Plot Construction In A Study In Scarlet

Conan Doyle is a Scottish writer and physician who is most noted for creating the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.His fiction Sherlock Holmes Series is considered the milestone in the field of crime fiction,among which A Study in Scarlet is one of the famous ones.Since its publication,a number of scholars have studied it from different perspectives,such as the characters'image and personality,narrative techniques,translation strategies and so on.But there are few scholars who study A Study in Scarlet comprehensively or systematically from stylistic perspective.We observe that the language in it is plain,but the plot is full of twists and turns as there are lots of foregrounding and burying strategies behind the common language.However,there's rarely any research on it till now.Based on this observation,this thesis explores how different devices are used for plot construction of A Study in Scarlet in terms of foregrounding theory and Emmott's(2014)newly developed foregrounding framework.Three key items for the detection of the case and construction of the plot at different stages are chosen to be analyzed:the "blood-red RACHE","gold ring" and "cab".It is found that at the pre-solution stage of the plot,the foregrounding devices are used to make the plot-insignificant item "blood-red RACHE" prominent and burying devices are used to make the plot-significant items "gold ring" and "cab" less noticeable.When it comes to the solution stage of the case,the red-herring "blood-red RACHE" is made less prominent by burying devices,while foregrounding devices are used to make previous invisible "gold ring" and "cab" visible.Through our analysis,it is concluded that foregrounding and burying devices contribute a lot to the construction of a devious plot in A Study in Scarlet,drawing readers'attention to the ups and downs of the mysterious case.