# Mistakes in classic literature
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [May 8, 2004, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227 "2004-05-08T21:43:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 4
### Author:  [@SCSimmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SCSimmons)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2004, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/61 "2004-05-11T02:19:10Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#):
>
> To revisit Dr. Watson…in _A Study in Scarlet_, Watson was said to have been shot in the shoulder, while serving in Afganistan. In _The Sign of Four_, his injury had moved to his leg.
This discrepancy led to one of my favorite bits of literary analysis … An editor of a Holmes anthology on my bookshelf (somewhere), treating the stories as if actually written by the Watson character, speculated that this was intentional obfuscation on the part of the ‘author’. His actual wound, it was surmised, was in the buttocks. Watson was naturally recalcitrant to relate this, but had some trouble keeping his story straight over many years of memoirs. 😃
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### Author:  [@WernhamHogg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WernhamHogg)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2004, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/62 "2004-05-11T03:03:44Z")
I don’t know if we consider _Shoeless Joe_ by W P Kinsella (source of the movie _Field of Dreams_) to be a classic, but this is interesting, because it is the only case I can think of where the literature was wrong when it was written but reality caught up with it. The hero of that book goes to a Red Sox game and sits above the “Green Monster,” which is a big wall in left field at Fenway. For most of the history of that park, through the time the book was written and the movie was made, there WERE no seats above the GM, but now there are.
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### Author:  [@Kaitlyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kaitlyn)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2004, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/63 "2004-05-11T04:27:57Z")
> [@betenoir](#):
>
> So the other day I was in the shower thinking about Hamlet’s soliloque…as one does 😃 …and I got the part about “that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns”, and thought…er…didn’t someone do just that in the first act :dubious:
>
> Kind of undermines the whole thrust of the speech, dunnit 😉 ?
Nope. We, the audience know that it was really King Hamlet’s ghost, but the Prince does not. When the King returns, Prince Hamlet questions whether he really is the ghost of his father or a demon in disguise sent to fool him into doing evil. He becomes convinced that it is indeed his father and vows to kill Cladius as soon as possible, but soon becomes wracked with doubt.
His “To be or not to be” soliloquy later on is just a restatement of that doubt, hence his staging the play to test Claudius’ reaction.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2004, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/64 "2004-05-11T04:37:35Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Hmm, it could be that Hamlet is not discussing whether there is an afterlife (as the ghost of his father is proof of that), but the nature of heaven and hell. Since the ghost seems stuck in the world of the living and unable to go on, he hasn’t returned from the shore of that undiscovered country. Heaven and hell remain a mystery.
>
> Of course, this doesn’t jibe with ‘To sleep, perchance to dream’.
Note ‘perchance.’ He says ‘maybe death is just a great sleep. But if it is, what kinds of dreams do we have?’ Thus the bit that comes later about
“But that the dread of something after death […] makes us rather bear those ills we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus conscience does make cowards of us all.”
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### Author:  [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2004, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/65 "2004-05-11T04:44:49Z")
> [@cher3](#):
>
> “The Yellow Face” where he has the child of a black man and a white woman turning out be be much darker-skinned than her father.
That’s not improbable, is it? And as for the Parzival example- well, there is piebaldness.
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### Author:  [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/66 "2004-05-11T04:47:19Z")
Re the glasses in _Lord of the Flies_, it’s been a long tiime since I read it, and I don’t intend to read it again, but is it ever actually stated that Piggy is nearsighted? While that’s the most common cause for needing glasses, it isn’t the only, and a farsighted person’s glasses could, in principle, be used to start a fire.
Incidentally, in the Harry Potter books, Professor Trelawney’s glasses are also described as magnifying her eyes, which means she’s also farsighted. But I think that this is a nice touch for the character, and it’s nowhere stated otherwise.
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### Author:  [@rjk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rjk)
#### Post date: [May 11, 2004, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/67 "2004-05-11T05:22:07Z")
I’d cut Will a little slack about the stars in their spheres. At the time, the main distinction between stars and planets was that the planets were ‘stars’ that moved against the background of the constellations, a fact of great astrological significance.
[The fault ( deere Brutus ) is not in our Starres,
But in our Selues, that we are vnderlings.](http://perseus.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.03.0018&layout=&loc=kk2r)
(Use the little down-arrowhead below the image to find the quote.)
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### Author:  [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2004, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/68 "2004-05-13T22:09:56Z")
> [@Krokodil](#):
>
> In _Frankenstein_ (First Edition; never did read the more popular Third Edition), Captain Walton (Narrator of the framing sequence) was trying to sail to the North Pole. Not sure how the Polar Ice Caps were percieved by the general public at the time, but I always thought he should have been looking for a Northwest Passage instead.
Another one from _Frankenstein_, that Stephen King points out in his non-fiction book _Danse Macabre_:
Frankenstein creates a woman for his first creature, but after he’s finished he imagines them reproducing and starting a new hideous race, so he destroys the woman. King points out that it would have been child’s play for the doctor to simply render the woman infertile (in fact, would have been an assload of work to make her fertile, to begin with). He could have just gave a sterile woman creature to Adam. (He named the first creature Adam, didn’t he?)
And for that matter, children of the two would likely just be normal humans, anyway. They’d be the genetic children of whoever “donated” their nutsack and ovaries.
Of course, you can’t blame Shelly for not knowing medicine, and you _really_ can’t blame her for not knowing genetics.
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### Author:  [@Gangster\_Octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gangster_Octopus)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2004, 10:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/69 "2004-05-13T22:37:09Z")
I am sure this happens in literature all the time, but in my lit class we discussed how the narrator, speaking in first person, of _Wuthering Heights_ often describes scenes she would have no knowledge of.
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [May 13, 2004, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/70 "2004-05-13T23:32:05Z")
> [@Nightwatch Trailer](#):
>
> In the poem “On First Looking Into Chapman’s Homer” by John Keats, the poet makes a reference to Cortez “discovering” the Pacific Ocean in America. Balboa was the discoverer, not Cortez.
>
> I’ve heard that this “mistake” is intentional and adds somehow to the poem’s message, but I’m not convinced.
It’s because Cortez, with two syllables, fits the meter of the verse, while poor Balboa, with three, does not.
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2004, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/71 "2004-05-14T02:48:39Z")
RE Frankenstein-
IIRC, Frankenstein never names the creature. He also gets a man of huge size by stitching together parts from normal-sized corpses. He never sees how hideous the creature appears until it comes to life ( I had to read Frankenstein twice in school. I hate it. I recommend The Frankenstein Diaries by HM Venables. Nonspoiler- In Venables’ book the creature is normal looking when first brought to life. But it is only barely alive. Further operations and procedures bring it from critical condition to health, and result in hair loss, scarring etc.). The creature is huge, fast, and strong but can live off a handful of nuts and berries.
And according to At Last The True Story Of Frankenstein by Harry Harrison “Then she had him attending the University of Ingolstadt in _Ingolstadt_-when every schoolboy knows that it was moved to Landshut in 1880.”
Re Narrators
Moby Dick has the same problem. Ishmael tells of scenes he never witnessed and was never told of.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2004, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/72 "2004-05-14T02:59:37Z")
> [@](#):
>
> Moby Dick has the same problem. Ishmael tells of scenes he never witnessed and was never told of.
Which is also true - and absolutely infuriating - in any number of movies, especially those with flashbacks.
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### Author:  [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2004, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/73 "2004-05-14T03:26:12Z")
Not to mention the Chinese film _The Blue Kite_, which is told to us in past-tense flashbacks–by a narrator who dies at the end.
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### Author:  [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2004, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/74 "2004-05-14T03:45:25Z")
> [@peter morris](#):
>
> Talking of Shakespeare, the scene where Hamlet meets the ghost of his father starts at midnight, there’s a few minutes of dialog, and ends as dawn is breaking.
maybe back then midnight was later than 12?
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### Author:  [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2004, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/75 "2004-05-14T03:50:31Z")
> [@jackelope](#):
>
> Not to mention the Chinese film _The Blue Kite_, which is told to us in past-tense flashbacks–by a narrator who dies at the end.
Unless the film starts with the narrator in a bar telling his story, I don’t see the problem. There are plenty of stories that are revealed to be the narrator’s life flashing before their eyes (I assume Sunset Boulevard is well-known enough that this is no more a spoiler than “It’s a sled.” ?)
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### Author:  [@Reyemile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reyemile)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2004, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/76 "2004-05-14T04:53:51Z")
Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Center of the Earth” has a lot of research on dinosaurs. Shame it’s all wrong. But hey, if scientists of the time thought an icthyosaurus was part shark, part alligator, and had to turn upside down to eat, well…
Who was he to argue with scientists? 😛
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### Author:  [@Maeglin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maeglin)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2004, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/77 "2004-05-14T05:01:40Z")
> [@Colibri](#):
>
> It’s because Cortez, with two syllables, fits the meter of the verse, while poor Balboa, with three, does not.
I don’t believe that at all. It’s one thing to trot out a _causa metri_ argument, but for a true master and perfectionist like Keats? Nah. The most convincing explanation I ever heard for this apparent blunder was that it in fact was intentional. Keats was frequently accused of being far too undereducated and low class to be a poet. The irony of Keats reading Homer (in _English_, not in Greek like his colleague poets) and misattributing the discovery of the Pacific is just sublime.
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### Author:  [@Loopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loopus)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2004, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/78 "2004-05-14T06:16:51Z")
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> And according to At Last The True Story Of Frankenstein by Harry Harrison “Then she had him attending the University of Ingolstadt in _Ingolstadt_-when every schoolboy knows that it was moved to Landshut in 1880.”.
That’s an odd nit to pick, considering that _Frankenstein_ was first published in 1818 and that the entire story takes place during the 1700s.
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### Author:  [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2004, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/79 "2004-05-14T06:27:38Z")
> [@DocCathode](#):
>
> He also gets a man of huge size by stitching together parts from normal-sized corpses. He never sees how hideous the creature appears until it comes to life
The former bothered me too, but Shelley does address the latter. Dr. Frankenstein says that he was essentially blinded by his work – he was so caught up in putting together his creature that he didn’t step back, look at it as a whole, and realize that it was hideous. He even says that he intentionally added small details (good teeth, flowing hair) that were intended to make the creature attractive looking, but he didn’t see the “whole picture” as it were until he brought it to life.
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### Author:  [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)
#### Post date: [May 14, 2004, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mistakes-in-classic-literature/244227/80 "2004-05-14T06:39:18Z")
Because of the many authors of Greek Mythology there are huge discrepancies in chronology: Heracles, for example, appears in myths that are several generations apart, being a young man both a generation before the Trojan War and then again several generations before that if you track the genealogy.
Counting the Bible as a literary work, there are multiple accounts of both Creation, the genealogy of Christ, exactly what the sin of Sodom was, and unanswered questions such as Cain’s wife (the focus of several threads on SDMB), why God could eat with a mortal in some chapters but no mortal could look upon him in others, what Noah fed carnivores when he brought only breeding pairs of most animals, etc…
James Jones changed the names of most of his characters in _From Here to Eternity_ in the books’ sequels _Thin Red Line_ and _Whistle_. Patricia Highsmith’s Tom Ripley was a young man in his early twenties in the 1950s but had aged to 35 in a book set in the 1980s.
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