The Clubfooted Grocer Essay Example for Free

The Clubfooted Grocer Essay In class we were looking at a short story written by Arthur Conan Doyle the man who wrote the famous Sherlock Holmes detective stories. Conan Doyle was a Scottish writer born in 1859, died in 1930 aged 71. Arthur Conan Doyle was trained as a doctor but never succeeded in this profession. He found more money would come from writing. Aged thirty- two he forgot about being a doctor and became a writer. He wrote all sorts of books Historical, romance, and adventure, but the Sherlock Holmes stories are what made him famous. In this essay I am going to examine the narrative and linguistic techniques Arthur Conan Doyle uses in The Clubfooted Grocer and the effect they have on the reader. The techniques I will focus on are characterisation, location and imagery, and the plot tension in the story.  The Clubfooted Grocer is based on the narrator and his Uncle, who has not excited to him and his mother for many years. Suddenly, out of no where, he sends a litter to ask for his nephew to go visit him up north. He gets on the train and meets his uncles messenger at a different station to where his uncle lives. He doesnt know why he has to meet there and why hes gone up north. He arrives at the house and it is surrounded by sailors but also doesnt know why. The sailors attack the house and break in. Arthur Conan Doyle uses techniques to make the story interesting and give it a little thrill.  Plot tension is when the author doesnt let you know whats going to happen so it makes you read the story further. The author can do this in many ways, maybe by only giving you a little information on someone and only the bad points on them. In The Clubfooted Grocer the author has used a lot of plot tension. The first time he used plot tension is in the opening paragraph. The paragraph opens introducing us to a Mr Steven Maple who is described as an unsociable, unrespectable man. It gives us a little information on his business life, which sounds like it didnt get very far and some of his business was a legal. It also mentions that he got beat up but doesnt give a reason why, which makes you wont to know. This is good plot tension. It also mentions that he disappeared in a lonely part of the north of England, but why, it leads to maybe a thrill in the story, makes you want to read on. The second time plot tension appears is in the second paragraph, again on the opening page. The paragraph opens with the narrators Mother reading him a letter from his Uncle, which is Mr Maple. The letter includes that Mr Maple wants his Nephew to go up north to meet him. Again why? This is what the letter doesnt include. It maybe for a visit or for the boy to help his uncle to get out of all his trouble. By Arthur Conan Doyle not giving any reason for the boys visit makes the story a little tense so would Inca ridge the reader to find out the reason why his nephew needs to go to meet his uncle, which makes you have to read on in the story to find this out. This is excellent plot tension. The third time plot tension appears is in the third paragraph. The paragraph opens with on no account let John get out at Congleton. This starts the paragraph with plot tension straight away because it sounds scary like if John gets out at that station something terrible is going to happen to him.  As you can see there is continuous plot tension in the story.  Arthur Conan Doyle has also used the technique of characterisation to make the reader think on what the characters in this story may look like. Characterisation is when in the story a new important character is introduced he/she is described in much detail to gain your attention. There is two times that Conan Doyle uses this in the story. The first time characterisation appears in The Clubfooted Grocer is on the sixth page of this story. It is used to describe Mr Steven Maple himself. Conan Doyle uses these words thick, small, rounded, ginger, white, heavy, and bald to give you a picture in your mind of what Uncle Steven would look like. With these words you can imagine Mr Maple as a short over weight bald round-headed man. The second time characterisation appears in this story is on the tenth page of this story and finishing on the eleventh. It is used here to describe Captain Elias. Conan Doyle uses the same technique to introduce new characters that are important in the story. He does this by using short nouns to describe the character. So in this case he uses these words to describe Captain Elias Freckled, great black cloak, different, crafty, cruel, dangerous, sly, and gloated. These words you can imagine what Captain Elias looks like and also the way he may act and talk. The very short words like crafty, cruel, and sly describe maybe what Captain Elias is like to his peers. Mr Steven Maple is in trouble with Captain Elias so these words can express what might actually happen to Steven Maple or the actions taken by Captain Elias. The third technique that Conan Doyle uses is location and imagery. Conan Doyle uses this for the readers to imagine where the story is set. On page twenty, the fifth paragraph Conan Doyle has used the narrator to explain the scenery of the place where hes going, in this case north England. This paragraph describes the narrators journey to where he is visiting his Uncle Steven Maple. He explains he doesnt know where the train he is travelling on is leading him. He only knows the stop to get off. For two hours I passed through desolate rolling plains, rising into places into low, stoned littered hills this is taken from the fifth paragraph on page twenty explaining where the story is set. Conan Doyle uses this technique very well on the fifth page of the story on the eleventh line. He uses this for a whole paragraph. It was quite dark outside, with heavy black clouds drifting slowly across the sky this is taken from that paragraph and explains the scenery that the young boy is surrounded by. This is good use of location. This paragraph goes on explaining the actions taken by the young boys guide. At first my guide walked swiftly and carelessly but eventually his pace slowed down this sentence finishes explaining how the guide slows down for the rest of their journey. Conan Doyle has used location very well in this; it gives you a good idea of where the story is set at all times. The Clubfooted Grocer was not interesting for me, the story seemed very pointless in my point of view. I can understand why maybe this story was chose for the students to study as it was wrote by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but I found this story not one I would want to look at again. I understand the techniques used in this story and these were used very well. I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle has structured this story well but not a good story line.