Explore the ways in which Conan Doyle presents his arch villain and his hero detective to the reader.
In the book the speckled band, Conan Doyle makes the villain overly suspicious, so everyone at least knows who he is but is waiting for the hero to figure it out. So, you just want to put yourself into his shoes and solve the mystery as the hero detective. He is interested in exotic animals, so he keeps a jaguar and a baboon on his property. He is also a wise man, I figure this because his step-daughter says ‘He has nerve and he has knowledge. This man strikes even deeper.’ This quote means that he has many layers, and two of the many are nerve and knowledge. I can assume that another one of his layers is cunningness. I know this because the daughter who praised him about his smarts also said that ‘He strode out of the room he is so cunning that I never know when I am safe from him.’ This shows that even in her own house she doesn’t feel safe.
One major motive could have been the fact that she was getting married. But even though he didn’t have any problems with the marriage at first, he could have been hiding his hatred until the last second. Another more subliminal motive could have been that he was depressed and lonely, then got jealous of his engaged step-daughter. I am speculating this from the quote ‘he had no friends at all, save for the wandering gypsies.’ However, this is likely a week motive seeing how it is only mentioned once or twice. Whereas there’s an entire paragraph all about his first motive. But he also might be a sociopath. I say this because he seems to be very antisocial, he lacks empathy because he sends his step-daughter to a room where her sister died a few years prior. And, he also seems to be quite bold an egotistical because, ‘he hurled the local black smith’ this shows how bold he is. And this ‘he became the terror of the local village’ seems a bit egotistical.
We know from the story that ‘he was a huge man…face...marked with every evil passion. He also has bile-shot eyes. From this small description we can see that he is likely to be very strong and villainous. But that evil passion may just be another ...
