The influence of audiences on Sherlock Holmes

Abstract

How are Holmes’s typical Victorian characteristics and the binary opposition between Holmes and Moriarty as presented in Conan Doyle’s stories adapted in BBC series Sherlock? In the first chapter, I discuss that Holmes’s characteristics conform to the ‘typical’ Victorian hero of “A Study in Scarlet” and “The Final Problem”. In the second chapter, I discuss Holmes’s non-heroic and antiheroic characteristics through a discussion of “A Study in Pink” and “The Reichenbach Fall”. The conclusion is that Holmes’s characteristics have changed because the BBC series wants to adhere to its modern audiences. Also, Holmes does not conform to the ‘typical’ Victorian hero in Sherlock. Additionally, the binary opposition has disappeared in the BBC series. The main aim of this thesis is to argue that the audiences are an essential factor in causing a modern Sherlock Holmes adaptation to deviate from the original stories by Conan Doyle.