Patriarchal Society of Sherlock Holmes

During the Victorian era as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created various adventures of Sherlock Holmes, he was surrounded by a patriarchal society. The assumption that women were inferior to men was true of that period. Women were expected to stay inside, raise the children, and perform “social” tasks. Men ate meat while women ate cake, strawberries, and custard (Bird 1). In various Sherlock Holmes stories featuring females, Doyle devises plots that depend on women, however they are often silent or physically absent even though they are vital to the narrative. Females are marginalized, controlled, and contained like colonized foreign subjects (Favor 398). Conan Doyle’s views pertaining to women colored Sherlock’s as he created three damsels- in – distress stories, “A Case of Identity,” “The Copper Beeches,” and “The Speckled Band,” however, Doyle’s first story, “A Scandal in Bohemia” reveals opposite outlook of women (Harrison 1).
According to Redmond (82)...