Sherlock Holmes Essays - Sherlock Holmes, Fictional Detectives

Sherlock Holmes The Man with the Twisted Lip By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle In this short story, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mr. Neville St. Clair has been kidnapped. His wife is in town one day and she sees him hanging outside of a window. As she looks up at him, he lets out a scream and is yanked back into the room from where he stands. She is very concerned about seeing her husband in this situation and thinks that he is in trouble. She runs to the entrance of the building that she saw him standing in and she tries to get upstairs to where he is and help him. She is stopped by the doorman and not allowed access to the upstairs. Once the police get to the scene, they barge into the upstairs area and discover that Mr. Neville St. Clair is not in the room. The only person in the room is a beggar man named Hugh Boone. Everyone is familiar with Boone because he sits in the city and begs for a living. The police demand an explanation on where St. Clair is and there is not one given by Boone or the doorman. On the backside of the building there was a body of water that at high tide came up to the bottom of the lone window in the room. Traces of blood were found on the window seal of this window and drops of blood on the floor. The clothing of St. Clair was found in the corner of the room and his coat was found in the water at the bottom of the window. The assumption was made that Boone killed St. Clair and the body was disposed of in the water. The police detained Boone but the body was not found. Sherlock Holmes was interested in finding the body. Holmes, along with Watson, went to the St. Clair home and interviewed Mrs. St. Clair. Holmes admitted to Mrs. St. Clair that the he thought her husband might still be living. She agreed with great anticipation and told her that the most startling thing had happened to her that day. It was three days since the disappearance of her husband and she had received a letter dated AFTER her husbands disappearance. Holmes asked to see the letter so he could examine it. He asked Mrs. St. Clair whether or not she was sure this was her husband's writing. She was sure that the writing was his. Holmes also noticed that the letter had a dirty thumb print on it. Surely this was proof that Boone, the beggar, had done the crime. He could not explain how the letter was dated after the fact in her husbands handwriting. The content of the letter was simple. Mr. St. Clair's short note assured his wife that he would be home and there was a mix up that needed correcting before he returned. Holmes and Watson decided to stay the night at the St. Clair home and head back for the crime scene in the morning. That night Holmes thought on the situation and started to make conclusions. Upon their return to the city, Holmes and Watson went to the jail to speak with the beggar man Boone. When they got there, the chief told them that they were having the hardest time getting the beggar man to bathe. They had tried and tried to no avail. When Holmes and Watson looked at Boone they did not see a pretty sight. He was dirty from head to toe and he had a hideous looking scar on his face that made his lip curl up on the edge and expose his teeth. He also had a bad cut on his hand that was starting to heal. The chief commented that the beggar man had still not given any information on the disappearance of St. Clair. Holmes looked upon the beggar for a while as the beggar slept and then did something interesting. He took a wet sponge and went and scrubbed the face of the beggar. The make-up and the plaster dissolved and the true identity of the beggar was revealed he in fact was St. Clair. Holmes had surprised the

Matewan and Harlan County USA

Matewan and Harlan County USA Matewan ‘Matewan’ is an American drama film by John Sayles that narrates a story of the events of struggle to unionize the West Virginia coal-minors in 1920s. According to Sayles, the Stone Mountain Coal company was the only dominant company in the Western Virginia in the 1920s. Sayles (1987) notes that the Stone Mountain was the only mining company in the region at the time an advantage it used to monopolize every mining business opportunity in the region.Advertising We will write a custom critical writing sample on Matewan and Harlan County USA specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This monopoly forced miners into bondage contract with the company since they had no alternative with regard to employment. In addition, since workers had no alternative place to seek employment, it became easy for the Coal Company to oppress workers by offering low pay and making them work under poor conditions. To make matters worse, employees d id not even know their employers who did not even bother to show up in the company. Instead, company representatives took of every responsibility of supervising their work. Nonetheless, Sayles reveals that the representatives remained excessively oppressive as they used intimidation to force workers to deliver what they wanted (Sayles, 1987). Sayles noted that apart from threats from company representatives, miners took home petty remuneration with no complaints. In addition, the Coal Company restricted workers freedom as consumers in, which miners had to buy everything from the company from food to clothes. Equally, the management team forced workers to buy tools from the company to ensure that all the money they obtained circulated back to the company. Further, the Coal Company in most cases charged workers higher prices for their purchases than normal market charges (Sayles, 1987). Therefore, growing intolerant of the hash and unjust rules, the miners decided to strike against th e company. Strike motivation aimed at forcing the Coal Company to offer better working conditions. However, in order to drive their agenda, the miners found it prudent to unionize in order to form a stronger presence and opposition against the Coal Company. This is because the miners felt that it was only through union that they could mount a strong and formidable opposition to force the company to recognize their rights (Sayles, 1987). Harlan County USA ‘The film Harlan County USA’ dramatizes a coal miner’s strike at the Brookside mine in Harlan County, Kentucky. According to the film director, the Brookside mine belongs to a private owner run under the Eastover Mining Company.Advertising Looking for critical writing on political sciences? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Unlike in Matewan, where workers found motivation to form a union to enable them push their agenda, Harlan County’s work ers already belonged to a union called the Southern Labor Union. The union drew membership from the entire Eastern Kentucky to propagate the plight of the workers before company authorities (Kopple, 1976). The documentary reveals that workers of Brookside mining company felt unhappy with the working condition at the mining site as observed in Matewan. This is because, despite doing a lot of hard work, they received extremely low salaries compared to what their unionized counterparts got. Kopple (1976) reveals that these workers received a salary ranging from $17 to $32 per day, which was way below the $45 that their counterparts got. In addition, the company had not assured them of safety as several injuries used to occur, estimated at three times above the national average. Therefore, they opted to strike demanding the right to form their own safety committee elected by the union members. They also wanted their salary increased to $45 per day as received among their counterparts. I n addition, the miners wanted the company to pay the standard UMW rate of 75 cents for every ton, remitted directly to their medical and retirement benefits (Kopple, 1976). The two films also share many similarities with regard to worker motivation and sustenance of morale in the mining industry depicted in US history (Blanchflower and Freeman, 2001). As witnessed in both films, workers unionize in order to form a formidable force to push for the recognition of workers’ rights. However, the two films differ in the sense that whereas the Matewan workers struggle to unionize, Eastover readily allowed workers’ union. Despite unionized approach, workers in Eastover still fight for their rights seemingly violated by the company in breach of union terms. References Blanchflower, D. D., Freeman, R. B. (2001). Unionism in the United States and other advanced OECD countries, Retrieved from dartmouth.edu/~blnchflr/papers/indrel.pdfAdvertising We will write a custom crit ical writing sample on Matewan and Harlan County USA specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Kopple, B. (Executive Producer). (1976). Harlan County USA (YouTube). Bigboogertz. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCiVMngILEI Sayles, J. (Executive Producer). (1987). Matewan-The Union (YouTube). DukatSG1. Web.