Unsurprisingly, Britain is the source of many extremely influential works in the English literature canon. However, the long time that the country spent as a colonial power led to the creation of many works who's legacies perpetuate the damaging ideas about Asia and the Middle East that are encapsulated in the concept of Orientalism. Famous and enjoyable books are no exception. The pervasive colonial viewpoint is seen everywhere.
The novel The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a Sherlock Holmes story that can be easily criticized from an Orientalist lens. The story is set in 1888 in the midst of the Colonial time period. The mystery centers around a vast treasure that was stolen from India by a group of Englishmen. This concept of exotic treasures from the East is a very typical Orientalist issue, and of course it had to be stolen too.
The characters and language, however, overshadow the issues with the plot. The chief example of the horrible views of the time is Tonga, an "islander". He is described as a"savage, distorted creature" who is "deeply marked with all bestiality and cruelty. His small eyes glowed and burned with a sombre light, and his thick lips were writhed back from his teeth, which grinned and chattered at us with half animal fury"(The Sign of The Four, Chapter 10). This depiction shows what could be an acceptable descriptions of an Indian person at the time. Additional characters that exemplify these views are the Baker street irregulars who are described as "a dozen dirty and ragged little street Arabs"(Chapter 8).
This kind of overt prejudice does not often appear today, but the damaging ideas can linger in adaptions of the earlier work. Modern stories must learn to divorce themselves from the harmful aspects of their influences.
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