Thesis:

These scholars discuss the development of the duality of the character of Holmes, and how this
duality mirrors societal views of race and empire at the time in which he was written by Doyle.

Moreover, just as McBratney utilizes Sherlocks duality as a basis for his arguments,
Christopher Keep and John Randall, in Addiction, Empire, and Narrative in Arthur Conan
Doyles The Sign of Four utilize a comparison and contrast between the character of Tonga and
Sherlocks dual nature from The Sign of Four in order to base their arguments for Sherlock as
being representative of the British empire terms of societys then ideals relating to Imperialism
and Empire. To Keep, Tonga is representative of the other, or the in terms of the classical
body (i.e, England) vs. that of the exotic and grotesque other, as they are associated with the
dejected, the abjected, and the rejected, Tonga[is an] aspect [of] the grotesque[which is]
open, protruding, irregular, secreting, multiple, and changing (Keep 215). The task, then, of
Sherlock is to expel the colonial other, that which is an abnormality in Britain. When Holmes
and Watson catch a glimpse of [Tongas] venomous, menacing eyes amid the white swirl of the
waters (Doyle), it seems to be shown, according to Keep, that the science of deduction,
together with a measure of sheer British ingenuity and courage, has effectively restored the
spatial and ontological integrity of the imperial caste (216), or, as McBratney would say, the
Social Taxonomy. This, then, would confer with McBratneys argument in that Holmes he also
argues that Sherlock is made to be the superior beingTonga has been cast as the evil, the other,
the inferior as he cannot change his essential nature, but, Sherlock, being of a dual-self, is able to
move beyond being similar to the Tonga in his blood-hound, hunter like attributes to the upper-
class English man that he ishe is not caught in the role of the inferior as Tonga is (McBratney,
160-161). Just as McBratney uses the duality to argue for his social taxonomy, Keep similarly
proceeds to cite authorship that argues that Doyle employs nineteenth century typologies of
gender, class, and race, and thus creates a detective designed to enforce the fixity and naturalness
of established social order (216). Yet, in another agreement with McBratney, Tonga has not yet
been eliminated and Sherlocks duality of character is revealed through his cocaine usage. Even
though Holmes is crucial in eliminating, or purging, the other from the system that is
England, what is left of it is symbolized by the return of Sherlock to cocaine at the end of the
novel. Cocaine (similar to the other found in the poison dart used to kill Major Sholto) (214),
Keep argues, is both removed from the from Britains system but also cannot be fully removed
at the same time; thereby, according to Keep, symbolizing the British Empire. As a result,
Sherlock, according to Keeps view, is a symbol of society, and a product of that which he was
created for by Doyle.

I chose this paragraph as I believe it was my weakest. However, by tying this is better with the
thesis, as well as the previous paragraph and certainly more within itself, I believe that I made
my essay much better as a result