Defence Mechanisms in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1887) and Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

Abstract

The present work explores defence mechanisms as shown by the four main characters in both Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's A Study in Scarlet (1887) and Agatha Christie's The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920). The novels are studied through the lens of psychoanalysis emphasising on defence mechanisms as discussed in Anna Freud's The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence 1936 and Norman Holland's The Dynamics of Literary Response 1968. In the light of these two books, the two novels are analysed by highlighting concepts of denial, sublimation defence mechanisms as shown by Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot, then, repression and reaction formation as shown by John Watson and Arthur Hastings.