Sherlock Homles: The Setting

Author's note: The importance of the setting in the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Sherlock Holmes’s stories, written by Arthur Conan Doyle, take place in the late nineteenth century, around 1890. Sherlock Holmes (and sometimes Watson) lives in apartment 221B on Baker Street. The city and place may not prove to be as significant, but the time does. The time it takes place is very important because of the lack of technology.

 First off, Sherlock Holmes has to do everything by hand. He has to write things down, and keep his own files on people. Instead of just quickly looking some fact up online, he has to use his books. Also, he can’t look people up; he has to figure things out about them for himself. It’s true that it may not be possible to find everyone, but if someone has a Facebook these days, one would be able too. Sherlock Holmes is not able to rely on the Internet to solve a case.

Another thing comes to my mind after reading A Scandal in Bohemia. Sherlock Holmes finds his own way into Irene Adler’s house to steal a picture she can use for blackmail. With modern technology, a stunt of those sort would prove a little less complicated. But instead, he had to whip up an act to get in, then fake a fire so he could find out where she kept what was most important to her (which was the picture). Surly not using any technology would slow Holmes down.

The amazing part though, is that it doesn’t slow him down. After you consider that, Sherlock Holmes has to be even smarter. It is true, though; that they didn’t know what technology they were missing back then. But still, it would seem even more amazing in the nineteenth century, because no one was ever that smart,and Holmes would seem to be superhuman. In today’s world, someone not as smart as him could possibly pull something similar off, with the help of technology. Without technology, however, it still seems astounding in today's world. Because of the lack of technology, the setting makes a significant impact on the story.