Criminal behavior in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet

ABSTRACT

In this research the researcher explain about the criminal behavior in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet. The researcher decided to analyze this novel because this novel tells about the crime and the story behind the crimes. The researcher wants to analyze and describe about the character of the criminals in the novel and explain their reasons to commit the crime.

The purpose of this research is to answer the problems that appear in the novel, A Study in Scarlet. The problem are: the crimes that appears in the novel, the reasons of the criminal to commit the crime and the difference between the criminal and the people who are never commit the crime.

In this research, the researcher applies the literary criticism to analyze the novel, the researcher use psychological approach to analyze the character of the criminals. In this research, the researcher applies criminal psychology approach to get more specific explanation about the criminal behavior in the novel. The researcher thinks that the general theory of crime stated by Travis Hirschi and Gottfredson is appropriate to explain about the criminal behavior in A Study in Scarlet.

In this research, the researcher concludes that there are five crimes that appear in the novel. They are: the murder of Enoch J. Drebber, the murder of Joseph Stangerson, the murder of John Ferrier, the terror crime of the Mormon and the abuse to the human right of Lucy Ferrier.

The researcher also found that there are external and internal reasons of the criminal to commit the crime. The external factor include: economy, revenge, and sex factor. The internal reason is the psychological factor of the criminal. The criminal in the novel A Study in Scarlet commit the crime because they are cannot control their own desire to commit a crime.

The difference between an ordinary people and a criminal is their ability to control themselves. The criminal commit the crime and may commit a murder because they want to satisfy their feeling, their anger, or their pain. The researcher thinks that the people should be patient if they got some problems and do not commit a crime because the crime is just give us more problem.