A Case Of Identity

The man with whom Miss Sutherland has fallen in love is named Hosmer Angel. This man, by the end of the story, turns out to be the scheming stepfather Windibank in disguise, who has both lied to his stepdaughter and forced her family into financial dependence. He is greedy and reckless in seeking personal gain. In this story, he is the villain.

It is ironic, then, that his alter ego’s name should be “Angel.” Irony is a literary tool highlighting contrasts between people, objects, ideas, or readerly expectations. An irony is essentially an unexpected or counterintuitive pairing of two unlike realities. For example, no villainous character should sport the name “angel,” because angels are associated with goodness; this is ironic. This device bears out Holmes’s ideas at the beginning of the story: namely, that things are not what they seem and careful, close analysis alone will reach beneath the surface to reveal the truth.

Nearly all the plot action (the exception being when Watson describes going off to work the next day) occurs through dialogue, that is, conversation between two or more speakers. The story’s two major middle sections both take the form of conversations between Holmes and Miss Sutherland and then between Holmes and Windibank, and the story is bookended by conversations between Holmes and Watson.