The Return of Sherlock Holmes Themes
Lies and Deceit
As the grand-pappy of the detective fiction genre, the Sherlock Holmes stories are filled with liars. Otherwise what would be the fun of solving anything? Suspects, victims, even random bystanders...
Justice and Judgment
If Sherlock Holmes ever got his own reality show, we think he might go for something with a Judge Judy format. Holmes is pretty much already doing a sort of TV judge routine in his own living room....
Admiration
Aside from being the world's best sidekick, Watson is definitely the president of the Sherlock Holmes fan club. Watson admires Holmes so much that he basically devotes his entire life to Holmes. In...
Respect and Reputation
The growing fame of Sherlock Holmes is a major concern in all of these stories, perhaps more so for Watson than Holmes. Which seems weird. But Watson has had to directly deal with Holmes's fame, an...
Foreignness and 'the Other'
There's been a lot of coverage about illegal immigration on the news in recent years. Turns out, this sort of complicated and polarizing debate on immigration has been going on for hundreds of year...
Language and Communication
Nearly every character in the Sherlock Holmes stories is a storyteller. Or they are storytellers under the narrative guidance of Watson. Storytelling is a crucial part of the entire detective ficti...
Criminality
The question of what makes someone a criminal runs throughout the thirteen stories featured in The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Are criminals born or made? Do they tend to be foreigners or can they b...
Science
Sherlock Holmes basically gave the world the entire CSI franchise. After all, Conan Doyle's fictional detective proved that people not only love detective fiction, but that they actually enjoy read...
Pride
Pride, thy name is Sherlock Holmes. The man is definitely full of himself, and he's actually justified for the most part. We can see why Lestrade gets so aggravated with Holmes at times. No one lik...
Marriage
You might think we're going to make some sort of statement about our favorite bromance here. And yeah, Watson and Holmes act like a married couple sometimes. But marriage as a theme is dealt with m...