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What Is The Theme Of The Sign Of Four

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The sign of four is a novel written by Arthur Conan Doyle. It was written in 1888. The plot of the novel talks about a number of topics such as murder, hidden treasure, a pact among four persons and corrupt prison guards. As a result, we can conclude that it is a detective novel. However, the novel tries to talk about India which was one of the British colonies. In this novel, there is much focus on the Indian Mutiny that happened in 1857. The sign of four is also a novel about the Victorian abroad. The strangest thing about this novel is that it was written by an author who had never been to India and was born after the events of the Indian Mutiny that happened in 1857. The author got his information and data about the Indian Mutiny …show more content…

In the following years that followed the mutiny, many novels were written and published carrying the same theme. Many histories, paintings and poems had traced this topic. The mutiny according to ( Chakravarty , 2005 . p.3 ) was the single favourite subject for Anglo-Indian novelists. This was very remarkable in magazines and newspapers which provided the British public with much information about the events in India. Some of the most famous newspapers and magazines that focused on the influences of the Mutiny were illustrated by London News, Punch and Household words and others. According to the critic Christopher Herbert , “ The epochal impact of the Mutiny on the Victorians can only be meaningfully studied by considering it not as a geopolitical event , but as a literary and in effect a fictive …show more content…

Some people may consider it as a mutiny story since it focuses in many on its events on the Indian mutiny taking place in 1857. The strangest thing about this story is that its author tries to talk about the events of the Mutiny despite the fact that he did not attend them. Although the Indian Mutiny facilitated the formation of societal anxieties within Britain, The Sign of Four suggests that late nineteenth-century British society continued to consider the colonies as attractive possessions. Doyle's portrayal of India as an alluring and exotic milieu is characteristic of popular nineteenth-century colonial conceptions, as many Western artists and poets often romanticized the behaviors and environments characteristic of "Oriental" nations. Evidence of the exotic and sensual appeal of the colonies can be found in The Sign of Four, as Miss Morstan's Indian accessories, including "a small turban of the small dull [grey] hue, relieved only by the suspicion of a white feather in the side", immediately capture the attention of Watson and inspires his original attraction to her

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