Setting: Baker Street, London, 1800s

Have you ever thought about how the setting of a story impacts the characters and plot of the storyline?  The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes the story takes place in London, England in the 1800’s.  The time and location of the storyline effect the type of clients, the cases, and the resources involved in the mysteries that Sherlock Holmes is solving.

Taking place in London impacts how Sherlock Holmes finds and solves his cases.  Sherlock's case, "A Scandal in Bohemia", is a good example of this. In Holmes' first adventure, his client is a king. Having a king as a client makes perfect sense in Europe, but if Sherlock were located somewhere such as the United States, this wouldn’t make nearly as much sense. If the location were changed to the United States, the client might be changed to another type of important figure head, such as the President in Washington DC, or a famous celebrity in Hollywood.  The type of client affects the types of problems they encounter, and that Sherlock Holmes is trying to solve. 

The  fact that the story takes place in the 1800’s not only affects the clients and their cases, but it’s also directly related to how Sherlock Holmes solves the cases.   In "A Scandal in Bohemia", Holmes uses a smoke bomb to find a hidden picture that was a threat to a king.  The smoke bomb was a tool of those times.  If the storyline took place today, there would probably be some sort of x-ray vision machine that would serve the same purpose.

With reference to these examples, I conclude that the setting (London, England, 1800s)  of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes,  plays a huge role in the development of the characters, plot and conclusion of the storyline.