Well, that wasn't quite what I meant. Let me see if I can condense my earlier tl;dr into something actually readable :\
Okay. Take The Sign of the Four. Highly problematic, imo. It's one of his stories that just makes me facepalm and repeat to myself "it was the 19th century, it was the 19th century..." because it's just so casually racist.
Contrast that with The Three Students which was both written and set about 10-15 years later, where the racial bias functions as a plot device. It's a definite misdirection for both the characters (presumably) as well as the reader who, at least at the time of publication, could be assumed to have the same bias. So essentially, he is kind of showing that up as wrong.
That's kind of what I was wondering about; if anyone else read the story the way I did, or if I'm just way off and everyone agrees with the schemingreader's interpretation.
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timeasmymeasure
this is actually not really any less tl;dr :(
Date: 2011-06-04 03:36 am (UTC)Okay. Take The Sign of the Four. Highly problematic, imo. It's one of his stories that just makes me facepalm and repeat to myself "it was the 19th century, it was the 19th century..." because it's just so casually racist.
Contrast that with The Three Students which was both written and set about 10-15 years later, where the racial bias functions as a plot device. It's a definite misdirection for both the characters (presumably) as well as the reader who, at least at the time of publication, could be assumed to have the same bias. So essentially, he is kind of showing that up as wrong.
That's kind of what I was wondering about; if anyone else read the story the way I did, or if I'm just way off and everyone agrees with the