Threatening the Victorian Empire: Colonialism and Womanhood

Abstract

This work, based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of the Four and A Scandal in Bohemia, will deal with the analysis of Victorian society, considering Imperialism as the beginning of a new way of thinking and industrialization as a reflection of the new ideology
and social system in Great Britain. I will develop the explanation of the Victorian project, dealing with the threat that imperialism supposed to it, the ‘Woman Question’, the creation of a collectively-driven personality and the differences between social classes, exposing the character of Sherlock Holmes as the ultimate Victorian gentleman (according to the ideas of the Carlylean hero).