This week, I led a discussion on an illustration by Sidney Paget for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Man With the Twisted Lip.” This discussion as well as the discussions led by some of my classmates enhanced my understanding of the role these illustrations played in how we understand the text. I found the role these illustration’s played in our understanding of gender in fin-de-siécle literature. It was really interesting analyzing how much agency the women were given in these illustrations. In Paget’s illustration “at the food of the stairs she met the Lascar scoundrel” from “The Man With the Twisted Lip,” Mrs. St. Clair is shown to be completely at the mercy of the man in the image. She has no control over her own movements or actions and the man has a big height advantage over her, enforcing Victorian ideologies pertaining to women’s role as second to men. In contrast, Paget’s image “she raised her vail” from “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” Helen Stoner is seen higher than Sherlock Holmes and with full control over her own movements, challenging the same notions that Paget enforces in an earlier story. This strong contrast between the treatment of women in these two images is a really interesting tidbit that I took from today’s class.

This week was especially helpful for me because I intend on focussing on the iconic image of Sherlock Holmes as created by Sidney Paget and how that image has been enforced and challenged throughout history for my research project.