Writer's methods — The Sign of Four — AQA GCSE English Literature 8702
AQA GCSE English Literature · 8702
Writer's methods
Writer's methods
What you need to know
How Conan Doyle's form, structure and language create meaning: narration, the detective-story structure, the story within the story,
setting and atmosphere, foils, description and dialogue.
Watson's first-person narration: what he notices, what he admits about his own feelings, and how he presents Holmes.
The detective-story structure: a client's case, a locked-room murder, clues and deductions, a false trail, a chase and a capture, then a confession that explains the past.
Small's story within the story in Chapter 12, and the interruptions that keep the reader judging him.
Setting and atmosphere: fog, gaslight and the Thames at night, and Gothic touches at Pondicherry Lodge.
Foils and pairs: Holmes and Watson, Holmes and Athelney Jones, the twins Thaddeus and Bartholomew, and Small and Major Sholto.
Description as characterisation, including the racial stereotypes in the descriptions of Tonga, and dialect in the speech of McMurdo, Mrs Smith and Small.
