London's Shadows By Drew Gray: An Analysis
Upon the first glance, Drew Grey’s novel “London’s Shadows: the Dark Side of the Victorian City” would appear to be about the unfolding events of the Whitechapel murders in London during the year of 1888, but this is not the full purpose of the novel. Drew Grey; a senior lecturer in history of crime at the University of Northampton (The University of Northampton) , applies his knowledge to provide consideration of “the ways in which the killings affected attitudes towards the perceived problems of East London” (Grey, 3). Grey uses his novel to discuss in detail the struggles of many unfortunate people living in the poorest parts of London, and described in detail what these people went through to survive. Grey broke his novel into nine different
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Nor is the identity of the murderer the most interesting thing about the case – arguably his anonymity has allowed legions of investigators to delve into the archives in the hope of uncovering something fresh to say about the murders. While there are some excellent histories, notably the work of Donald Rumbelow and Paul Begg in particular, the genre is bedevilled with poorly researched and badly written studies that simply repeat the work of previous histories. Worse still some recent books have attempted to fit the facts of the case, such they are, to suit their own favourite suspect. (Gray, …show more content…
Through using the wide range of sources to try and present an unbiased description of the East End of London, Grey demonstrates that no one answer can tell who Jack the Ripper beyond a reasonable doubt. Grey states that without absolute evidence, there cannot be an identity of Jack in which everyone is satisfied. When evaluating Grey’s evidence and use of citations within his work, one can see the vast range of information he used to construct what the East End of London once was and to argue against other works claiming to have identified the Ripper. Instead of a narrow approach of accumulating information, Gray obtains knowledge in a more broad sense. Gray examined the hardships of women, who eventual turned to prostitution to survive Grey explained the racism in regards to immigrates and how they became alienated the Victorians. Gray went into detail about the poor and working classes. Gray told the struggles of the police that tried to maintain control, who received backlash from the people and the press for their inability to capture the Ripper. Grey explores many more aspects besides the few listed but that is beside the point. The point being make here is that, instead of simply trying to identify the Ripper, Grey uses a wide range of information to recreate and better understand the environment that is the East End of London during a time effected by the
Nor is the identity of the murderer the most interesting thing about the case – arguably his anonymity has allowed legions of investigators to delve into the archives in the hope of uncovering something fresh to say about the murders. While there are some excellent histories, notably the work of Donald Rumbelow and Paul Begg in particular, the genre is bedevilled with poorly researched and badly written studies that simply repeat the work of previous histories. Worse still some recent books have attempted to fit the facts of the case, such they are, to suit their own favourite suspect. (Gray, …show more content…
Through using the wide range of sources to try and present an unbiased description of the East End of London, Grey demonstrates that no one answer can tell who Jack the Ripper beyond a reasonable doubt. Grey states that without absolute evidence, there cannot be an identity of Jack in which everyone is satisfied. When evaluating Grey’s evidence and use of citations within his work, one can see the vast range of information he used to construct what the East End of London once was and to argue against other works claiming to have identified the Ripper. Instead of a narrow approach of accumulating information, Gray obtains knowledge in a more broad sense. Gray examined the hardships of women, who eventual turned to prostitution to survive Grey explained the racism in regards to immigrates and how they became alienated the Victorians. Gray went into detail about the poor and working classes. Gray told the struggles of the police that tried to maintain control, who received backlash from the people and the press for their inability to capture the Ripper. Grey explores many more aspects besides the few listed but that is beside the point. The point being make here is that, instead of simply trying to identify the Ripper, Grey uses a wide range of information to recreate and better understand the environment that is the East End of London during a time effected by the