Athenly Jones Flashcards
“You see that I am weaving my web round, Thaddeus. The net begins to close upon him”
crime and justice
by starting off this phrase with ‘you see’ Athenly employs a sinister tone. this is further accentuated by the verb ‘weaving’ to indicate that he is trying to trap Thaddeus into the immoral justice system in order to make his life easier.
by using the verb ‘web’ the reader is reminded of a spider . by coupling this with the verb ‘weaving’ Doyle insinuates that Athenly’s approach has much more artistry involved rather than him being methodical and finding out the real killer. by doing this Doyle implies that the justice system in the early 19th century creates fabricated lies which only make society worse.
this divulges that the normality for athenly is to be ‘out of his depths’, as this metaphor insinuates that the police force will never be able to sustain justice due to the highly concentrated corruption they have.
the readers of the victorian era are not surprised by the ineptness of the force and the corruption as in the early 19th century the police were criticized in newspapers for failing to solve times, most notably during the jack the ripper case. so, his role only accentuates Holmes’s brilliance and Doyle uses his character to create humor. Modern readers would be disgusted by this as wrongly accusing somebody in society today would be seen as egregious.
heavy steps and the clamour of loud voices
justice
As a representative from Scotland Yard Athenly seems not to be trained as he has ‘heavy steps’ which would allow criminals to get away. this is ironic as Athenly is meant to catch criminals not alert them. this adds to the humor of the novel and our view of Athenly as a comic character. his mistakes and incompetence make him seem all the more stupid and inept.
this exhibits how Jones is a Foil to Holmes and their differences accentuate Holmes; skill as he makes incorrect arrests and assumptions ns which makes us as readers put Holmes in a positive light.
by using the adjective ‘ clamor’ Doyle insinuates that the police never fully fulfilled their purpose as they only added to the chaos. the negative depiction of the police reflects the criticsim of the police in the victorian period.
‘I should be very glad of a little assistance’
justice
For the first time, Jones openly admits that Sherlock Holmes is good at what he does. He confides in Watson that Holmes is a brilliant detective, even saying that he should be a police officer. Jones also shows some humility here as he acknowledges that he cannot do this without Holmes. This reflects the inability of the Victorian police to solve criminal cases – they needed help and advice on how to do this well.
the adjective ‘little’ sounds sneering which implies that Athenly is still undermining Holmes. this conveys his pompous nature that he struggles to change from which is emblematic of how the police force of the era struggled to change from their inept ways.
‘Theorist’
By using the common noun‘theorist’, Jones implies that Holmes has no real skill or investigative ability He argues that Holmes just guesses his conclusions, with no solid evidence to base his ideas on. Ironically, it is Inspector Jones who gives wild theories with no actual evidence.
‘you are a conoisseur of crime but duty is duty
crime and justice
by the end of the novel, jones pays holmes a complement ‘you are a conoisseur of crime but duty is duty’ the word ‘conniosseur, which derives from french, is often used to indicate expertise in fine art or rare wine. by choosing this word, jones acknoledges that when it comes to crime, holmes has preeminent expertise, refined tastes and a level of appreciation that is rare and valuabel. yet the allteration of the ‘c’ makes the epithet sound slightly sneering. he follows this with another alliterative phrase ‘duty is duty’ which indicates his pomposity the parallesim of the scentence neatly encapsulates jones’s view that though holmes has preminent detective skills, unlike jones, he has no real authority to enforce the law
‘his appearence is- well., not attractive’
physigonomy
thoughts upon a crimminal are primarly baised upon there appearence.
the dash shows that he believes his inference is accurate but he knows it is the easy way out not the right way out
shows that he is ‘weaving’ the evidence not observing and bringing up justified evidence
