Darkness In Dr. Roylott's The Speckled Band

Later on, the monster looks back on how he has changed and how much he has learned. “Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was. I cherished hope, it is true; but it vanished when I beheld my person reflected in water, or my shadow in the moonshine, even as that frail image and that inconstant shade” (133). In this quote, the monster explains that as he gained more knowledge, it made him feel even worst and feel more like an outcast. After his loss of innocence through the power of knowledge, he couldn’t look at himself the same way as before.

Inside us all there is a deep dark fear this is what grabs us by the thresh hold of life. It controls the most important aspects of our lives. This is found within the deepest and darkest chasms of our souls. The very creature that wreaks havoc in our minds we cage and never confront we lock this beast away to afraid to overcome it. If the beast is not confronted it begins to contort and change who we are as a person and how we interact with others. Even the very decisions we make as a person to affect those around us and are loved ones to also suffer the consequences of our actions. Such as the crucible and how each person was warped into their own monster by greed.

In the article “Monsters and the Moral Imagination,” Stephen Asma, a professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Scholar at Columbia College Chicago, argues that the existence of monsters have a purpose in our lives. It is not only to reveal our deepest fears, but to question our moral instincts. Being attacked by fictional monsters seems impractical, however, chaos and disasters do happen and exist in the real world. The creation of monsters is due to our reaction of our fears and the inability to control the world we live in.

I choose the short story “The Speckled Band” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle because I find mystery and suspense very interesting, it something that you have to wait till the end to find out what happens. I find Sherlock Holmes very fascinating and how clever and intelligently he solves the cases. I’ve read other books related to Sherlock Holmes like The Hound of the Baskervilles, as well my favorite TV show Sherlock on BBC. Some questions I had after reading the short story was since the snake travel through the air ventilation, and then wouldn’t Miss Stoner have air ventilation in her room? why wasn’t Miss Stoner’s future husband not helping her out in this tough time? For this research paper, I used HCC Literature Resource Center to find two

Through out the story, Roylott is overall presented as threatening, dangerous and a intelligent man. This can be identified through his appearance, behaviour and motives, there is also evidence of this personality in the story. Also, Conan Doyle uses various phrases and words to describe him which suggests the man to be dangerous.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once said, “The line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” Every indivdual has the decision between good and evil. Not every person will choose the right side of the line. When an indivdual crosses over the line to the evil side this is known as The Lucifer Effect. Philip Zimbardo, the individual that coined the idea, presented the ideas behind why people change and turn evil even if though their whole life they were not known as an evil person. According to Zimbardo, people turn evil for one of two reasons; The Lucifer Effect and the seven social processes that grease the slippery slope of evil (TED Talks).

When I think of the concept of “evil,” I think of The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius. In The Consolation of Philosophy, Lady Philosophy stated:

A well-educated German philosopher and cultural critic, Friedrich Nietzsche, once said, “He who fights with monsters should look to it so that he himself does not become a monster.” Nietzsche’s metaphorical statement uses the word “monsters” as a symbol to represent the various sources of evil that one may come across in their lives and that one should have self-awareness within themselves in order to not adopt the characteristics of which they are fighting against. This quote relates to the various concepts of morality, ethics, corruption, and justice seen within Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men. Through the development of the structure, setting, and characters, McCarthy argues that evil exists as a pervasive, unpredictable, and inescapable

The association of darkness with monsters and evil serves a dual purpose in

A mysterious murder in which almost nobody could figure out the cause of, a twin sister who, not knowing for certain, but could suffer the same fate if the killer is not found or stopped. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle creates a suspenseful mood in his story, “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” in many ways. Mr.Holmes and Dr.Watson set out to solve one of their most deadly mysteries yet, and try to prevent an innocent woman’s death. Mr.Doyle has his main victim be targeted by her own stepfather, has her move into her dead twin sister’s old room, and makes a mystery that even Sherlock Holmes almost missed. In the dead twin’s old room, the bed was mysteriously attached to the floor, and a faint whistle had been heard right before the sister was found

The resentful, or lower class, develop the concept of “evil”, which becomes essential to everything in their day-to-day lives. Although bad and evil are both commonly regarded as opposites of "good," bad and evil prove to be different for Nietzsche. The original notion of good is exemplified amongst the noble. "Bad" refers to its opposite. The notion which eventually came to dominate, or the new notion, became the resentful or slave's notion of good, portrayed as weak, unselfish, and unassertive.

The “Adventure of the Speckled Band” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is a short story about the mysterious death of Helen Stoner’s sister. The main characters in the story are Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, Helen Stoner, and Dr. Grimesby Roylott. “The Adventure of the Speckled band” takes place in April, 1883, Stoke Moran, England. Helen Stoner came to seek Sherlock Holmes’s and Dr. Watson’s help

Carl Jung believed that you couldn’t become a good person until you realized your capacity for evil. I don’t mean acting it out on the world, but understand that it is possible, and to bring it under your control. This is because there’s a big difference between someone who is ‘naive’ and a ‘good person’, and someone genuine. They’re a good person because they can’t not be, they’re like a pet cat, they don’t even have the capacity to be bad, there’s no morality in that. The morality comes when you’re a monster, and you can control it, and that’s the Jungian encounter with the shadow, who’s roots, according to Jung, go all the way down to hell.

Evil in this context is regarding to all suffering, pain and horror. Evil can be categorized as natural evil and moral evil. Natural evil is that which occurs by natural means e.g. earthquakes, tsunamis etc. Moral evil is that which is imposed on humans by humans e.g.

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” –Friedrich Nietzsche