The Copper Beeches – Arthur Conan Doyle

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教育者の方へ： The Copper Beeches – Arthur Conan Doyle（English、World Literature）向けのすぐ使えるレッスンスライド, 復習ノート — レッスンで使うか、学習者がライブゲームとして遊ぶインタラクティブなクラス活動としてトピックを実施できます。

レッスンノート

The story at a glance

  • "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches" (1892) by Arthur Conan Doyle — the last of the twelve stories in×The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes×.
  • Narrated by Dr Watson. A young governess, Violet Hunter, asks Sherlock Holmes whether to accept a strangely well-paid post with Mr Jephro Rucastle at the Copper Beeches, near Winchester.
  • Rucastle's odd demands — cut her hair short, wear an electric-blue dress, sit with her back to the window — hide a crime: he has imprisoned his daughter Alice to control her money.
  • Key ideas: appearance and reality, women's vulnerability and courage, greed and control, the menace of the isolated countryside, reason and deduction.

The offer

  • The story opens with Holmes complaining that his cases are becoming trivial — and that Watson's accounts dwell on the sensational.
  • Violet Hunter, a governess who earned £4 a month, is offered £100 a year by the fat, smiling Rucastle — if she will cut her hair quite short.
  • She refuses, then accepts a raised offer of £120 a year: very few governesses earn so much. Holmes warns there must be a strong reason behind it.
  • Rucastle's little son Edward delights in killing cockroaches with a slipper — "Smack! smack! smack!" — a sign of cruelty in the family.
  • Holmes, impatient for facts: "Data! data! data! I can't make bricks without clay."

Strange happenings

  • Violet must wear an electric-blue dress and sit with her back to the window while Rucastle tells funny stories.
  • Using a piece of broken mirror hidden in her handkerchief, she sees a man watching from the Southampton road; she is then told to wave him away.
  • The mastiff Carlo, starved and savage, is let loose every night; only the drunken servant Toller can handle him.
  • In a locked drawer she finds a coil of hair exactly like the hair she cut off — but hers is still in her trunk.
  • A locked, empty wing of the house frightens her; Rucastle threatens to throw her to the mastiff if she crosses the threshold.

Holmes solves it

  • On the train, Holmes tells Watson that "the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside" — isolation lets crime go unseen.
  • He deduces the truth: Violet is being used to impersonate Rucastle's daughter Alice — to convince Alice's suitor that Alice is happy and no longer wants him.
  • Alice, entitled to money by will, refused to sign it over to her father; after brain-fever her hair was cut, and she was imprisoned in the locked wing.
  • Her fiancé, the seaman Mr Fowler, won over Mrs Toller and kept Toller supplied with drink; with a ladder, Alice escapes before Holmes arrives.
  • Rucastle, thinking Holmes has stolen her, lets the dog loose — the starving Carlo attacks Rucastle. Watson shoots the dog; Rucastle survives, "a broken man".

The ending

  • Alice and Fowler marry by special licence in Southampton; he takes a post in Mauritius.
  • The Rucastles live on with their old servants, who "know so much" that he cannot dismiss them.
  • Violet Hunter becomes head of a private school at Walsall.
  • Watson notes, "rather to my disappointment", that Holmes showed no further interest in her once she stopped being "the centre of one of his problems".

Methods and themes

  • First-person narrator (Watson) — admiring, and slightly behind Holmes, so the reader is kept in suspense.
  • Gothic elements: an isolated house, a locked wing, a savage dog, a hidden prisoner.
  • Appearance and reality: Rucastle's jolly smiles; the beautiful countryside hiding sin.
  • Women's position: Violet's courage and intelligence; Alice's powerlessness over her own inheritance.
  • Structure: a mystery built from strange clues, a reveal, then a violent climax where the villain's weapon turns on him (poetic justice).
  • Section B pairings: "A Warning to the Curious" (suspense), "Gabriel-Ernest" (danger in the countryside), "George Silverman's Explanation" (greed and inheritance).

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練習問題

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  1. 1.Who narrates 'The Copper Beeches'?

    Easy
    • ADr Watson
    • BSherlock Holmes
    • CViolet Hunter
    • DMr Rucastle

  2. 2.What is Violet Hunter's job?

    Easy
    • ANurse
    • BCook
    • CSecretary
    • DGoverness

  3. 3.Near which city is the Copper Beeches?

    Easy
    • ABath
    • BOxford
    • CWinchester
    • DLondon

  4. 4.What unusual demand does Rucastle make of Violet's appearance?

    Medium
    • AWear a veil
    • BCut her hair quite short
    • CDye her hair blue
    • DWear spectacles

  5. 5.What salary does Violet finally accept?

    Medium
    • A£120 a year
    • B£4 a month
    • C£40 a year
    • D£1,000 a year

  6. 6.What does little Edward enjoy doing?

    Medium
    • AReading poetry
    • BFeeding the dog
    • CPlaying the piano
    • DKilling cockroaches with a slipper

  7. 7.What does Holmes cry when he lacks information?

    Medium
    • AThe game is afoot!
    • BQuick, Watson, the dog!
    • CData! data! data! I can't make bricks without clay.
    • DElementary, my dear Watson.

  8. 8.What colour dress must Violet wear?

    Medium
    • AScarlet
    • BElectric blue
    • CBlack
    • DWhite

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