Between Fear and Fascination Orientalism in Doyle’S Sherlock Holmes Stories and the BBC Series Sherlock
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LEOPOLD-FRANZENS-UNIVERSITÄT INNSBRUCK Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät Institut für Anglistik Between Fear and Fascination Orientalism in Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes Stories and the BBC Series Sherlock Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.a phil.) eingereicht von Theresa Hämmerle bei Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sibylle Baumbach, MA Innsbruck, im Februar 2019 Plagiarism Disclaimer I hereby declare that this diploma thesis is my own and autonomous work. All sources and aids used have been indicated as such. All texts either quoted directly or paraphrased have been indicated by in-text citations. Full bibliographic details are given in the bibliography, which also contains internet sources including URL and access date. This work has not been submitted to any other examination authority before. February 2019 ______________________________________ Date Signature Acknowledgements Throughout the process of writing this thesis, I have relied on the honest and constructive feedback from my supervisor as well as family and friends. First of all, I would like to thank Professor Sibylle Baumbach, who advised me in identifying a suitable topic and encouraged me to work independently while still providing me with valuable feedback. I also owe a special debt of gratitude to my parents for their never-ending support. I am very grateful for their incessant belief in me and for their encouraging me to pursue my goals. In addition, I would like to thank my friends … Stefan Hechl for proof-reading my thesis in such a professional way and providing me with valuable advice, and for comments which were not only extremely helpful but also amusing at times. … Noemi Wörmer and Lisi Schwameis for giving me helpful feedback on parts of my thesis. … Sabrina Innerhofer for the many discussions on Sherlock Holmes, our mutual favourite detective since our Crime Fiction seminar in 2016, and also William Neuner for questioning my argumentation concerning non-white characters in Sherlock and thus broadening my perspective. … Irian Kennedy for answering all my questions on grammar or vocabulary with everlasting patience and many supportive coffee breaks. Thank you for support! Table of Contents 1. Introduction....................................................................................................................... 1 2. State of the Art .................................................................................................................. 5 3. Of Colonialism, Imperialism, and Orientalism ................................................................... 8 3.1 “The world’s sole superpower”: Colonialism, Imperialism, and the British Empire ..... 8 3.2 “The White Man’s Burden”: Imperialist Mindset ....................................................... 14 3.2.1 Shaping the Imperialist Mindset: Orientalism and Post-Colonial Theory ............. 18 3.2.2 From Defoe, Conrad, and Kipling to Conan Doyle: Orientalism in Literature ..... 27 4. Orientalism in Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories .............................................................. 31 4.1 Fascinatingly Dangerous: Oriental Characters and Other Living Beings .................... 31 4.1.1 Hindu Servants, Sikh Allies, and Cannibals: Exotic ‘Savages’ ............................ 31 4.1.2 From “the woman” to the “Napoleon of Crime”: Superior Westerners ................ 43 4.1.3 The Empire Bites Back: Exotic Animals and Diseases ........................................ 52 4.2 “Land of despair”, “oasis of art”, and Opium Dens: Oriental Settings ........................ 58 4.2.1 A Hero Abroad, a Criminal in Britain: Foreign Conflicts on British Soil ............. 59 4.2.2 Dangerous Decoration: Oriental Settings in Britain ............................................. 75 4.2.3 “Lost in Tobacco and Thought”: Drug Use Between Addiction and Control ....... 82 4.3 Conclusion of the Literary Analysis ........................................................................... 88 5. Orientalism in the BBC series Sherlock ........................................................................... 93 5.1 Inferior Foreigners and Superior Westerners: Diversity, the BBC, and Sherlock ........ 93 5.2 From “Distant Moonlit Shores” to the Iron Lady: Foreign Settings .......................... 114 5.3 Conclusion of the Series Analysis, Comparison, and Final Résumé ......................... 124 6. Fear, Fascination, and Sherlock Holmes in the EFL Classroom ..................................... 130 6.1 The Significance of Teaching Orientalism in Literature and Film ............................ 130 6.2 Target Group ........................................................................................................... 133 6.3 Teaching Objectives, Content, and Structure of Lessons .......................................... 134 6.4 Teaching Material ................................................................................................... 140 Bibliography ..................................................................................................................... 149 Primary Sources ............................................................................................................ 149 Secondary Sources ........................................................................................................ 150 1. Introduction “All the same, whatever Europe is, it owes in part to its imperial adventures.” (Kiernan, Imperialism 169) “[I]f one were choosing the best twenty short detective stories ever written, at least half a dozen of them would be about Sherlock Holmes.” (Symons 78) In April 2012, the Daily Mail published an article bearing the title: “Yes, mistakes were made, but we must never stop being proud of the Empire” (Lawrence). The article was written by British historian James Lawrence, and it was only one of many contributions to the discussion of whether the Empire was actually “good or bad” (Jackson 3). Indeed, in Britain, the Empire is still a much-debated issue which “raises temperatures as well as headlines” (ibid. 2), as Jackson puts it. The pride connected to Empire originates in the nineteenth century, the heyday of British imperialism. The nineteenth century was, even more than the centuries before, characterised by imperialism and the struggle for colonies. The imperial ambition of the European powers led to most of the non-Western world being in European hands. By exploiting their colonies, the European powers accumulated riches and became wealthier and wealthier, their economies flourishing, whereas the colonies became poorer and poorer, being hindered from establishing their own functioning economies. The leading imperial power was the British Empire (Jansen and Osterhammel, Dekolonisation 11): it possessed more colonies than any other European nation and was, consequently, the most powerful empire of the world during the reign of Queen Victoria. As a result, the British self-esteem was relatively high. Due to people from the colonies migrating to Britain and goods being imported into the Empire, the British came into contact with the foreign.1 Together with exhibitions and stories about the colonies (Koller 400), this contact with colonial people and commodities resulted in an increasing sense of superiority on behalf of the British, and they were convinced of being more civilised and progressive than the peoples of the colonies. The British sense of superiority made itself noticeable in Britain’s 1 Obviously, it was not the first time the British came into contact with the foreign. However, Victorian Britain’s beliefs and values were decisively influenced by the impression of the foreign they received in the colonial context. 1 attitude towards non-British ‘others’. Especially the colonised, but also foreigners or non- Europeans in general were often confronted with a rather arrogant and patronising attitude. This feeling of superiority was also expressed in contemporary literature. One example thereof is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. His stories were and are famous all over the world and are considered some of the best detective stories ever written (Symons 78). Being referred to as “the Great Detective”, in Ousby’s (39) or Barnes’ (24) works, it is not even necessary to mention Holmes’s name in order to know who is being talked about. Doyle’s stories have been turned into several films and TV series, there is a Sherlock Holmes Museum in London2, and famous companies like Red Bull and Nikon use the detective for their advertising campaigns3. There are even Sherlock Holmes societies which produce fan writing and search for hidden meanings in the Holmes stories (Wiltse 108- 9). The fan culture surrounding the famous detective has not only overcome the death of the main character but also that of the author. From the moment the Holmes stories were first published in The Strand, people from all over Britain started writing letters to the then fictional address of 221B Baker Street in order to ask for Holmes’s help (Wiltse 109). When Doyle let Holmes die in “The Final Problem”, the detective’s death resulted in an outcry among his fans all over Britain and also America, as they wanted to continue reading stories featuring the great detective (Klinger 713; Wiltse 108). Taking all this into consideration, it is clear that Sherlock Holmes has survived his creator and has become a household name, known by everyone, even if they have never read a Sherlock Holmes story or watched a movie or