Seeing Returned Colonials and Poor Whites:Retributive Ghosts in Conan Doyle’s Detective Stories

• 作者: Ming-fong Wang
• 来源期刊: 文学与艺术研究:英文版
• 学科: 教育
• 关键词: Conan Doyle SHERLOCK Holmes DETECTIVE POOR white returned COLONIAL
• 年，卷（期）: wxyysyjywb_2018,（12）
• 页码范围: 1635-1644
• 页数: 10页
• 分类号: G633.412

摘要

In Conan Doyle’s detective stories mainly including“The Resident Patient,”“The Gloria Scott,”“The Adventure of Blanched Soldier,”and“The Crooked Man,”featuring the master sleuth character Sherlock Holmes,he depicts the return of the colonials from British colonies,mostly India,with physically deformed or ravaged body and traumatic past that haunt and trouble his characters’present life.Doyle allegorically uses returned colonials or poor whites who turn into figures of retributive ghosts that function as pathetic memories and inner fears from British colonies.The seeing of ghostly figures and haunting past events delineated in these stories cause characters’sense of uncanny horror and remind them of their past trauma.These monstrous returned colonials or poor whites often create a fear and a social menace that must be appropriately dealt with when the master sleuth is commissioned to pin down the truth of client’s cases.Why are these bodies of ghostly figures so“irregular”and ravaged?What do these deformities signify?How can returned colonial’s or poor white’s traumatic past be related to retributive ghost?This paper attempts to probe into these issues in order to find out possible answers.