28 pages • 56 minutes read
Arthur Conan DoyleA Case Of Identity
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1891A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Symbols & Motifs
Baker Street Apartment
When Miss Sutherland visits Holmes’s Baker Street apartment, she is desperate. Her stepfather disapproves of her seeking help from the police, but when Miss Sutherland ventures out from under her stepfather’s authority, she goes to Holmes, not Scotland Yard. In this regard, Holmes is presented as the go-to for imperiled or confused people, and his Baker Street apartment, always open to visitors, becomes elevated as the haven for all victims of injustice. It acts as a beacon of light to truth-seeking individuals because it is where Holmes lives, and Holmes means logic, intelligence, and answers.
For Watson, Baker Street is a place of intrigue. When he is away for a day because of work, Watson rushes back to the apartment, afraid of what he might have missed. The process of solving problems through careful analysis—especially with such an eccentric devotee to the principles of induction and deduction as Holmes—is never boring, and both the reader and Watson find that the most interesting conversations and events take place in Baker Street.
Holmes’s apartment is also a place of reckoning. Windibank is temporarily locked in, guilty and anxious, until he is loosed and sprints away. Conan Doyle depicts it as a place greatly feared by criminals and hallowed by those seeking justice and truth.
The Typewriter
Inasmuch as Holmes represents a progressive mindset operating outside of the normal code of law enforcement, he’s frequently poised to grapple with the advancing technology of the Late Victorian age. A key invention in this story is the typewriter, whose idiosyncratic letter imprints expose Angel’s true identity. This mystery is solved by the aid of technology, reflecting both Holmes’s individual passion and the general zeitgeist of optimism over technology.
Miss Sutherland works as a typist to support herself and her mother after her stepfather, Windibank, closes the family business and commandeers the Sutherland fortune. In that sense, the typewriter is help and provision for a wage-earning woman hoping to soon be married and financially stable. The typewriter also aids Holmes’s investigation. Because typewriting puts pressure on one’s wrists, Holmes identifies Miss Sutherland’s occupation by seeing the crease on her sleeves from where her wrists pushed against the edge of the table. In both cases, this technological invention works in favor of the upright characters and against the wicked characters (Windibank’s treachery is uncovered partly by an analysis of the typewritten letters and Holmes’s own correspondence with Windibank’s company). The typewriter, like Holmes, stands for the future.
The Golden Snuffbox
Though less featured in the story, the golden snuffbox in Holmes’s apartment stands out among the detective’s other furnishings in an important way. Snuff is a type of tobacco inhalant common in the Victorian era, and when Holmes hands Watson the container, Watson notices how fancy and ornate it is. The golden snuffbox, Holmes explains, is a gift from the King of Bohemia in return for Holmes’s help on a previous case.
Thus, the snuffbox represents both Holmes’s personality (often elaborate, over-the-top, and “Bohemian”) as well as the legacy of Holmes’s career. In an otherwise unassuming two-bedroom apartment, the kingly gift sits among household items as a display of Holmes’s brilliant triumphs in matters both aristocratic and international. It symbolizes his prestige and success. Later in the series, when Professor Moriarty burns down the apartment, the golden snuffbox (along with all of Holmes’s other belongings) is destroyed, symbolizing that Holmes has both met his match and come to the end of his career.
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By Arthur Conan Doyle
