Effects Of British Imperialism

England witnesses a period of exploration and invention during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901). This period included elegant city streets, gas lamps, but in contrast extreme poverty. British Empire was the dominant power in the world at the Victorian era, and by the word empire according to oxford dictionary, we refer to “An extensive group of states or countries ruled over by a single monarch, an oligarchy, or a sovereign state” (oxforddictionaries.com). At that time, the monarch that was ruling is Queen Victoria; she brought England to its highest point of development as a world power. Queen Victoria expanded the British imperial abroad and colonized countries like India to impose her control over largest number of states
to become the strongest empire in the area. Queen Victoria wanted to achieve through colonization what is known as “the white man’s burden“. We can define white man's burden in English as “The task, believed by white colonizer to be incumbent upon them, of imposing Western civilization on the black inhabitants of European colonies” (oxforddictionaries.com). In other words, white men are trying to impose their authority through colonizing other countries.
As we notice, the terms imperialism and colonization are often used in one subject, which makes the readers think that they are same in meanings and as both colonialism and Imperialism means political and economic domination of the other, people often find it hard to distinguish between them. We can define colonization as “The action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area” whereas imperialism refers to “A policy of extending a country’s power and influence through colonization, use of military force, or other means” (oxforddictionaries.com). At the Victorian era the comfortable, righteous and perfect home to live was like a dream, it was the most important and desirable expression of the British Victorians. In London, the ideas about the perfect home clashed with the realities and the bad nature there especially with the drug addiction, crimes and violence that was extremely obvious and rising daily. The Victorians lived in a quick changing industrial world, and the growth and the flourish was the result of expanding the trading
empire. The empire was everywhere in the 19th century, in homes, politics, cultures, fiction, on the streets, economics and in imagination. Large number left Britain to trade, to participate in wars and to live in other countries. Many decided to return and many did not. The effects of immigration were obvious in the presence of the people who visit or reside in the colonies. London was a cosmopolitan and multiracial city, and all what you can see on those streets was described in the writings of that era’s writers such as Arthur Conan Doyle. The writers at that period included the theme of home and abroad in their writings such as Arthur Canon Doyle who wrote the sign of four where he included India and the colonization and their suffering with the British Empire (Watson, Towheed 339-344).

Arthur Conan Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, studied medicine at Edinburgh University.
While studying he started to write short stories, one of his famous writing was “The Sign of Four” it was written in the form of detective fiction that is based around the solution of a particular crime. This novel was his jump to success. It introduced us to one of the famous detectives in fiction “Sherlock Holmes”.it was one of the best known and widely read of Doyle’s Holmes and Watson stories. One of the most famous Holmes’s dictum was repeated twice in the sign of four, is that “when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however improbable must be the truth” (Towheed, 9, 10). The novel highlighted the image of a domestic home and a refuge of the outside world. Doyle described the life in London in details specially Baker street where Holmes and Watson’s house is, and where the story starts and ends. Doyle was carful in describing Holmes’s character to make him a more realistic
person.