specifically, and examine how its appearance and the focus on race in these Sherlock Holmes stories takes away from the mystery in the stories, which ultimately weakens them.
Britain was a vast nation in the Victorian Era, reaching the height of its colonial power during the period. Britain first began its conquests in the 16th century, but by the late 19th century it had established settlements in what are now Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Jamaica, India, Myanmar, Egypt, and countless other nations in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific Ocean (The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2020). This came with a newfound wealth of knowledge of foreign people, as well as a massive exposure to foreign cultures. Alongside this came an explosion of scientific knowledge, and these ideas resulted in the development of racism in science through the study of phrenology, also referred to as craniology in Douglas Lorimer’s “Nature, Racism, and Late Victorian Science,” a study which focuses on how the development of the human skull can determine how far along a race is in its evolution (Wohl 1990). While this study was later dismissed to the realms of psychics and clairvoyants, it held a lot of power at the height of its popularity (Van Wyhe 2000). This racism wasn’t just evident in scientific studies, although the science did feed the flame of the broader racist view.
A perfect example of this flow of beliefs from science to the broader population can be seen in the evolution of the theory of social darwinism. Social Darwinism was a belief regarding the idea of natural selection, as explained in Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, stating it could also be applied to humans or other species. This idea was applied in the works of Sir Francis Galton, the mind behind the idea of eugenics, which applied the idea of natural selection to humans. By filtering out the inferior species, humans could be represented only by the most fit of the species, namely, the European white male. This idea was communicated most effectively in this quote from Galton’s "Eugenics: Its Definition, Scope, and Aims," the paper in which he details how this process of eugenics would work. “What nature does blindly, slowly, and ruthlessly, man may do providently, quickly, and kindly.” The osmosis of ideas from strictly scientific to a fusion of society with science fueled widespread racial superiority in much of Britain, and one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was not immune to.
While racism was extremely common in Victorian society, it is important to note for the purpose of analyzing the Sherlock Holmes works how Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was affected by the racial ideas of the period. Doyle had a fascinating relationship with the racial ideas of the time, one reflected in his works of Sherlock Holmes. He grew up in a society dominated by ideals of racial superiority, and as an adult he was fascinated by the study of human origin (McNabb). This influence is visible from the very beginning, where Holmes mentions Darwin in “A Study In Scarlet." “Do you remember what Darwin says about music? He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at” (Doyle 25). While the world around Doyle heavily believed in racial superiority, it was also preoccupied by concerns of racial anxiety, a set of concerns which also had a massive effect on his life and ideals. Jinny Huh, in her paper, Whispers of Norbury: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and the Modernist Crisis of Racial (Un)detection, analyzes how this anxiety affected Doyle’s life, and how it ultimately affected the Sherlock Holmes stories. In particular, she looks at an interaction between Doyle and Henry Highland Garnet, a well-known black abolitionist from the period. Her analysis brings to light how racial anxieties affected Doyle’s interaction with Garnet, and how it led to the eventual invention of Sherlock Holmes.
Doyle was put into a paradoxical position in the interaction, being raised to believe black men were barbaric heathens, and yet coming face to face with one who was “the most intelligent and well-read man whom [he] met on the coast” while acting as the doctor on a West African boat expedition (Doyle and Choat). This position challenged many of Doyle’s ingrained beliefs, and, according to his biographer Owen Dudley Edwards in his biography The Quest for Sherlock Holmes: A Biographical Study of Arthur Conan Doyle, ultimately was “perhaps the most momentous encounter [Doyle] had yet sustained in the course of his life.”
It is this combination of ingrained racism and racial anxiety which makes the stories in which Doyle focuses on race so fascinating. The three works most well known for their focus on race, “The Adventure of the Yellow Face," “The Adventure of the Three Gables," and “The Adventure of the Speckled Band," all present different ideas regarding the topic. "The Speckled Band" offers a perspective focusing on negative views and stereotypes of India by presenting Dr. Roylott, the doctor returned from India, as a crazed man whose life was overrun by his obsession with the same country. “The Yellow Face,” however, demonstrates an entirely contrasting viewpoint by telling the tale of a mixed racial family in a positive light which would have been incredibly generous for the period, the white husband immediately and happily accepting his mixed-race step-daughter. Finally, “The Three Gables” contains some of the most outright and offensive racism of any of the Sherlock Holmes stories, with one of the introductory characters, a black man named Steve Dixie, referring to Holmes as ‘Masser Holmes’ for the entirety of the story. These three stories are radically different, and yet they share this commonality of a focus on race which radically affects the quality of the story.
The Sherlock Holmes stories are known, first and foremost, for their mystery, as they are some of the first examples of what is recognized as the modern-day detective story. These three stories don’t focus on the mystery, instead focusing on the interactions of race. This misplaced focus on race rather than the story itself takes away from the mystery and ultimately lessens the value of the stories as detective stories, which is what they were intended to be. One of the best examples of this is in “The Adventure of the Yellow Face." As Henry Cuningham describes in his article “Sherlock Holmes and the Case of Race,” the traditional roles of the Sherlock Holmes stories are reversed in this tale. Usually Watson is the one to make extravagant speculations about the case at hand and Holmes reminds him of the error in speculating without all of the facts, while in this story Holmes makes a guess based entirely off what little information he does know, and even Watson calls him out on his broad conjecture: [Holmes:] “What do you think of my theory?” [Watson:] “It is all surmise” (Doyle 342). This reversal in the traditional roles of the famous duo is enough to confuse even the dedicated Holmes reader, as it is very out of character for Holmes. To confuse the reader is to take them out of the story in which they are immersed, so this is a troubling issue to come so early in the story, which is compounded by the fact Holmes’ theory turns out to be entirely wrong.
Yet another issue prominent in the story is the one of the yellow face itself. The mask on the little girl’s face does not add anything to the plot of the story beyond an excuse for Holmes to investigate the matter at hand, which ultimately becomes pointless as Mr. Munro decides to fight his way into the cottage rather than await Holmes’ deductions and ultimate conclusion. This ends up not making much sense, logically speaking, when looking at Mrs. Munro’s motivation for using the mask, which is “so that even those who might see her at the window should not gossip about there being a black child in the neighborhood." (Doyle 344). This logic is lost when one considers the mask “seemed to send a chill right down [Mr. Munro’s] back.”(Doyle 339) Anything so frightening from a long distance could only have caused even more gossip than a black child in the neighborhood. The only other conclusion which could reasonably be made as for Doyle’s reasoning for using the frightening yellow mask is to make the message he may have been trying to send more palatable to a society firmly against interracial marriage. The interracial child and marriage are far more palatable when they follow the horrifying description of the yellow face (Cuningham 120).
While “The Yellow Face” does offer a refreshingly positive opinion of interracial marriage for the time, it is also “an embarassment” of a detective story (Cuningham 120). Sadly, “The Adventure of the Three Gables” does not offer quite so refreshing a take. While the focus on race is not nearly as ingrained in the plot as it is in “The Yellow Face,” the racial conflict in this story is much more blatant stereotypical racism in comparison. Doyle’s emphasis on racial stereotypes of the period as seen in “The Three Gables” wasn’t necessarily common in his works, but it wouldn’t have been out of place in the eyes of the Victorian reader. Today however the caricaturistic nature of the character Steve Dixie is painful to read, and ultimately the character takes away from the story.
Dixie is the first character the reader meets in “The Three Gables,” and he shows himself multiple times throughout the story. Overall he is not a strong character, and he adds very little to the story beyond what one could only interpret as comedic effect. His exclamations of “so help me the Lord,” (Doyle) and his references to Holmes as “Masser Holmes” (Doyle) are both common stereotypes of the African-American slave, and Doyle uses them so frequently with Dixie he is reduced to more or less a cartoon than anything else, a walking, talking stereotype. He is also implied by Holmes to be spineless, easily threatened, and proudly degraded multiple times throughout the story, although most notably after their first encounter when Holmes remarks to Watson, “I am glad you were not forced to break his wooly head, Watson. I observed your manoeuvres with the poker. But he is really rather a harmless fellow, a great muscular, foolish, blustering baby, and easily cowed, as you have seen.” Doyle continues to pile the insults on Dixie, allowing Holmes to use him as a proverbial punching bag, often making comments on his unpleasant smell. The “hired bully” (Doyle 654) as Holmes refers to him does not cause him any sort of pause when considering the case, instead Dixie offers to help Holmes in his case, although he doesn’t actually have any information which can be of use.
Once again the focus on race in this story is awkward and distracting, and in this case the caricature presented of the African-American slave is entirely unnecessary, adding comedic effect for the Victorian reader but repelling the modern one. The most fascinating story of Sherlock Holmes in regards to race is arguably “The Adventure of the Speckled Band.” With its many issues with realism and its implications of the evil emanating from India, Doyle’s racial commentary in this story is both radically different and fascinatingly similar to “The Yellow Face” and “The Three Gables.”
The most noteworthy contrast between “The Speckled Band” and the other two stories is that while “The Yellow Face” and “The Three Gables” rely on racism towards African-Americans, “The Speckled Band” focuses on negative stigmas towards India. Despite this difference, the effect it has on the story is the same, the mystery is compromised. While none of the characters named in the story are of anything other than European descent, the racism is nonetheless still present in the negative connotations surrounding anything related to India. This idea premiers in the character of Dr. Roylott, the ultimate antagonist of the story. The man spent a good deal of time in India, only leaving after he is almost arrested for killing his native butler in a fit of rage. Upon his return to England and after the death of his wife he becomes belligerent, a change his stepdaughter, the protagonist, chalks up to being the result of and intensified by his extended time living in India, a concern she shares with Holmes when explaining her case, “Violence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the family, and in my stepfather’s case it had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics.” (Doyle 279)
It is this conclusion by Ms. Stoner which first plants the seed of an innate evil in India, one which seems to rub off on Dr. Roylott upon his return to Britain. As Susan Harris asserts in her paper “Pathological Possibilities: Contagion And Empire In Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Stories,” “not only the manner of the crime but also the inclination to commit it are attributed to the criminal’s contact with an alien culture” (Pratt-Smith 70). It is Roylott’s time in India which not only contributes to the method of murder in the story, but also is part of the reason he attempts murder in the first place. This construction of a negative relationship with India sets the basis for the rest of the story. This implication of India in the murder of Julia Stoner and the attempted murder of Helen Stoner is furthered when the latter suggests “the speckled band” her sister referred to in her dying words was meant to raise the image of the spotted handkerchiefs of the gypsies. To the modern reader this would not have any connection to India, but in the Victorian era a reader would have connected gypsies to India, so to suggest the gypsies may be responsible for the mysterious goings on is to once again encourage the connection between India and crime.
The most telling means by which Doyle presents a negative view of India is in the conclusion to the mystery. Roylott uses some form of Indian swamp adder to dispose of his two step-daughters, although he ends up being unsuccessful thanks to Holmes’ diligence. In this case, the snake and Roylott together are a manifestation of India and the evil it embodies. However, it is this same snake Doyle uses to portray the evil associated with India which is the downfall of the story. From 1849, 10 years before Doyle’s birth, until today, London has had a reptile house, home to a variety of snakes used for scientific study as well as public entertainment (Hall 2015). Despite this, the information regarding snakes in the story is far from correct. Snakes do not drink milk, so to train a snake using milk would not have worked, and snakes cannot climb up a thin rope, they could only go down it, making the method of the crime completely obsolete given a basic knowledge of snakes. This inconsistency can only reasonably be concluded to be the result of Doyle making concessions in the realism of the story for the sake of his message, a method which ultimately takes away from the story as a whole, and results in the devaluation of the mystery.
In short, Britain was a country swathed in racism, in its many forms, evident most particularly in its literature. While each of these stories has its strengths, they are brought down significantly by their faults. “The Yellow Face” is weakened by its logical fallacies, “The Three Gables” is brought down by its caricaturistic view of the African-American slave, and “The Speckled Band” is littered with factual inconsistencies. Doyle was one of the fathers of the modern detective story, and his mysteries are still revered to this day. Even so, all writers have their weaknesses, and for Doyle, it was his desire to incorporate deeper themes of race into his stories, and “The Yellow Face,” “The Three Gables,” and “The Speckled Band” are the most prominent of his stories to exemplify these themes. In shifting the focus from the mystery to his own complicated views on race, Doyle loses sight of what Holmes is known best for, and ultimately the mystery suffers a mortal wound.