The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Arthur Conan Doyle began writing during a period when Realism was prominent in European literature; this literary approach sought to depict the daily lives of ordinary people. To achieve this goal, writers presented what they believed to be a detailed and unembellished version of reality. Reacting to the preceding Romantic period, which focused on unusual or idealized people and events with a special focus on emotions and the subconscious, Realism aimed for accuracy based on observation of ordinary social life.

Realism as a technique has existed in various cultures in different periods. Realism as an artistic ideology was consciously embraced in Europe and North America in the mid-19th century. It differed from preceding cultural trends in its focus on the middle and lower classes and the negative aspects of everyday existence: poverty, disease, and crime. Many of the leading writers of the age, such as Gustave Flaubert in France, Charles Dickens in England, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky in Russia, produced socially-engaged works critiquing contemporary society.

In the United Kingdom, the realist period coincided with the Victorian era, which is known for its rigid social and gender norms, suppression of sexuality and the body, and valorization of order and logic. Emotions were seen as fundamentally different from and incompatible with scientific reasoning, and were often associated with women. When women demonstrated strong emotions, they were often diagnosed with hysteria (a term derived from the Greek word for womb), based on the belief that the presence of a uterus predisposes them to mental and behavioral problems.

In this regard, Holmes is presented as an exaggerated Victorian male: a middle-class man who rarely displays emotions, uses his mind for rational deductions, and is polite and respectful, but ultimately dismissive, toward women. Yet, Conan Doyle complicates his portrait by making Holmes an accomplished violinist and music lover as well as a person who experiences addiction to cocaine.