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A Case of Identity - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story
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Sherlock Holmes: A Case of Identity
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A Case of Identity (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
Discussion Questions
1) Holems said to Watson that "... there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace." Do you agree that the everyday, ordinary events can sometimes seem unnatural?
2) What thoughts occurred to you when Homser Angel wasn’t in the cabcar the day of the wedding?
3) Both the mother and stepfather were playing a part in this trick. Who do you feel was most at fault and why?
4) Why do you think the cabcar driver played along and lied to Miss Sutherland about Homser Angel?
5) After Windibank left, Holmes said to Watson, "That fellow will rise from crime to crime until he does something very bad, and ends on a gallows." Do you think Holmes said this because Windibank got away with this?
5) If you were in Sherlock Holmes position, would you have told Miss Sutherland the truth about Homser Angel? Why or why not?
When I first read the story — and I must have been around eleven — the thing that struck me was Doyle’s early use of the differences in wear between typewriters to assign a given typed message to a particular machine. This has been an actual tool of law enforcement, although there have been charges that typewriters were modified by some agencies to make them fit the evidence.This began to be less useful once IBM introduced interchangeable type elements, and of course nowadays it would be a matter of identifying the printer that generated the message. (Yes, there are computer typefaces that emulate typewriters, but these don’t leave an impression on the paper, even if they are designed to appear to show wear, so the issue shouldn’t be confused.)
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I agree. But not just her stepfather, her mother too, they are bad people, in my opinion. They are stealing from their child.
Holmes not telling Miss Sutherland what happened is a breathtaking case of misogyny ... and also malpractice since she is his client and he is meant to be investigating for her.It's quite a slight story in adventure terms, but the appalling treatment of Miss Sutherland by all involved has made it much more memorable for me this time around (although I remember finding it unsatisfactory that Holmes didn't tell her even when I was twelve).
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It's quite a sligh..."
Agreed, but I can't imagine she wouldn't return to him to ask for the solution-will he outright lie to her, or make up some simpler explanation to assure her that Angel will not be returning and was scamming her. If he doesn't tell her something to that effect, then Windibank will have gained his end, and will continue to have her money-I don't understand how he cannot reveal some aspect of the crime to her at some point.
I agree that this was a case of betrayal by Holmes. Miss Sutherland, as his client, deserved the truth, and there could also be physical danger to her from these awful people.
I totally agree with the majority who say that Holmes got this wrong. When the young lady returns is he going to lie to her by saying he can’t find the man? She needs to know the truth and as his client he has a duty to tell her. She has delusions not only about the phantom fiancé but also about her mother and step father and they need to be expunged.
Surely Holmes could have exposed her step father by leading her to his possession of the dark glasses and false facial hairpieces. Also there would have been something written or signed at the church by him to arrange the wedding. That could have been linked to his handwriting. Holmes could also explain the type written letters to her showing how the irregularities match.
Another approach would be to work on her mother to confess all she knew rather than just leave the poor girl in limbo.
One way or another there should have been an attempt to release that young girl from those unjust emotional chains binding her to such a deceitful mother and step father.
This story scarred me. As a young person I was disgusted by the stepfather in courting his own daughter. Horrified by the complicity of her own mother. And deeply disappointed and disillusioned with Holmes and, thereby, Conan Doyle in lacking the ingenuity (or empathy) to find write a scenario in which the hard-working, generous-hearted young woman might be saved from the callous, selfish oafs who had so taken advantage of her.
I didn’t read another of his stories for quite awhile. Luckily, I’d already read many of the better and more well known stories.
I don’t remember catching the most dire bit of dialogue from SH: "That fellow will rise from crime to crime until he does something very bad, and ends on a gallows." Or I would have been even more upset, worrying about what fresh horrors the monstrous couple might exact to keep their golden goose compliant. This tome it leapt off the page and underscored again how utterly SH failed his client.
I hear you Renée. I've decided to consider an alternate scenario whereby the story ends as it does for "dramatic effect" or what have you, and then Watson expostulates "Holmes, you wrong the young lady!" and Holmes decides to tell her after all...
For those who might think the disdain of a wine salesman for "tradesmen" to be invented for the sake of the story, Victorian society knew minute class divisions, which the emerging Labour Party had to overcome. (For that matter, earlier class status differences between types of servants occasionally show up in Georgette Heyer, although she isn't much interested in such things.)For a fascinating overview (at least I find it fascinating....) see The Rise of Respectable Society: A Social History of Victorian Britain, 1830-1900, by F.M.L, Thompson, which extends to the lives of the working class(es). There were practical aspects as well, such as the jusrisdictional disputes arising from iron shipbuilding, in which endless subdivisions of metal workers clashed with each other and with traditional shipbuilding trades.
This is probably helpful, too, in understanding Holmes' attitude to the aristocracy and upper genttry, as well, whose "respectability" suffered in the eyes of the Middle Classes and social reformers.
Ian wrote: "For those who might think the disdain of a wine salesman for "tradesmen" to be invented for the sake of the story, Victorian society knew minute class divisions, which the emerging Labour Party had..."That sounds like an interesting read. Do specific groups of workers get a mention? I was impressed by the Thomas Hood poem of 1843 entitled ‘The Song of the Shirt,’ which raised awareness of the wretched conditions of the working poor, particularly the seamstress.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son...
(Extract)
’ With fingers weary and worn,
With eyelids heavy and red,
A woman sat in unwomanly rags,
Plying her needle and thread—
Stitch! stitch! stitch!
In poverty, hunger, and dirt,
And still with a voice of dolorous pitch,—
Would that its tone could reach the Rich!—
She sang this “Song of the Shirt!” ‘
(Complete poem here)
https://poets.org/poem/song-shirt
The poem inspired the little known Pre Raphaelite artist Anna Blunden to paint this picture in 1854.
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Bl...)
The poem also inspired a silent film of which only a small part still exists. Here is the sample.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son...
Yes, specific groups of workers, particularly in the “high tech” fields of textile and iron production, get some extended treatment. But for a closer look, E.P. Thompson’s “The Making of the English Working Class” is a standard study, albeit with a more ideological slant. It is (or was) available in Kindle. (As it is much longer and I rather doubt that it would help understand Doyle any better, I didn’t mention it to begin with.)
Poor Holmes!To be accused of misogyny (which I interpret as a hatred of women), when all he was doing was protecting a stupid gullible person from the truth to spare her feelings. I would’ve thought that was being kind, not hateful.
What was he supposed to have done when the lady asks: Did you find my gentleman? Should he have replied - “the gentleman you have been courting is actually your stepfather, I know that isn’t what you wish to know, but you did pay me to find the gentleman and I have. I can see you’re distressed, so I’ve left my account for 20 Guinness on the table as agreed, don’t worry about it now you can send me a cheque when you have finished crying“.
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I definitely prefer your ending, Emily. I'm still upset he didn't tell her. I think he could have left out the mother's involvement (though she might figure it out herself, since she'd naturally talk to her mother about it). But the knowledge that the "bridegroom" was an imposter would have enabled her to move on, and possibly find a new beau sooner rather than later if she doesn't find another pretext to move out of her stepfather's house before then (given the times, a marriage would have probably been the most acceptable way to leave).
Neil wrote: "Poor Holmes!To be accused of misogyny (which I interpret as a hatred of women), when all he was doing was protecting a stupid gullible person from the truth to spare her feelings. I would’ve thou..."
Nowhere was it said that Miss Sutherland was stupid. She was shortsighted. I also think crying for a few weeks would be preferable to living your whole life waiting for the return of a man who doesn't exist! I think Holmes could have said "dry your eyes, Miss Sutherland, continue going to balls, but next time you meet a young man, take your walks in the daylight hours!"
It's also worth remembering that he predicts the stepfather will go from one crime to the next and end on the gallows, but doesn't warn Miss S what kind of man she's living with.
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This is how I initially saw the situation. However, when I thought about the emotional turmoil the young lady was going through and the fact that she paid him, I felt like he owed her honesty. I can picture that girl pining away for a long time over a lost love along with continually being cheated out of her money by per mother and stepfather. She did deserve to know the truth
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So far I haven't discovered any signs of empathy in Holmes.
I don't know if anyone noticed that there's a line said by Holmes quite close to the famous "Elementary..." quote.It is in page 477 from https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...
"(...) All this is amusing, though rather elementary, but I must go back to business, Watson."
It appears just before the advertised description of Hosmer Angel. It is a more earlier quotation than the one credited in Memoirs.
A Case of Identity (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
Availability - The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1661
Background Information
"A Case of Identity" is one of the 56 short Sherlock Holmes stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and is the third story in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. It first appeared in The Strand Magazine in September 1891.
Publication History
"A Case of Identity" was first published in the UK in The Strand Magazine in September 1891, and in the United States in the US edition of the Strand in October 1891. The story was published with seven illustrations by Sidney Paget in The Strand Magazine. It was included in the short story collection The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which was published in October 1892.[
A Short Review of "A Case of Identity"
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had well established the characteristics of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in preceding novels and short stories, so Conan Doyle spends little time in "A Case of Identity" adding any background information about the pair.
That said, Conan Doyle allows Sherlock Holmes to use his observational skills and has the detective establish his client’s profession, Miss Mary Sutherland, just through what he can see.
In the preceding stories, Holmes has dealt with murder and bank robbery, and now he is faced with the case of a disappearing fiancé; is it a case of kidnapping?
When Mary Sutherland tells of her problem, Dr. Watson is at a complete loss, but Holmes manages to solve the case without even leaving 221B Baker Street. In the earlier cases told by Conan Doyle, Holmes had always left his rooms to gain evidence to support his theory, but in "A Case of Identity," all the evidence required comes to him.
"A Case of Identity" is an easy, fast-paced read that highlights the skills of Sherlock Holmes, but despite this, it is a story that is often overlooked in the canon of Holmesian stories.
One of the reasons why "A Case of Identity" may not be as famous as other short Sherlock Holmes stories is that it has not been adapted for stage and screen to the same degree as other stories.
"A Case of Identity" is one of the few stories not adapted for the Granada series starring Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes. The story’s basic premise, though, does appear briefly in "The Empty Hearse," the first episode of the third series of Sherlock.