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Burton Gui
Dr. Lynda Haas
Writing 39B
August 28, 14
Literature Review
Imperialism in The Sign of Four The Sign of Four
The literature Literature usually functions to accurately reflects a society in which writers
are unconsciously influenced by its transformation and ideology. As the most famous detective,
featured in The Sign of Four by Sir. Arthur Canon Doyle, in late 18
th
, Sherlock Holmes does not
merely play as an imaginary character endowed brilliant intelligence and astute observation,
utilizing the unique method named science of deduction, to lead readers to experience a
puzzle-solving game. In The Sign of Four, the Sir. Arthur Cannon Doyles second detective
fiction, Sherlock Holmes is endowed with brilliant intelligence and astute observation and leads
readers to experience many astonishing myth-solving adventures. According to literary scholar
George Dove in The Different Story, detective fictions are supported to be a puzzle-solving
game, without extra stress. Meanwhile, although Doyle tries to avoid importing social critiques
and Victorian moralism to his readers and to bring the detective story closer to pure
narrative(80), which is pointed out by Leroy Panek in Doyle, An Introduction to the
Detective Story, Holmes is still stamped upon the conspicuous age imprint. Leroy Panek, who
wrote a full-length study of the detective genre, An Introduction to the Detective Story, explains
that Doyle tries to avoid importing social critiques and Victorian moralism, bringing the
detective story closer to pure narrative(80). However, Holmes is still stamped with the attitudes
and beliefs of the Victorian era. The detective novellas stories of Doyle, especially The Sign of
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Four, provide precious literature materials to research a way to understand British imperialism
and the divergent Victorian attitudes toward its colonialism. At the zenith of an empire upon
which the sun never set, Britain enjoyed harvests from its worldwide colonies. Relying upon
its great international achievement, the British were confident in their role as a strong power to
lead the world, and Imperialism was prevalent among the society. Accompanying with
Ethnocentrism developed from the British feeling of superiority, resulting in prejudice and
discrimination towards other cultures and people evolved into distinct racism and imperial
governance, which was. These ideas are reinforced and incarnated by Doyle in his classic
mystery involving an exotic treasure and a native Andaman islander who is portrayed as a savage
murder armed with poison darts. In 1857, before the publish of The Sign of Four, Indian Munity,
the first rebellion of native against British colonial rule, alarmed British from the fragile
obedience of native to cause them rethink their governance of colonies forced British to rethink
their governance and quell the turbulence. Maybe Doyle does not mean to deliberately reflect
Imperialism in his novel, but a group of scholars, like Leroy Panek, Christopher Keep, Kirby
Farrell and John McBratney, have tracked on the traces of imperial ideology from the famous
within Doyles detective fiction. Based upon examination of imperialism within The Sign of
Four, these scholars note a conflicting feeling how the novel illustrate the fear of incursion
from natives, the desire of reinforcement of colonial governance and the fasciation a fascination
with the products made available through dominance of foreign territories. of Victorian society
towards colonialism.
According to literary critic Kirby Farrell in his article Heroism, Culture, and Dread In
The Sign of Four, racist description of the aboriginal people being savage and inherently violent
is illustrative of common conceptualization towards foreign figures, as a fear of insurrectionary
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incursive behaviors in British colonies. Kirby Farrell in Heroism, Culture, and Dread In The
Sign of Four mentions that With its rebellious black fiends (p.234) and black devils (p.232)
colonial India comes to express the dark face of the England idealized in the novel(34).
Tonga, as the companion of criminal Jonathan Small, epitomizes the rebellious Indian stepping
upon Britain and coming with hostility, and he is also referred to the fear, among British,
towards foreign incursion. Tonga performs his war dance when Small exhibits him in their
travels (156;ch.12), McBratney adds the point in Racial and Criminal Types. Through
Watsons perspective, even though Tonga is falling down to the bottom of Thames, his scary and
distorted appearance still frightens Watson, a former military doctor. I caught one glimpse of
his venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the waters, Doyle writes in the fiction
(1641). These are the exact kind of distortion of other races and the fear promoted by
imperialism especially after the Munity of India. Also, Watson describes Tonga as a little black
man the smallest I have ever seen with a great, misshapen head and a shock of tangled,
disheveled hairand chattered at us with half animal fury(1627). In addition, Christopher Keep
in Addiction, Empire and Narrative in The Sign of the Four demonstrates Tongas sunken
eyes and animal fury are a complex distillation of contemporary accounts of the murderous
rage exhibited by the Sepoys during the Munity(214). In fact, McBratney has pointed out
Andamanese, the prototype of Tonga, are not averagely below four feet, and they are as the
normal people who are even distinctly good looking(155). As one can see the description in
the novel does not reflect the reality, but complies with the look on the world where imperialists
presented their anxiety and where natives who had disobeyed their government in the colony
were demonized.(The sentence is very unclear and without evidence) As an intruder from the
savage world, Tonga has arrived in England and brought with him the sheer excessiveness of
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the colonial world(Keep, 214). To exclude evil incursion, the British has to invite Sherlock
Holmes, the representative imperialism, who has the most sophisticated detective skills among
the empire.
The progress of tracking the murder of Bartholomew Sholto by using the Imperial
Gazetteer reflects the influence from criminal anthropology and racial criminal types framed to
reinforce governance of India, as an imperial desire of consolidating British imperialism.
Ethnographic information before the Munity was used to expand more territories and maximize
revenues of British interests in India. However, after the Indian Rebellion, British rethought of
collecting data to forestall another rebellion (McBratney, 151). Keep addresses, Canon
Doyle employs nineteenth-century typologies of gender, class, and race, and thus creates a
detective designed to enforce the fixity and naturalness of established social order
(686-87)(216). Then, McBratney demonstrates, The discourses of census powerfully molded
perspectives onBritish fiction writers, like Doyle, who wrote about India. We still see this
shaping power especially in that writers susceptibility to the language of racial typethe
foreclosure of political consciousness and activity in Indian(153). When Sherlock Holmes
begins to track down the mysterious companion of Small, the description of the Andaman
Islanders that Holmes identifies as the first volume of a gazetteer which is now being published
lights a bright clue leading towards Tonga (1303). With the help of the gazetteer, Holmes finds
the murder; British enforced its governance in India and excluded any reasons of causing
aggressiveness of natives except to racial instincts. Likewise, in the case of Tonga, the
fixation on type obviates all consideration of ramifications of colonialism. Doyles narrative
ascribes the Islanders violence not to any legitimate resentment of British invasions of the
archipelago but to his races innate proclivity for monstrous aggression, McBratney adds to the
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discussion (156). Thus, as Tonga and his poison darts dramatize ungovernable anger which
must be extinguished, so Holmes enacts an equally dissociated conscience It is not society or
a privileged class punishing a rebellious upstart, but rather Truth annihilating savage
Evil(Farrell, 35). Imperialism rationalized its colonial influences upon natives, which stamped
rebellions as a type criminal and the brutal nature of the colonized. In the novel, Tonga who
represents for the rebel is distorted by Doyle as a cannibal feast (1304) and eventually ends up
his life Somewhere in the dark ooze at the bottom of the Thames(Doyle, 1645). (The
paragraph is very confusing and distracted, so I decided to delete the paragraph and only use the
information to support my introduction.)
Regardless of the fear of exoticism, these scholars also notice the Sun Never Set
empire had a deep addiction towards its foreign colonies, which also can be addressed from the
novel. According to these scholars, The Sign of Four also reflects a deep addiction of the Sun
Never Set empire towards its foreign colonies. Though the mid- to late-nineteenth-century view
of the colonies had bred into a conflicting imperial conception, it was still widely held that the
colonies were vital to the success of the British Imperial government (Panek 80). Miss Morstans
accessories from India do not escape Watsons attention, especially the "a small turban of the
small dull [grey] hue, relieved only by the suspicion of a white feather in the side" (Doyle, 313).
He quickly turns and focuses all his attention on the accessories that finally serve as his basis of
attraction to her. He is also very descriptive of Thaddeus Sholtos not-so-humble abode.
Watson describes the abode, as "The carpet was of amber and black, so soft and so thick that the
foot sank pleasantly into it, as into a bed of moss" (Doyle, 502). He associates the foreign objects
found in the house with decadence. It is a western characteristic tendency to view the other
cultures as not civilized enough to their level. The British officials in the colonies accrued lots of
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wealth from their colonial visits as seen from the character Abdullah Khan. He tells Jonathan
Small, "We only ask you to do that which your countrymen come to this land for. We ask you to
be rich" (Doyle, Loc-1897). The general feeling amongst the British visiting the colonies was
that the treasure they had was theirs for the taking. As Khan is seen telling Jonathan Small, the
colonies are simply sources of wealth for the British Imperialists. Though they do not value the
people or even their culture, they still consider the economic opportunities presented by the
colonies as massive (Keep 207). They exploit them by taking whatever gems they find and even
acquire large tracts of land for themselves despite of the remarkable loathing of the local cultures.
He further goes on to depict this tendency as he talks about "a lamp in the fashion of a silver
dove," noting that it, "[hangs] from an almost invisible golden wire in the centre of the room. As
it burned it filled the air with a subtle and aromatic odour" (Doyle 502). While the imperialists
loot the riches from their colonies, the so-called savages wallow in poverty despite being the
owners of these spoils (Farrell 34). In addition, Keep addresses, Cocaine is, in this sense, the
archetypal colonial product: it traces an arc from raw substance originating on the
ill-defined[India]periphery of empire(210). Also, He further discusses that Holmes
symbolizes Imperialism, which he needs cocaine to stimulate his mind, as Britain needed
Narcotics to earn money. Thus, India is like drug, which imperialists could not resist its interest
temptation, as well as poison, which they were afraid of colonial insurrections (210-11).
The Sign of Four is an outstanding work of literature that witnesses social transformation
and imperialism in the Victorian era. Sherlock Holmes acts as a social guard guard of society
fighting against barbaric and savage natives, representing for rebellions from British colonies
and threatening the stability of the heart of the empire. However, unwittingly, he also cannot
resist an addiction to exotic products, as symbolizing how imperialists relied upon the irresistible
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economic stimulation offered by colonies. The novel completely records the conflicting feeling
among British towards colonialism. Although Sherlock Holmes is influenced by Imperialism, he
still represents a spirit based on of sophisticated analysis and the use solid evidence to solve
problems. Nowadays, he transcends the imperialist context in which he was originally written,
serving as a classic hero without super powers, just his intelligence owned by even ordinary
people.

















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Works Cited
Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Sign of the Four. Seattle: Amazon Digital Services, 2013. Kindle
eBook. Online.
Dove, George N. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1997. Print.
Farrell, Kirby. "Heroism, Culture and Dread in The Sign of the Four." Studies in the Novel 16.1
(1984): 32-51. Print.
Keep, Christopher, and Don Randall. "Addiction, Empire, and Narrative in Arthur Conan Doyle's
"The Sign of the Four"." NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 32.2 (1999): 207-221. Print.
Mcbratney, John. "Racial And Criminal Types: Indian Ethnography And Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle's The Sign Of Four." Victorian Literature and Culture 33.01 (2005): 149-167.
Print.
Panek, LeRoy. An introduction to the detective story. Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green
State University Popular Press, 1987. Print.