LEOPOLD-FRANZENS-UNIVERSITÄT INNSBRUCK Philologisch-Kulturwissenschaftliche Fakultät Institut für Anglistik
Doyle as the Prince of Paradox? Paradoxes and Their Fascination in the Sherlock Holmes Stories
Diplomarbeit
zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie (Mag.a phil.)
eingereicht von Sabrina Innerhofer
bei Univ.-Prof. Dr. Sibylle Baumbach, MA
Innsbruck im März 2018
Plagiarism Disclaimer
I hereby declare that this diploma thesis is my own and autonomous work. All sources and aids used have been indicated as such. All texts either quoted directly or paraphrased have been indicated by in-text citations. Full bibliographic details are given in the bibliography, which also contains internet sources including URL and access date. This work has not been submitted to any other examination authority before.
March 2018 Date Signature
Thank you ...
... to Prof. Sybille Baumbach for her helpful suggestions and for her valuable feedback that were of great support to me especially in the early stage of writing this thesis but also later on.
... to my family for their emotional as well as financial support during my whole studies. Without my parents, my grandparents, and my brother, it would never have been possible to write this thesis. Therefore, this thesis is dedicated to them.
... to my partner Christian for his love and for cheering me up during difficult times.
... to my friends, especially to Isabel and Theresa, who discussed several chapters of this thesis with me and gave very useful advice.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ...... 1
2 State of the Art ...... 3
3 Paradox and Victorian Norms and Values ...... 6 3.1 Conceptualising Paradox ...... 6 3.2 The Paradoxical Atmosphere during the Victorian Age ...... 10 3.3 The Relationship between Cultural Norms and Values and Literature ...... 16
4 Doyle as the Prince of Paradox? ...... 19 4.1 Logical Paradoxes in Sherlock Holmes ...... 19 4.1.1 Crime-Related Logical Paradoxes ...... 19 4.1.2 Sherlock Holmes’s Superiority over Dr Watson ...... 25 4.1.3 Sherlock Holmes’s Relationship to Scotland Yard ...... 36 4.2 Sherlock Holmes – A Paradoxical Character ...... 49 4.2.1 A Victorian Gentleman or a Criminal? ...... 50 4.2.2 A Man, a Machine, or an Animal? ...... 60 4.3 Sherlock Holmes – The Object of Fascination ...... 67 4.3.1 Literary Fascination ...... 67 4.3.2 The Fascination with Sherlock Holmes ...... 68 4.3.3 The Fascination with the Paradoxes of Sherlock Holmes ...... 72
5 Conclusion ...... 80
6 Sherlock Holmes, Its Paradoxes, and Their Fascination in the EFL Classroom ...... 83 6.1 Teaching Literature in EFL Classrooms ...... 83 6.2 Proposed Lessons ...... 85 6.3 Teaching Materials ...... 91
7 Works Cited ...... 95
1 Introduction
Ever since Arthur Conan Doyle published his first Sherlock Holmes story featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr John Watson as private detective and assistant operating from London’s 221B Baker Street, people all around the world have been fascinated by them and their perilous adventures. No detective fiction series before or after the publication of Sherlock Holmes – be it Edgar Allen Poe’s tales about C. Auguste Dupin or Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot – received more public attention (cf. Clausen 105; 123). According to Frank D. McConnell, “Doyle created a myth – the myth of the private detective – that, after [more than] a century of mutations and revisions, still retains its fascination for us and for our culture” (174). The reasons for Doyle’s great success are manifold; however, one major impact for his triumph must be dedicated to paradoxes, which are constantly presented and reflected upon within the Sherlock Holmes novellas and short stories.
It is not by chance that Doyle took up the theme of paradox; in fact, the Victorian age but especially the Fin de Siècle was a time in which people were faced with a paradoxical atmosphere. Their fear of letting go the old age was opposed to their faith into what was to come in the modern era. This paradoxical stance was justifiable: although the industrial revolution involved prosperity and progress, the end of the 19th century entailed disruption. Economic, technological, and social changes did not only improve the situation of many Victorian people; they also included serious problems for others. In his Sherlock Holmes narratives, Doyle tried to digest this paradoxical atmosphere during the Fin de Siècle by introducing various paradoxes on different levels.
This thesis explores and analyses the paradoxes that are dealt with within A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of the Four, “A Scandal in Bohemia”, “A Case of Identity”, “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, “The Blue Carbuncle”, and “The Speckled Band”, with particular focus on logical incongruities and Holmes’s paradoxical character. Furthermore, it aims at answering the question of whether the paradoxes in and of Sherlock Holmes have led to the stories’ and the character’s success. A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four are the first two novellas within the Sherlock Holmes canon; they were chosen for the analysis because they offer important insights into the personality of Holmes. The short stories were selected because they were written at the heyday of the Fin de Siècle and include paradoxical features particularly worth investigating. At some points, however, it will be necessary to refer to other
1 novellas or short stories of the Sherlock Holmes canon to support or expand certain arguments.
Before taking a closer look at the paradoxes within the aforementioned novellas and short stories, I will provide information about paradoxes in literature and I will give a cultural and historical overview about the Victorian era and its paradoxical features. Moreover, I will expand on the relationship between cultural and historical norms and values and literature in order to allow a better understanding of the following analyses.
Following this theoretical framework, I will elaborate on whether Doyle can be considered a prince of paradox and whether it is his use of paradoxes that has mainly led to the readers’ fascination with Sherlock Holmes. This will be done by providing close readings of the narratives and analysing selected logical and metaphysical paradoxes within them. In respect of logical paradoxes, I will focus on crime-related logical paradoxes including their most prominent type, i.e. the locked-room mystery. Moreover, I will argue that Holmes’s superiority over Watson and Holmes’s relationship to Scotland Yard constitute further logical paradoxes within the Sherlock Holmes canon. With regards to metaphysical paradoxes, I will concentrate on Holmes’s paradoxical character, discussing the discrepancy between Holmes being a gentleman as well as a criminal and Holmes uniting the trinity of human, mechanical, and animalistic features. In a concluding chapter, I will look upon all these paradoxes in the context of fascination and I will contend that, among other reasons, they have led to the Sherlock Holmes stories’ and their main character’s success.
In the final part of this thesis, I will develop an approach on how to implement the topic of paradoxes and their fascination in Sherlock Holmes in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) classroom. I will discuss the topic’s relevance for EFL students and provide a detailed lesson plan which will be based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and the Austrian curriculum for English.
This thesis aims at illustrating that in the face of the cultural and historical context of the Victorian age, the theme of the paradox is presented and reflected upon in Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novellas and short stories in various ways. Furthermore, the thesis aims at showing that these paradoxes have substantially contributed to the narratives’ and the main character’s success.
2 2 State of the Art
Even though many scholars have focused on different aspects of the Sherlock Holmes stories, little or no research has been carried out with regards to the topic of paradox and its fascination for people. With its aim to explore and analyse paradoxes and their fascination in the Sherlock Holmes canon, this thesis connects to sources which deal with paradoxes and their functions, mainly in detective narratives.
Paul Geyer and Roland Hagenbüchle (1992) have published a collection of articles all dealing with paradox in different aspects. The collection provides an overview about the definition of the term paradox, it argues that there has been a long history of the use of paradox, and claims that paradox is still an essential part of many subject areas in the fields of natural sciences as well as humanities, for example literature. The anthology asserts that paradox has been an important phenomenon in literary texts ever since, highlighting the use of paradox in poetry and drama. The collection makes it clear that distinguished authors such as William Shakespeare, John Donne, George Herbert, and Samuel Beckett used paradoxes in their writings.
A vital step towards investigating the topic of paradox in detective fiction has been made by Hugh Kenner. In his monograph Paradox in Chesterton (1947), Kenner focuses on Gilbert Keith Chesterton, the creator of the cult figure Father Brown, and his use of paradoxes. Kenner asserts that “[t]he heart of Chesterton’s thinking and writing is his perception and use of paradox” (4): “[a] reviewer of [Chesterton’s] first volume of essays remarked that ‘[p]aradox ought to be used like onions to season the salad. Mr. Chesterton’s salad is all onions […]’” (ibid. 13). In face of this claim, Kenner provides a philosophical evaluation of Chesterton’s use of paradoxes, refers to the different types of paradoxes Chesterton applies in his writings, and describes how they are linked to each other. In doing so, Kenner argues that whereas paradoxes are not mystic but natural things which lie in life itself, they attract attention in literary texts.
Kenner’s views upon paradoxes in literature, especially in Chesterton’s works, are further elaborated on by Aidan Nichols. In his monograph G. K. Chesterton, Theologian (2009), he devotes a whole chapter to paradoxes in literary texts. To start, he explains the concept of paradox, then he discusses the types of paradoxes in Chesterton’s works, and finally he closes with the functions of these types in literary texts. Furthermore, Nichols claims that Chesterton
3 is not the only one to make use of paradoxes in his writings at the end of the 19th century, referring also to Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw.
In her book Chesterton and Tolkien as Theologians (2009), Alison Milbank follows Nichols view that, apart from Chesterton, also Wilde and Shaw used paradoxes at the Fin de Siècle. However, she claims that Wilde and Shaw never presented the paradoxes in their works as successfully as Chesterton. Just like Kenner and Nichols, Milbank occupies herself with the definition of the term paradox, the different types, and the functions of paradoxes. Milbank also addresses Chesterton’s use of paradoxes in detective fiction, i.e. in his Father Brown stories. In doing so, she explains how Chesterton integrated paradoxes into the narratives including their main character.
Clifford James Stumme’s thesis entitled Detective Fiction Reinvention and Didacticism in G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown (2014) tackles paradox and its use and effects in the Father Brown canon in more detail. He combines the above-mentioned scholars and their views on Chesterton’s application of paradoxes and provides an in-depth analysis of the different types of paradoxes and their functions in selected Father Brown stories in comparison with other detective stories. He argues that the paradoxes in Father Brown entertain the readers while conveying didactic messages.
Considering the fact that so many scholars have shown interest in Chesterton’s application of paradoxes in Father Brown and the fact that contemporaries of Doyle (though no detective fiction writers, e.g. Wilde and Shaw) also use paradoxes in their writings, it is astonishing why little or no research has been conducted on Doyle’s use of paradoxes in the Sherlock Holmes narratives. Few critics have mentioned the fact that there are paradoxes in Sherlock Holmes and so far, nobody has engaged with the questions of whether and how Doyle utilises paradoxes in Sherlock Holmes in detail. This circumstance seems to be even more astonishing if the amount of publications on Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes canon and the character of Holmes himself are considered. If all these facts are taken into account, it becomes clear that there is a huge gap in the Holmesian research in terms of paradox. Therefore, this thesis will open up a new research dimension regarding the Sherlock Holmes canon and its main character.
This thesis will mainly draw on Geyer’s and Hagenbüchle’s, Kenner’s, Nichols’, and Milbank’s works in the theoretical framework for the purpose of defining the term paradox in literary texts, differentiating between the different types of paradoxes, and pointing out their significance for the readers. Due to the fact that just like Sherlock Holmes, Father Brown
4 belongs to the detective fiction genre, Stumme’s work provides a central starting point for the analytical part of this thesis.
5 3 Paradox and Victorian Norms and Values
In order to be able to analyse the Sherlock Holmes narratives according to their paradoxes, it is necessary to provide a theoretical and historical framework. This chapter will give an overview about the concept of paradox, i.e. what it is and what forms there are, how the Victorian age is linked to the topic of paradox, and how the connection between cultural norms and values and literature works.
3.1 Conceptualising Paradox
This chapter aims at framing the concepts of paradox and paradox in literature and delineating the term paradox from apparently similar terms such as tension. Furthermore, this chapter strives for distinguishing three different types of paradox, i.e. the rhetorical paradox, the logical paradox, and the metaphysical paradox. All these steps will prove to be essential to scrutinise selected Sherlock Holmes stories for paradoxes on different levels.
The Distinction between Paradox and Tension
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term ‘paradox’ derives from Greek para (‘distinct from’) and doxa (‘opinion’) and found its way into the English language via Latin. It refers to “[a] seemingly absurd or contradictory statement or proposition which when investigated may prove to be well founded or true” (1). However, coming to a more detailed definition is challenging because paradox has been an omnipresent phenomenon in different subject areas from Plato and Aristotle onwards (cf. Hagenbüchle 27). This implies that there have been different reasons for the application of paradox and these reasons have underwent a change. Michael J. Hyde (quoted in Moore 17) mentions an example of the shift of paradox use in the field of rhetoric. He states that during the Classical Age, rhetorical paradox was used in debate or for a more figurative speech, during the Middle Ages “in controversial topics” (ibid.), and during the Renaissance “for mental conditioning and social comment” (ibid.). This points to the versatility of the application of paradox.
In literary studies, ‘paradox’ is described as “[a] statement or expression so surprisingly self- contradictory as to provoke us into seeking another sense or context in which it would be true” (Baldick 265). For the purpose of this thesis, this definition is unsatisfactory. Therefore,
6 different views of scholars who have engaged with paradoxes in literary texts will be conflated in the following.
Kenner has mainly engaged with paradoxes in Chesterton’s works. He argues that paradox is “a dramatic tension between opposites” (3) and defines paradox with “truth standing on [its] head” (13). According to him, all paradoxes are formed by a contradiction: “paradox is contradiction, explicit or implied” (ibid. 15). Therefore, “putting things side by side is a necessary preliminary to have them clash” (ibid. 25). Nichols has also studied the paradoxes in Chesterton’s texts. Similarly to Kenner, Nichols defines paradox as an “antinomy” (87) or a “sheer self-contradiction” (ibid.) “baffl[ing] reason” (ibid. 88). Following Nichols, paradox leads to “illumination through an unexpected juxtaposition” (ibid.). Milbank has examined the paradoxes in Chesterton’s oeuvres too. She suggests that paradox “puts contradictions together” (88) and “leads to a moment of recognition beyond the contradictions in which a truth becomes manifest” (ibid.). According to her, “[paradox] allows us to understand what we thought as straight forward [...] as complex or different from what we originally assumed” (ibid.). Similarly, Mark Paul Moore states that “paradox is an apparent contradiction […] [that] contains an element of surprise or wonder […] [and] it is a potential truth or solution to a problem previously presumed to be unacceptable or untrue” (19). He argues that, on the one hand, paradox is considered to be fallacious, but, on the other hand, it provides a new perspective for further discoveries in that it offers “new possibilities with old devices” (ibid.), i.e. paradox brings light into the darkness.
Of course, there are similar concepts to paradox; especially the concept of tension can easily be confused with the concept of paradox. Unlike a paradox, a tension is not a complete contradiction. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, ‘tension’ is a concept which describes “[a] strained state or condition resulting from forces acting in opposition to each other” (1.2) or “[a] relationship between ideas or qualities with conflicting demands or implications” (2.2). In other words, tension is generated in literary texts when qualities confluence which do not necessarily fit to each other. The difference between tension and paradox is that tensions are possible whereas paradoxes are mere contradictions or juxtapositions. In this thesis, tensions will also be referred to as pseudo-paradoxes.
Having defined the term paradox and delineated it from the term tension, it is necessary to move to the next step, i.e. to explain how paradoxes can be used in literary texts.
7 The Types of Paradoxes in Literature
There are different ways to make use of paradox in literature. In the 19th century, paradox was merely used as a rhetorical figure, e.g. in the form of oxymora (cf. Baldick 265). Kenner claims that “[t]he [rhetorical paradox] is essentially verbal, and obtains its effect through the juxtaposition of unlikely words” (16). He states that rhetorical paradoxes can be “achieve[d] or abolish[d] at will by the substitution of terms” (ibid. 17). According to Nichols, rhetorical paradoxes can function as “word-plays”, “puns”, and “jokes” (92). Most importantly, however, Kenner argues that rhetorical paradoxes are used to persuade people (cf. 41) and “to overcome the mental inertia of human beings, which mental inertia is constantly landing them in the strange predicament of both seeing a thing and not seeing it” (ibid. 43): they “open thought to a subjacent truth” (Nichols 93). Stumme adds that through rhetorical paradoxes, the plot can be moved forward. According to him, paradoxical utterances within literary writings make characters aware that their assumptions about certain circumstances might be wrong. Consequently, they can follow new paths, through which the story progresses, and the plot moves forward (cf. 38-41). Due to the fact that rhetorical paradoxes are not greatly used within the Sherlock Holmes narratives, they will not be dealt with in more detail within this chapter.
With the end of the 19th century, writers “have given [paradox] […] a higher importance as a mode of understanding” because it could “challenge[…] our habits of thought” (Baldick 265). Therefore, writers have started to apply paradox not only in a rhetorical way but also in a logical way, which has rapidly gained in importance. According to Julian Symons, logical paradoxes are essential to detective fiction because every detective story must have a mystery (cf. quoted in Stumme 32). Such logical paradoxes can refer to crimes which seem to be impossible because nobody could commit them or situations in which the villains could disappear without leaving a single trace (cf. ibid.). According to Stumme, such situations are “self-contradictory” (32) and “full of seemingly irreconcilable ideas” (ibid.). Symons states that one particular logical paradox is considered to be the prototypical detective fiction paradox – the locked-room mystery (cf. quoted in Stumme 34-35): “a crime is committed in a room, sealed from the inside or under constant scrutiny. How did the criminal get in, commit the crime, and then escape?” (Westlake 7). The first locked-room mystery can be traced back to Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”, in which two corpses within a room with closed doors and windows are detected (cf. Shiloh 151). Typical for locked-room mysteries is that the question concerning the murderer is secondary to the question concerning the method (ibid.). Since Poe’s introduction of the locked-room mystery, it has been popular and widely
8 used. “[It] has perhaps been popular exactly because of the reassurance [of rational explainability] it offers. At least in the world of stories, the madly irrational can be demonstrated to be logical, as long as one is clever enough to interpret detailed observations” (Westlake 8). Considering the fact that logical paradoxes are essential to detective fiction, it is hardly surprising that logical paradoxes play an important role within the Sherlock Holmes canon.
Another type of paradox that has frequently been used within literary writings since the end of the 19th century belongs to the metaphysical sphere. In comparison to rhetorical paradoxes, metaphysical paradoxes are more important because they are more than a stylistic choice (cf. Nichols 94). According to Milbank, they “respond[...] to the complexity of ultimate reality” (89). Hagenbüchle mentions philosophical or theological paradoxes in the context of metaphysical paradoxes (cf. 35), which Chesterton, for example, frequently makes use of in Father Brown. However, Doyle devotes himself to character paradoxes in Sherlock Holmes, which also belong to the metaphysical sphere. Character paradoxes can be found within characters with contradicting character traits. On the one hand, paradoxical characters represent certain qualities that are strongly connected with one particular thing, but, on the other hand, they embody characteristics that are directly contrary to it (cf. Stumme 42-43). Sherlock Holmes is such a character. He cannot be described in a plain and simple manner; in fact, he displays different contradicting and juxtaposing character features and behavioural traits. To put it in Chesterton’s words, Holmes’s character constitutes of “two almost insane positions which yet somehow amount[...] to sanity” (quoted in Nichols 94-95).
Briefly summarised, rhetorical paradoxes (although they are not of particular importance in the Sherlock Holmes narratives and, therefore, are not part of the analysis in thesis), logical paradoxes, and metaphysical paradoxes are “a build-up of argumentation or persuasive discourse [which] is suddenly concentrated in a phrase that shocks” (ibid. 101). They are “a tool of expression” and “an ingredient of reality” (Kenner 5).
Doyle did not arbitrarily present paradoxes in his Sherlock Holmes narratives; conversely, he reflected upon the paradoxical atmosphere of the Victorian age but especially of the Fin de Siècle. This paradoxical atmosphere will be described in the following chapter.
9 3.2 The Paradoxical Atmosphere during the Victorian Age
The Victorian era but especially the Fin de Siècle was a period in which “contrasts” (Briggs 4) and “contradictions” (ibid.) or, in other words, paradoxes dominated everyday life. A considerable amount of people was looking forward to the beginning of the 20th century; many others, however, mourned about the loss of the old age with its cultural norms and values (cf. Warwick & Willis 1), which strongly suggests a paradoxical atmosphere. Andrew Sanders confirms this claim by stating that [l]ike all ages [the Victorian era] was an age of paradox, but the paradoxes of the mid- nineteenth century struck contemporaries as more stark and disturbing than those which had faced their ancestors. (405) This paradoxical atmosphere was felt due to certain reasons. In the Victorian age, there were many positive as well as negative changes triggered by the industrial revolution, there was a clash between religion and science, and important societal changes were brought about. “From the late 1860s onwards, the prospect of radical change [...] was viewed with increasing unease” (ibid. 450). The people did not know whether to welcome and to appreciate these shifts or whether to be scared about them (cf. Warwick & Willis 1). In order to understand why paradox was a ubiquitous theme during the 19th century, this chapter aims at outlining the paradoxical atmosphere by focusing on the historico-cultural context of the Victorian era.
The Industrial Revolution and Its Implications
The industrial revolution started in Great Britain around 1770 (cf. Clark 84). At the core of the industrial revolution were “new techniques and technologies in agriculture” (White n.p.), first and foremost agricultural machinery, enabling higher productivity. This was necessary in face of the huge growth of population (cf. ibid.). Between 1831 and 1901, the British population grew more than ten percent per decade; in other words, the number of people had doubled from less than 17 million at the beginning to more than 37 million at the end of the Victorian age (cf. Briggs 18-20).
In the course of time, the focus of agricultural production shifted to industrial production: the implementation of machines in industrial sectors such as textile manufacturing and metal manufacturing followed (cf. Warwick, “The Historical Context of Victorian Literature” 30). Huge textile factories were set up and machines enabled fast and cheap production of all sorts of clothes and other fabrics (cf. ibid.). Companies which were specialised on producing metal goods were opened (cf. White n.p.). Not only did machines facilitate and accelerate working procedures in metal production, also commodities such as iron were necessary for the
10 production processes, which made mining to a flourishing industry as well (cf. ibid.). To sum up, the economy was booming.
Due to the lack of energy in order to be able to drive the machines in agriculture, in textile and metal production, and in the mining industry etc., new sources of power were necessary (cf. ibid.). Consequently, the steam engine, which was already invented at the beginning of the 18th century was further developed throughout the 19th century (cf. ibid.). The advancements in the steam engine technology and the need of transporting freights to the respective factories triggered improvements in the field of transportation (cf. ibid.): the steam locomotive and the steam ship gained popularity. Although there already was a railway network at the beginning of the 19th century, the railway increased in importance and the railway network was expanded during the 1830s: initially, the steam locomotive was used as a means of transportation of individuals only, but later its commercial use was strengthened (cf. Warwick, “The Historical Context of Victorian Literature” 31). The steam ship made long- haul transportation for individuals as well as for commercial purposes possible (cf. ibid.).
All these developments and innovations sound rather positive and so were many of their implications. The industrial revolution caused a “wonderful progress” (Clark 88) and “[brought] almost illimitable advantages to all humanity” (ibid.), from which we still benefit today. The living conditions of many people improved drastically; for example, the industrial revolution was responsible for “an improvement in economic and social conditions” (McKeown & Record 121) and “hygienic changes” (ibid. 120), which led to a significantly lower mortality rate and, hence, reinforced the growth of population.
At the same time, however, negative repercussions of the changes brought about by the industrial revolution were felt by many people. The industrial revolution fostered “child labour” (Clark 88) and increased “ugliness” (ibid.) and “inhumanity” (ibid.) in the people’s working conditions. Furthermore, it led to “unemployment and starvation” (ibid. 89) due to the bankruptcy of many factories, trying to sell their products the cheapest (cf. ibid.). Also, many jobs were shed due to mechanisation and “the obsolescence of particular skills” (Vickers & Ziebarth 192).
As a consequence, many people decided to move to the cities because they thought they had better chances there. In 1837, no more than five places in England and Wales had more than 100,000 citizens; in 1891, however, already 23 cities had reached 100,000 inhabitants (cf. Briggs 20-25). London was the favoured city in Britain and by the end of the Victorian age, London was already referred to as a world city (cf. ibid.). This growth of population
11 especially in London was further reinforced by immigration of foreigners fostered by the improved means of transport although it has to be noted that the internal factors for the massive increase of London’s population, e.g. a lower mortality rate and unemployment, exceeded the external ones heavily (cf. Wilde n.p.).
The concentration of people in London at the end of the 19th century led to a substantially higher crime rate in the city than in other parts of Great Britain (cf. Tobias 42). Therefore, one of the main concerns of people from Victorian London was to try to preserve a world which was exploding (cf. Sanders 405). Of course, the police were an important force which endeavoured to preserve order in a time of uncertainty (cf. Vickers & Ziebarth 191-94); however, the police were not successful in fighting against the high crime rates in London. As a consequence, many people feared the possibility of anarchy and degeneration during the Fin de Siècle (cf. Himmelfarb 217).
In face of these rather diverse implications of the industrial revolution, there were many people worshipping the industrial revolution, but there were at least as many demonising it: there was a “controversy over the question whether the development of machinery brought advantage or disaster to mankind” (Clark 89). This controversy generated a paradoxical atmosphere during the Victorian age, which G. Kitson Clark summarises aptly: [The industrial revolution] had already brought good and evil gifts to men. It had created wealth, wealth not only to be enjoyed by the masters of industry but by many of those they employed and by many of the people in general. It had created opportunity, it had given intelligence and enterprise opportunities such as they never had had before and in truth have never had since. It had been a great social solvent, it had enabled a man like George Stephenson, an illiterate, to rise by sheer innate genius to a place among the highest in the land. On the other hand it had brought ruin to the hand-loom weavers, independent craftsmen whose work the machines took over; it had seemed to bring the harshest oppression to many of the children and women who worked in mine and factory. And it had brought insecurity to all; by 1840 the bounding prosperity which the new industry had conferred had very largely disappeared and had been replaced by deep depression and ruin and misery to those who had trusted to it for their living. (87-88) Clark’s summary strongly suggests that the outcomes of the industrial revolution were viewed rather paradoxically. The people’s initial trust in the industrial revolution bringing about an improvement of living standards was soon overshadowed by the people’s scepticism of what was going to happen in face of poverty and crime. Barry McCrea states that “[t]he Victorian enthusiasm for economic and industrial expansion was also dogged by darker fears of regression and degeneration” (xi).
To sum up, the industrial revolution led to a paradoxical atmosphere during the Victorian age. However, the positive as well as negative implications of the industrial revolution were not the only aspect through which a paradoxical atmosphere was created during the Victorian age
12 including the Fin de Siècle. The scientific advancements brought about during the industrial revolution led to a clash between religion and science, which further fostered this paradoxical sentiment.
The Clash between Religion and Science
Religion was an extremely important aspect of the early and mid-Victorian age (cf. Sanders 405). Asa Briggs even goes so far as to state that “the religious climate was more exciting and important than anything else” (quoted in Arnstein et al. 150). Many people believed and lived the Christian faith (cf. Sanders 405). Although a religious census of 1851 showed that more than five million people in England and Wales (about a quarter of the total population) did not attend the church regularly and many Christians were shocked about this circumstance (cf. Clark 148-149), “there remained a high degree of Christian commitment” (Sanders 405). A huge amount of people believed in God and in the bible (cf. Evans n.p.). Consequently, they considered God to be responsible for the creation of the world including mankind (cf. ibid.) They also believed that success and failure were connected to God’s reward or punishment, depending on how they led their life (cf. ibid.). This shows that many Victorian people explained the whole world via religion; they did not deny science but were of the opinion that “science could only serve to confirm the rational intricacy of God’s creation and the divinely sanctioned order of things” (ibid.).
Despite this strong focus on religion, it did not take long that “religious doubt was both widespread and vocal in a way it had not previously been in England, and it was particularly pronounced among the intellectual classes” (Kucich 109). Soon afterwards, first works about the natural origin of the world emerged (cf. Evans n.p.). Robert Chamber’s Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844) created a first scandal among believers; however, the rumours dissolved after a short period of time (cf. ibid.).
It was only when Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species in 1859 that the clash between religion and science really broke out (cf. Evans n.p.). In his book, Darwin claimed that “the view which most naturalists until recently entertained, and which [he] formerly entertained – namely, that each species has been independently created – is erroneous” (4). Considering this statement, it is hardly surprising that “Darwin’s On the Origin of Species [...] presented an argued rejoinder to long accepted beliefs about humankind and its place in the order of creation” (Sanders 451). It disturbed many people’s view of religion and undermined their faith (cf. ibid.). As a consequence, science was targeted; it
13 found its way into universities and considerable research in scientific disciplines such as medicine, physics, and chemistry was conducted (cf. Evans n.p.) and the “exploration of the natural world in all its aspects” (ibid.) was enabled.
The shift from the focus on religion to the focus on science is the reason why the Victorian age can be regarded as an “era of secularisation” (Luckhurst n.p.); science led to the “disenchantment of the world” (Weber quoted in Luckhurst n.p.). Interestingly, the Victorian era is still considered as “a golden age of belief in supernatural forces and energies, ghost stories, weird transmissions and spooky phenomena” (ibid.) even though the supernatural was neglected in favour of science. Roger Luckhurst claims that every technological or scientific achievement fostered “magical thinking” (n.p.) and, therefore, an enchanted world. In other words, “every disenchantment” entailed “an active re-enchantment” (ibid.), which resulted in a blending of science and the supernatural.
Nevertheless, there was a clash between religion and science which led to “a sense of dislocation” (Sanders 451) because “established modes of thoughts” (ibid.) were challenged. The people’s trust into religion at the early and mid-Victorian age was attacked by the scientific scepticism at the end of the century. It was difficult for many people to decide whether to stick to their religion or whether to abandon their faith in favour of science. Although Darwin’s On The Origin of Species was an advancement for many Victorian people, it destroyed the worldview of others. This discrepancy between the undermining of religion and faith and the new chances that were brought about by science during the second half of the 19th century led to a paradoxical sentiment among huge parts of the British population and, therefore, to a paradoxical atmosphere. The paradoxical vibes brought about by the industrial revolution and the clash between religion and science were further reinforced by societal changes.
Societal Changes
At the beginning of the Victorian era, Britain’s society was divided into a rigid social class system, which has repeatedly been depicted as a pyramid, with the aristocrats at the top, the middle class in the middle, and the working class at the bottom (cf. Royle 101-103). Although the aristocrats were only a small group of people consisting of the monarch, the peerage, and the gentry, they were immensely powerful and wealthy (cf. ibid.). The middle class, at the beginning of the Victorian age about a third of the total population, consisted of people who worked in high positions of industry and commerce, in renowned professions, for example, as
14 doctors or lawyers, and, due to their landownership, in agriculture (cf. ibid.). People of the working class were the least advantaged ones. At the beginning of the Victorian age, the majority of the English and Welsh citizens, i.e. about two thirds of all people, worked as artisans or even belonged to the unemployed and impecunious and were, therefore, allocated to the working class (cf. ibid.).
Already after the first couple of years of Queen Victoria’s reign, Britain’s society witnessed considerable change. Power was newly distributed among the three dominating classes – the working class, the middle class, and the aristocracy (cf. Cannadine 5). Due to the economic development, the middle class became the leading force in Great Britain whereas the working class was further exploited and the aristocracy was stripped of rank (cf. ibid.). Also, other approaches to divide people into social groups were established, for example, by source of employment (cf. Royle 103-104).
In the course of the Victorian age, this societal change intensified and sped up. By the end of the 19th century, also non-aristocrats could be member of the upper class provided they were wealthy enough; class was then a matter of financial success rather than rank (cf. Warwick, “Key Critical Concepts and Topics” 148-149). Furthermore, the line between the middle class and the working class got increasingly blurred and, eventually, a new class developed between these two for people working in the tertiary sector: the lower middle class (cf. ibid.). In contrast, there was a sharp distinction between people of the working class and the extremely poor: people with diseases, people of another race, and people involved in crimes (cf. ibid.).
In terms of gender, a change similar to the one regarding class was going on. In the early years of the Victorian age, the Victorian patriarchal value system strengthened men’s status in society whereas women were socially disadvantaged: women were not allowed to “vote, own property, enter into legal contracts, gain custody of their children, study for a degree or qualify for any profession” (cf. Warwick, “Key Critical Concepts and Topics” 148-149). This suggests that there was a legal division between men and women. With regards to labour, there was a difference between the three dominating social classes (cf. Tosh 332-333). Whereas women of the wealthier middle class were strictly excluded from the hard labour market and stayed at home as stereotypical ‘Angels in the House’, working class people were dependent on the dual income, making it acceptable for women to work (cf. ibid.)
As time went by, women began to fight for equality, which opened up a conflict between men and women (cf. ibid.). In the course of the ‘Woman Question’, a movement that was
15 concerned with women’s rights, women gained new privileges (cf. Warwick, “Key Critical Concepts and Topics” 152). By the end of the 19th century, women were allowed to vote, to attend university, and, eventually, to complete a university degree (cf. Warwick, “The Historical Context of Victorian Literature” 39). Moreover, they could get divorced, they had property rights, they could proceed against domestic violence, and they had custody of their children (cf. Warwick, “Key Critical Concepts and Topics” 152). Out of these changes, the ‘New Woman’ was born, who “was regarded as a sign of the imminent collapse of society” (ibid.) by many people.
The rigid dichotomy of people fearing these class and gender-related changes described above and others appreciating them was pre-eminent during the Fin de Siècle. The societal changes regarding class and gender were difficult to absorb for many people: they became aware that “that the old order was passing away” (Royle 117). It was difficult for aristocrats to share their power with the wealthier middle class and it was straining for men to accept women as equivalent beings. Whereas many people rather maintained the social order in terms of class and gender, many others looked to the change with confidence. This dichotomy can be regarded as another reason for the paradoxical atmosphere during the end of the Victorian age.
In the following chapter, it will be explained in how far a historico-cultural context is connected to a literary text, with regards to this thesis how the paradoxical atmosphere of the 19th century is related to the Sherlock Holmes narratives.
3.3 The Relationship between Cultural Norms and Values and Literature
There is certainly a connection between literary texts and the time in which they were written (cf. Baumbach et al. 1): with regards to this thesis, between the Sherlock Holmes narratives and the developments as well as the cultural norms and values of the Victorian age including the Fin de Siècle. This chapter aims at examining this relationship in order to facilitate the understanding of why Doyle chose to integrate the theme of paradox in his narratives.
Representation, Dissemination, and Construction of Cultural Norms and Values
According to Sibylle Baumbach et al., there are three different ways in which the connection between literature and culture becomes visible. Literary texts can represent, disseminate, and construct cultural norms and values (cf. 4-5). This is confirmed by Ansgar Nünning, who
16 claims that literary texts are products of the time in which they were composed (cf. 199). They portray problems and issues the people were faced with when the texts were written, and reflect upon cultural norms and values of the respective period (cf. ibid.). At the same time, however, literary texts affect society in multiple ways because they influence the people’s perception and stimulate their critical thinking (cf. ibid.). In doing so, literary texts function as a three-dimensional medium, working as “a cultural-critical metadiscourse” (Zapf 138) (representation of cultural norms and values), “an imaginative counterdiscourse” (ibid.) (dissemination of cultural norms and values), and “a reintegrative interdiscourse” (ibid.) (construction of cultural norms and values).
In terms of representation, “literature heavily draws on existent norms and values, which are translated into the fictional sphere to be further investigated” (Baumbach et al. 5). With regards to dissemination, “[l]iterary works sometimes disseminate, generate or project socially sanctioned or desired, yet more often unsanctioned, excluded and repressed forms of life as well as their underpinning values and norms” (ibid.). As for construction, “[l]iterature, to no insignificant degree, has contributed [...] to the forming as well as the stabilization of norms and values, and social conceptions of a good life” (ibid.).
Having briefly outlined the concepts of representation, dissemination, and construction of cultural norms and values by means of literary texts, the question of how Doyle’s use of paradox in Sherlock Holmes fits into these functions of literature raises.
The Connection between the Victorian Age, Paradox and Sherlock Holmes
As explained above, there is a connection between literary texts and the developments as well as the cultural norms and values of the time in which they were written; of course, this also applies to Sherlock Holmes. With regards to this thesis, it is of utmost importance to evaluate whether there is a connection between the historico-cultural context of the Victorian age, the theme of paradox, and the Sherlock Holmes stories.
As pointed out in chapter 3.2, the Victorian age including the Fin de Siècle was pervaded by a paradoxical atmosphere due to certain developments and shifts of cultural norms and values, which were regarded positive as well as negative by people. As will be shown in chapter 4, Doyle represented and reflected upon this paradoxical atmosphere in his Sherlock Holmes stories by introducing paradoxes on different levels. This circumstance is implied by McCrea’s statement that “[t]he Holmes stories are in part the result of a confluence of
17 nineteenth- and twentieth-century currents: faith in progression but also scepticism and fears of regression” (ix) – a truly paradoxical sentiment.
The fact that not only Doyle used the theme of paradox in his Sherlock Holmes canon at the end of the 19th century reinforces the claim that Doyle represented and reflected upon the paradoxical atmosphere of the Victorian age. Also Wilde and Shaw, contemporaries of Doyle, successfully applied paradox in the dialogues of their plays (cf. Nichols 89-90). The fact that not only Doyle but also Wilde and Shaw used the theme of paradox in their writings shows that paradox was a literary phenomenon that was dealt with especially during the Fin de Siècle. Therefore, it can be argued that Doyle (and also Wilde and Shaw) represented and reflected upon the paradoxical atmosphere of the late 19th century.
In the context of paradox, the dissemination and the construction of cultural norms and values do not play major roles. With Sherlock Holmes, Doyle produced literary texts which strongly embody a typical feature of the time in which they were written, i.e. the paradoxical atmosphere. Therefore, considering the theme of paradox, it can be argued that the representation of developments as well as cultural norms and values of the Victorian age including the Fin de Siècle takes centre stage within the Sherlock Holmes stories whereas the dissemination and the construction of cultural norms and values slip into the background.
As already mentioned, the paradoxical atmosphere of the Victorian age including the Fin de Siècle is represented and reflected upon in Sherlock Holmes. Doyle introduced paradoxes on different levels, which are partly connected to the circumstances that lead to a paradoxical atmosphere during the Victorian age (cf. chapter 3.2). He also incorporated other paradoxical features which are not immediately connected to the reasons for the paradoxical atmosphere during the 19th century to reinforce the paradoxical notion within Sherlock Holmes. The paradoxes within the Sherlock Holmes stories will be explained and analysed in the following chapter.
18 4 Doyle as the Prince of Paradox?
Due to the fact that Sherlock Holmes was written in a time in which people were faced with a paradoxical atmosphere due to various reasons and historico-cultural developments are commonly presented and reflected upon in literature, this chapter aims at investigating whether and how Doyle enclosed paradoxes to his Sherlock Holmes stories. In doing so, the argument will be made that Doyle uses paradoxes on two different levels, i.e. on the logical level and on the metaphysical level. The different paradoxes on these two levels will be explained and analysed in this chapter. Despite the fact that rhetorical paradoxes are successfully used by many authors, they do not play a leading role in the Sherlock Holmes narratives and will, therefore, be neglected within this thesis.
Furthermore, this chapter strives to answer the question whether it is Doyle’s use of paradoxes which has mainly contributed to the people’s fascination with Sherlock Holmes and, consequently, to the canon’s success. If so, referring to Doyle as the prince of paradox would seem to be appropriate.
4.1 Logical Paradoxes in Sherlock Holmes
As pointed out in chapter 3.1, logical paradoxes are at the very heart of every detective narrative. This suggests that within the Sherlock Holmes canon, logical paradoxes can be found in different aspects. First and most importantly, crime-related logical paradoxes can be detected; they occur when crimes are committed which exhibit conflicting features or which seem to be impossible. Second, another major logical paradox can be found on the cognitive level between Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. And third, there is a logical paradox in terms of Holmes’s relationship with the official British police force. This chapter aims at explaining and analysing this variety of logical paradoxes within selected Sherlock Holmes narratives.
4.1.1 Crime-Related Logical Paradoxes
The Sherlock Holmes narratives depend on logical paradoxes which can be found when apparently “simple crimes […] turn out to be more complex” (Greenfield 34) or when seemingly “unsolvable crime[s]” (ibid.), for example, locked-room mysteries, turn out to be solvable. The crime-related logical paradoxes within the Sherlock Holmes series usually circle around similar issues. These issues include “cultism”, “revenge”, “murder”, “identity and
19 deception”, “inheritance and greed”, “threats from foreign or domestic political intrigue”, “cheating”, and “crimes against property” (ibid. 19). It is important to note that these offenses are committed by master criminals and that they are aimed at certain people; within the Sherlock Holmes canon, criminals do not choose their victims randomly (cf. ibid. 21). These different sorts of crimes are generally solved in a similar manner by Sherlock Holmes, i.e. through Holmes’s “Science of Deduction” (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 15–24; cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 3–10), which will be referred to and explained in chapter 4.1.2. This chapter, however, strives to provide an insight into which crime-related logical paradoxes are integrated into Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes narratives and how they work.
Logically Paradoxical Deeds
Logically paradoxical deeds “[are] essential to many detective stories” (Stumme 32) and so they are to Sherlock Holmes. Therefore, in many Sherlock Holmes stories, logically paradoxical deeds can be found. Whereas these logically paradoxical deeds centre around all the above-mentioned sorts of crimes, i.e. “cultism”, “revenge”, “murder”, “identity and deception”, “inheritance and greed”, “crimes against property”, “threats from foreign or domestic political intrigue”, and “cheating” (Greenfield 19), they all work in a similar way: a crime proves to be more complex than it was thought to be or a crime seems to be impossible.
Crime-related logical paradoxes prove to be vital especially in detective fiction narratives which circle around cultism, revenge, and murder, for which A Study in Scarlet is an excellent example. In this novella, a number of different crime-related logical paradoxes, i.e. obvious contradictions which, eventually, prove to be true (cf. Moore 19), can be found. Hence, it is not surprising that Holmes characterises the Lauriston Gardens mystery as “a little out of the common” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 26). Of course, not everything which is out of the common can be regarded as absolutely paradoxical; nevertheless, Holmes’s statement clearly points at the presence of logical paradoxes in the crime scene.
In a letter, the official police force asks Holmes to assist them with a case in which the victim is found without any signs as to how he met his death. Although it seems to be clear that a murder was committed, “there was neither wound nor marks of strangulation” (ibid. 43). Holmes resolves this logical paradox by deducing that the dead man poisoned himself under the pressure of an old acquaintance. Even more mysteriously, “no signs of a struggle” (ibid.) and no weapons are found at the crime scene, which poses the logical paradox of how blood stains came into the room. What seems to be clear is that the blood cannot be the victim’s
20 because his body is totally unharmed and, according to Holmes, it is also unlikely that it is the villain’s because, as mentioned above, there are no signs of a brawl or of a weapon. However, Holmes resolves this logical paradox by reasoning that the blood came from the perpetrator due to a massive nosebleed. In the end, Holmes can identify Joseph Strangerson as Enoch J. Drebber’s murderer and is able to establish the motive of revenge for the death of Strangerson’s beloved fiancée, for which Drebber was responsible. Drebber, a Mormon, forced Strangerson’s fiancée into a marriage, about which she was wretchedly unhappy and died (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet). This example shows that the crime-related logical paradox within A Study in Scarlet is directly connected to a murder but is rooted in revenge and, ultimately, in cultism.
Not only in terms of crimes related to cultism, revenge, and murder are logical paradoxes significant, they also seem to be important regarding criminal deeds which circle around identity and deception. In “A Case of Identity”, the logical paradox linked to the crime itself can be connected to a missing person case including a riddle about identity and deception. Ms Mary Sutherland approaches Holmes and states her problem. Her fiancé, Hosmer Angel, mysteriously disappeared from the carriage with which he intended to drive to their wedding ceremony and, since then, she has not heard a word of him. Hosmer came for us in a hansom, but as there were two of us, he put us both into it, and stepped himself into a four-wheeler which happened to be the only other cab in the street. We got to the church first, and when the four-wheeler drove up we waited for him to step out, but he never did, and when the cabman got down from the box and looked, there was no one there! The cabman said he could not imagine what had become of him, for he had seen him get in with his own eyes. (Doyle, “A Case of Identity” 130) Sutherland’s statement about Angel’s disappearance emphasises the logical paradox of how a human being can vanish into thin air from one moment to another. However, Holmes can resolve this logical paradox. He claims that “[a]s far as the church door he brought her, and then, as he could go no farther, he conveniently vanished away by the old trick of stepping in at one door of a four-wheeler and out of the other” (ibid. 138). In the end, Holmes reveals that Angel has never existed in reality, but was a fictional character played by Sutherland’s stepfather due to financial reasons. Holmes argues that “[t]here was never any mystery in the matter” (ibid. 135); everything was made up by identity fraud and the deception of a young woman. However, the supposed mystery is based on a logical paradox of how a man or a woman can completely disappear. Holmes solves the paradox and thereby solves the crime, which, eventually, proves to be none. The opposition between Holmes’s statement that “[t]here was never any mystery in the matter” (ibid.) and the fact that there is a crime-related logical paradox confirms that every detective story needs a paradox (cf. Stumme 32).
21 Similarly, in “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, the logical paradox that is directly linked to the crime can be associated with a missing person case connected with identity and deception, which Holmes identifies as “bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life” (Doyle, “The Man with the Twisted Lip” 140). Mrs St Clair employs Holmes to take up investigations into her husband’s disappearance. She explains to Holmes that she last saw her husband in London, Swandam Lane gazing out of an opened window. Together with the police, she checked upon him; however, they only found his garments and traces of blood. The present beggar Hugh Boone was arrested for Mr Neville St Clair’s murder, but he does not make any testimonies as to what had happened. Holmes takes up his investigations and, in the end, reveals that Boone is the missing St Clair. He had assumed the identity of Boone to conduct his business, i.e. begging. He did not want his wife and children to know about his ‘profession’ and so dressed up as Boone before he had to explain the reason for his stay in Swandam Lane to his wife (cf. ibid. 162-183). As “In a Case of Identity”, no real crime is committed in “The Man with the Twisted Lip”. Nevertheless, crime-related logical paradoxes are important for many detective stories because a detective needs a paradox to solve (cf. Stumme 32).
Considering inheritance and greed, a special type of crime-related logical paradoxes can be found, i.e. a locked-room mystery. Although the crimes circle around inheritance and greed, crime-related logical paradoxes usually manifest in murder.
The Locked-Room Mystery
The locked-room mystery is a prominent type of logical paradox within the Sherlock Holmes canon. According to Ilana Shiloh, locked-room mysteries can be characterised by the fact that a crime was committed in a room which, paradoxically, nobody could enter (cf. 151). Therefore, the question of who committed the crime is secondary to the question of how it was carried out (cf. ibid.). Just like Edgar Allan Poe, many detective fiction writers, also Doyle, have used the locked-room mystery – “the misleading sign of a deed that only appears mysterious to the unobservant eye and the untutored mind” (ibid. 153).
In “The Speckled Band”, the paradoxical distinction between apparent contradiction and plain truth is expressed by such a locked-room mystery. Within the short story, a lady called Helen Stoner approaches Sherlock Holmes because her twin sister died two years before under mysterious circumstances in a locked room, which she explains to him as follows: My evidence showed that the door had been fastened upon the inner side, and the windows were blocked by old-fashioned shutters with broad iron bars, which were secured every night. The
22 walls were carefully sounded, and were shown to be quite solid all round, and the flooring was also thoroughly examined, with the same result. The chimney is wide, but is barred up by four large staples. It is certain, therefore, that my sister was quite alone when she met her end. Besides, there were no marks of any violence upon her. (Doyle, “The Speckled Band” 210) The readers are baffled as much as the characters by this underlying logical paradox, which suggests that a woman was found murdered although nobody could enter the room. Although the death of Stoner’s sister already marks the second anniversary, Stoner is desperately worried as she will marry soon and fears a similar fate to that of her sister due to the fact that she hears a whistle every night just like her sister did shortly before she died. Together with Dr Watson, Holmes travels to Stoke Moran to examine the crime scene and to inspect whether all the investigations with regard to the locked room were carried out correctly. He realises that Stoner is right in claiming that nobody could enter the room via the door, the windows, and the chimney and even the floor and the walls seem to be impermeable. However, he registers a ventilator including a ventilator opening which connects the room with another. Furthermore, he discovers a bell rope dummy attached to the ventilator opening, which raises his immediate interest. Investigating Stoner’s stepfather’s room, Holmes spots elements even more curious than in Stoner’s room, e.g. a bowl of milk although there is no cat and a dog lash although there is no dog.
In the end, Holmes reveals that the chamber in which Stoner’s sister died was not so impermeable or locked as Stoner and the police force thought. The rooms of Stoner and her stepfather are connected through the ventilator opening “so small that a rat could hardly pass through” (ibid. 220). However, a deadly serpent – looking similar to a speckled band – could wind its way through the ventilator opening by clinging to a dummy bell rope in order to kill Stoner’s sister and prevent her from marrying. Stoner’s stepfather would have suffered enormous financial loss had Stoner’s sister married (cf. ibid. 203-226). The motive of inheritance and greed is expressed by a logical paradox concerning murder.
“The Speckled Band” perfectly exemplifies the prototypical locked-room mystery and shows a way of how people in a room which seems to be inaccessible at first glance but accessible for animals such as a snake at second glance can be killed. This short story’s locked-room mystery perfectly ties in with John Irwin’s concept of locked-room mysteries. He states that “the problem is one of understanding how an apparently exitless enclosure may be exited, in one instance by following a figurative clue that leads to the discovery of the criminal’s ‘means of egress’, in the other by following a literal clew that leads out of the maze” (Irwin quoted in Shiloh 152). In the Sherlock Holmes narratives, the locked-room paradox in “The Speckled Band” is not the only one. A slightly different locked-room paradox is evoked in The Sign of the Four
23 although featuring the same motive and end as in “The Speckled Band”, i.e. inheritance and greed as well as murder.
In The Sign of the Four, Bartholomew Sholto is found dead with a “ghastly, inscrutable smile” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 32) so that it is obvious for Holmes that Sholto must have been murdered. Holmes gathers evidence for his hypothesis by detecting a poisonous thorn in Sholto’s neck. The logical paradox, i.e. that Sholto was murdered in a locked room, is resolved by Holmes by deducing that although the door was locked, and the window was fastened when the crime was committed, the room is located “sixty feet from the ground” (ibid. 34) with “no foothold” (ibid.) and the chimney is too small for a person to get in, one perpetrator could enter via the roof and assist the other one inside the window: ‘How often have I [(Holmes)] said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth? We know that he did not come through the door, the window, or the chimney. We also know that he could not have been concealed in the room, as there is no concealment possible. Whence, then, did he come?’ ‘He came through the hole in the roof!’ I [(Watson)] cried. (ibid. 35; original emphasis) This locked-room mystery is different to the locked-room mystery in “The Speckled Band” analysed above. In “The Speckled Band”, it was impossible for any human being to enter the room in which the murder was committed whereas it was feasible in The Sign of the Four. Therefore, the locked-room mystery in “The Speckled Band” can be considered to fully be developed and, consequently, more significant than the locked-room mystery in The Sign of the Four. In other words, the conundrum in “The Speckled Band” can be referred to as a real locked-room mystery whereas the riddle in The Sign of the Four must be specified as pseudo- locked-room mystery.
The logically paradoxical deeds but especially the locked-room mysteries within Sherlock Holmes point to the fact that crime-related logical paradoxes are important for many detective stories (cf. Stumme 32), which mostly circle around “cultism”, “revenge”, “murder”, “identity and deception”, “inheritance and greed”, “threats from foreign or domestic political intrigue”, “cheating”, and “crimes against property” (Greenfield 19). It has to be noted, though, that many Sherlock Holmes narratives do not include grave crime-related logical paradoxes; they only build up on smaller logical paradoxes as it is the case in “A Scandal in Bohemia” (threat from foreign or domestic political intrigue and cheating) and in “The Blue Carbuncle” (crime against property); the logical paradoxes within these two short stories do not exemplify similar strength to the logical paradoxes in A Study in Scarlet (murder), “A Case of Identity” and “The Man with the Twisted Lip” (identity and deception ), and “The Speckled Band” and The Sign of the Four (locked-room paradoxes).
24 Nevertheless, crime-related logical paradoxes are essential to many Sherlock Holmes narratives. In fact, they are the “ultimate manifestation of the cerebral detective story” (Penzler n.p.). Thanks to Holmes, crimes can be solved by resolving crime-related logical paradoxes. In fact, Holmes strives for solving all cases and, consequently, for clearing away all crime-related logical paradoxes. Therefore, it might be considered as especially paradoxical that the Sherlock Holmes narratives represent other forms of logical paradoxes, which are not resolved by Holmes or anyone else. These include, for example, Holmes’s superiority over Watson or, conversely, Watson’s inferiority to Holmes. In other words, whereas Holmes aims at disenchanting the world, there are certain features which imply the world’s re-enchantment.
4.1.2 Sherlock Holmes’s Superiority over Dr Watson
Sherlock Holmes’s statement “It confirms my diagnosis, as you doctors express it” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 45) points to the fact that he considers his profession to be similar to a doctor’s. According to him, detectives, just like doctors, aim at reading symptoms to come to a diagnosis. This is exactly where the second major logical paradox within the Sherlock Holmes series comes into play: Holmes as a consulting detective is considerably better at reading symptoms and coming to diagnoses than Dr Watson; Watson as a physician can learn vital things from Holmes (cf. “You Know My Methods” 741). This is confirmed by McCrea who states that “Holmes sees almost everything and he understands everything he sees, often immediately. Watson sees the same things but he does not understand how they fit together” (xi). Within the Sherlock Holmes canon, many examples of Holmes’s success in seeing symptoms and establishing a diagnosis or Watson’s incapability of doing so can be found. The logical paradox of their utterly different capabilities will be analysed in the following, starting with Watson’s inferiority.
Dr Watson’s Inferiority and His Lack of Knowledge
Dr Watson is inferior to Sherlock Holmes, which is presented within the Sherlock Holmes canon in many instances. Watson’s inferiority to Holmes develops to a logical paradox when Watson’s profession is considered. It might seem clear that Watson cannot solve cases as easily as Holmes because he is not proficient in detection. However, as a doctor, Watson should be able to see symptoms and establish diagnoses at least when bodies, whether dead or alive, are concerned. He is a scientist but miserably fails at crime scenes even when medical
25 approaches are necessary to achieve solutions. This is confirmed by Kevin Kilroy (cf. 252- 253). Kilroy claims that although Watson can be considered as “a man of science and medicine” (252), he is, in opposition to Holmes, limited by “his empiricism” (253).
Examples of the logical paradox that Watson is incapable of seeing symptoms and establishing diagnoses when bodies are concerned can be found throughout many Sherlock Holmes narratives. In the different crime scenes, Watson immediately talks about the horror in the victims’ faces (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 30; cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 31-32) instead of trying to read symptoms to be able to come to diagnoses why the respective victims had to die. This can be connected to the fact that Watson lacks scientific method although he is a scientist. In A Study in Scarlet, for instance, Watson does not realise that Drebber was poisoned although he could have “sniffed his lips” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 43) just like Holmes did. Similarly, in The Sign of the Four, Watson does not see the “long dark thorn” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 32) in Sholto’s neck; only after Holmes makes him aware of it does Watson realise that Sholto was poisoned. As a trained doctor, Watson should have strategies of how to examine a body.
Of course, Watson’s inferiority to Holmes does not only manifest in reading symptoms on bodies and coming to diagnoses. When the different crimes within the Sherlock Holmes canon are concerned, Watson is generally inferior to Holmes. As mentioned above, this is hardly surprising because Watson is no specialist in clearing up criminal cases. Nevertheless, due to Watson’s scientific education, the readers might expect more from him. The readers do not only find evidence for Watson’s inferiority in terms of gathering evidences and drawing conclusions in many examples throughout the Sherlock Holmes narratives; they also receive confirmation for this circumstance when Watson frankly acknowledges his inferiority to Holmes. In fact, Watson repeatedly refers to his incapability to see the indices Holmes sees. Interestingly, he points out that he is not only incapable of seeing indices and coming to a conclusion: he is even unable to reach conclusions when he is made aware of specific indices by Holmes.
Evidence of Watson’s honesty about his own inferiority towards Holmes is presented in A Study in Scarlet, in which Watson explicitely talks about Holmes’s power in the field of detection and his own incapability. For example, Watson admits that Holmes is far better at finding indices than he is as “[Holmes] could see a great deal which was hidden from [him]” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 28). This becomes even more obvious when Watson describes how Holmes investigates crime scenes. Watson states that his companion studies particular things
26 and items which he himself would have never associated with the felonies and, therefore, is completely ignorant of: For twenty minutes or more he [(Holmes)] continued his researches, measuring with the most exact care the distance between marks which were entirely invisible to me [(Watson)], and occasionally applying his tape to the walls in an equally incomprehensible manner. (ibid. 34) This statement shows how successful Holmes is at gathering evidences when Watson struggles to see elementary clues. For Watson, important evidences are hidden and, therefore, invisible. Although the above-mentioned example does not strictly refer to the investigation of a corpse, it seems to be a logical paradox that Watson as a doctor totally fails at applying a scientific method in order to be able to investigate a crime scene; he should be trained at investigating – at least at investigating symptoms on bodies.
There is an explanation for Watson’s inferiority to Holmes: Watson does not have sufficient knowledge in investigating crime scenes and, therefore, does not know how to act. Accordingly, he must be inferior to Holmes. According to Maria Konnikova, people tend to make decisions based on their knowledge; this is Watson’s major problem (cf. 231). He is a doctor and has, at least at the beginning of his career as Holmes’s biographer, no knowledge which is directly connected to the profession of a consulting detective. Hence, it is not surprising that Watson does not see the indices Holmes observes in order to be able to come to conclusions – knowledge is the crux of the matter.
The question remains why Watson lacks knowledge when bodies are concerned. According to Kilroy, the problems is that “Watson knows much about many things – [he has] sporadic knowledge” (254). Conversely, Holmes does not have knowledge which is not vital for him. Although Watson considers sporadic knowledge as important and believes that Holmes has substantial deficits in fields such as literature, philosophy, astronomy, and politics (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 18), Holmes can explain why he strictly abhors basic and general knowledge: ‘You see,’ he explained, ‘I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now, the skilful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. (ibid. 17) Following this quote, Holmes identifies Watson as a “fool” (ibid.) who acquires too much common knowledge which occupies great parts of his brain and makes space useless for more vital information. Conversely, Holmes considers himself as a “skilful workman” (ibid.) who is
27 more careful about choosing contents which are to be stored in his brain; he only takes in very important data.
Holmes’s concept of the “brain-attic” (ibid.) becomes visible in many passages within the Sherlock Holmes narratives. When it comes to things such as the solar system, Holmes is without a clue – very much to Watson’s astonishment. Holmes argues that he is ignorant of the solar system and how it works because it is insignificant for him: ‘What the deuce is [the solar system] to me?’ he interrupted impatiently: ‘you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a penny-worth of difference to me or to my work.’ (ibid.) The fact that knowledge about the solar system is not necessary for Holmes’s work shows that, indeed, Holmes does not store information in his brain attic which is not essential for him as a consulting detective. The above stated quote figures as an example of the difference between Holmes and Watson. Holmes is careful about choosing the contents for his brain while Watson considers general and basic information as necessary. If knowledge is a vital component which enables people to find evidences and to come to conclusions, it is not surprising that Watson is inferior to Holmes.
In A Study in Scarlet, Holmes declares to Watson, “[T]hings which have perplexed you and made the case more obscure have served to enlighten me and to strengthen my conclusions” (ibid. 64). The question of why this is the case can be answered with knowledge. Watson has sporadic knowledge of many things, which takes up space for more vital information and which is not carefully organised within his brain attic. On the contrary, Holmes’s knowledge and information are carefully stored in his brain attic. When he sees something, he knows where to find the important data and can quickly scan through the respective part of his brain attic. Therefore, things that illume Holmes might seem mysterious for Watson.
Konnikova claims that Holmes’s concept of the brain attic has found recognition in cognitive science (cf. 26). In fact, this concept is still referred to as brain attic today (cf. ibid.). Konnikova argues that although most of the people just like Watson cannot control which content they store in their brain attics, they can learn how to choose their data to be more efficient (cf. 27).
What seems to be clear is the fact that Watson is inferior to Holmes because he has too much common knowledge which uses up the space for the vital knowledge to be able to find evidences and coming to solutions – he does not use his brain attic effectively (cf. ibid. 231- 234). However, there are other components which lead to the logical paradox of Watson’s inferiority to Holmes or, conversely, Holmes’s superiority over Watson.
28 Sherlock Holmes’s Superiority and His Skills in Observation and Deduction
As stated above, knowledge is the major aspect why Dr Watson is inferior to Sherlock Holmes. It explains the logical paradox of Watson’s incapability to read symptoms and to come to diagnoses when bodies as well as other crime-related features are concerned. However, knowledge can also be regarded as one reason for the logical paradox that Holmes is superior to Watson when it comes to finding evidences and coming to conclusions because knowledge is one part of Holmes’s “Science of Deduction” (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 15- 24; cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 3-10). As knowledge and Holmes’s concept of the brain attic are referred to above, they will be neglected within this section. Besides knowledge, Holmes’s science of deduction consists of two other components: observation and deduction (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 6). They can be regarded as two further aspects which suggest a logical paradox within Holmes’s superiority towards Watson.
The Holmesian terms observation and deduction are not easy to explain. At first glance, the act of observation might seem to be simple for many people; however, it is not. Observation cannot be successful if it is carried out randomly. For observers, it is essential to “know[...] what and how to observe” (Konnikova 64, original emphasis). It is important to consider certain other aspects: for a successful observation, selectivity, objectivity, inclusion, and engagement (cf. ibid. 76-108) are necessary.
Konnikova refers to these key features that people should adhere to when stocking their brain attics to become more like Holmes. First, it is necessary to “[b]e [s]elective” (ibid. 76), i.e. to focus one’s attention on the important things in order to be able to be really attentive. Whereas Watson is inefficient because he sometimes focuses his attention on random things, Holmes is much more concentrated on the elements which are significant for his investigations. This implies that Watson is not selective but Holmes is (cf. ibid. 76-82). Second, it is essential to “[b]e [o]bjective” (ibid. 82), which means to be unbiased by one’s own sensitivities. When Watson personally believes something to be plausible or implausible, it must be real or it cannot be real; he is too subjective. According to Konnikova, people do not “require as large or diligent a burden of proof” (231) to come to a conclusion if they strongly believe in something. Holmes, on the other hand, “remains capable of extreme objectivity even in the face of extreme circumstances” (ibid. 86). Third, “[b]e[ing] [i]nclusive” (ibid. 88) is a necessity for efficiently using one’s brain attic. This seems to contradict with selectivity at first but it means to use all of one’s senses, i.e. “sight, smell, hearing, taste, [and] touch” (ibid. 90) and to be aware of the fact that certain perceptions
29 might lead to wrong solutions (cf. ibid. 91). In opposition to Watson, Holmes does so, for example, when smoking is concerned. He has knowledge about many cigars and tobacco including their smell and the look of their ashes (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 37). Finally, one must “[b]e engaged” (Konnikova 96), i.e. motivated; otherwise, one might get inattentive and important features might slip through one’s hands. According to Konnikova, selectivity, objectivity, inclusion, and engagement are the main reasons why Watson does not observe and stock his brain attic as successfully as Holmes (cf. 63-109).
The act of deduction is even more complex than observation, which makes it necessary for deductive reasoners to be well trained. Deduction is the step which follows fruitful observation. It is the point when knowledge and observations, i.e. all contents of the brain attic, are connected until a coherent and logical whole can be established (cf. ibid. 158). Konnikova claims that successful deduction is difficult because people tend to alter information that is in their brain attics to create a coherent story (cf. 165-166). They sometimes “don’t pause to reflect” (ibid. 167) and make up their story “intuitively” (ibid.). For a proper deduction, however, it is necessary to look at all available information and reflect on one’s intuition and, if necessary, revise it (cf. ibid.). Holmes is able to do so; Watson, however, immediately jumps at explanations that seem to be likely without thinking them over and, consequently, fails to deduce correctly (cf. 167-168).
Observation and deduction are vital in order to be able to “reason[...] from effects to causes” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 5), which, according to Holmes, is essential in detective work. Holmes believes that the majority of people including Watson is not able to put the science of deduction into practice and to reason backwards. Holmes claims that “the Science of Deduction and Analysis is one which can only be acquired by long and patient study, nor is life long enough to allow any mortal to attain the highest possible perfection in it” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 20). And he is right: for example, Watson is astonished when Holmes figures out that the former was in Afghanistan as a military surgeon at their first meeting. He repeatedly comments on his astonishment with questions such as “How on earth did you know that?” (ibid. 11) or “[H]ow the deuce did he know that I had come from Afghanistan?” (ibid. 14). Watson has no clue about Holmes’s science of deduction, how it works, and how successfully it can be applied. However, Holmes would not be Holmes if he could not explain his method with all its stages to Watson: ‘[…] I knew you came from Afghanistan. From long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind that I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps. There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran: “Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor then. He has just come from the
30 tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.” The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished.’ (ibid. 22, original emphasis) This passage showcases Holmes’s approach towards observation and deduction. By means of this explanation, it becomes visible how important detailed observation and reasonable deduction is for Holmes’s success and his superiority.
In the first part, Holmes observes that Watson “is a gentleman of a medical type [...] with the air of a military man” (ibid.). From these observations, Holmes deduces that Watson must be “an army doctor” (ibid.). In the second part, Holmes aims at verifying his observations and deductions and elaborating on them. He tests and extends his findings taking Watson’s character and his overall appearance including his skin colour and his physique into account. Holmes observes Watson’s dark skin colour, his narrow face, and his injured arm from which he deduces that Watson must have been in the tropics and must have had a tough time. In the end, Holmes connects all his deductions and comes to the conclusion that Watson must have been a military doctor in Afghanistan (cf. ibid.).
Holmes’s superiority in finding evidences and coming to conclusions is also visible within “A Scandal in Bohemia”, in which he explains his science of deduction similar to the example above. Although not having seen Watson for a long time, Holmes easily deduces that Watson has put on weight, works as a doctor again, was outside in the rain, and has an irresponsible maid (cf. Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” 103). Watson cannot understand how Holmes arrived at these conclusions; however, Holmes states that “[he] see[s] it, [he] deduce[s] it” (ibid.). He explains his methods as follows: ‘It is simplicity itself,’ said he; ‘my eyes tell me that on the inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the London slavey. As to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver upon his right fore-finger, and a bulge on the side of his top hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be dull indeed if I do not pronounce him to be an active member of the medical profession.’ (ibid. 104) Just like in the example above, Holmes explains his thinking process to Watson focusing on observation and deduction. He observes that Watson’s shoe is scratched. Based on this observation, he makes two deductions: Watson must have an irresponsible maid and he must have been outside because otherwise, his shoes would not have needed a brush. Furthermore, Holmes observes a couple of signs such as iodoform, nitrate stains, and a bulge of a
31 stethoscope through which he deduces that Watson must work as a doctor again (cf. ibid. 103- 104).
Konnikova has analysed Holmes’s mastermind in depth. According to her, Holmes’s thinking process can be divided into five major steps. First, one has to be confronted with a problem, which must be identified. Second, one must observe carefully. Third, according to her, knowledge is the vital component to be able to observe successfully because without the knowledge of what and how to observe, the results of observation might be biased. Fourth, a hypothesis must be constructed through connecting observation results and imagination. And, fifth, these hypotheses or imaginations must be tested. All scenarios that do not make sense must be eradicated and the last one that prevails is the single truth. Nonetheless, these tests should be repeated because knowledge, which is necessary for an objective observation and deduction, might change (cf. Konnikova 13-17). Konnikova’s analysis of Holmes’s thinking process very much resembles Holmes’s explanations of his science of deduction and shows how scientific Holmes’s thought process is. In fact, Watson states that “[Holmes] [has] brought detection as near an exact science as it ever will be brought in this world” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 38).
Whereas Watson in A Study in Scarlet believes that Holmes is merely guessing all these facts about him, i.e. his profession and his military service in Afghanistan (cf. ibid 36), he becomes aware of the opposite in The Sign of the Four when he hands over his watch to Holmes with the request to receive information according to its previous owner. Although Watson believes that Holmes is unable to find out to whom the watch belonged, it does not take long for Holmes to identify that person (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 7-9). Due to Watson’s astonishment, Holmes argues that “[w]hat seems strange to [Watson] is only so because [he] do[es] not follow [Holmes’s] train of thought or observe the small facts upon which large inferences may depend” (ibid. 8-9). This statement emphasises Holmes’s superiority.
This above-mentioned statement is also the point at which the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over Watson in terms of observation and deduction comes into play. It is a logical paradox that a consulting detective has a scientific approach towards how to find evidences and how to come to conclusions whereas a doctor or, in other words, a scientist does not have. Just like Holmes, Watson should be used to “reason[...] from effects to causes” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 5); in fact, Watson is a doctor and it is a doctor’s task to read symptoms and establish diagnoses, i.e. to “reason[...] from effects to causes” (ibid.). Therefore, Watson should be proficient at a scientific approach related to Holmes’s science of deduction
32 containing similar steps to knowledge, observation and deduction. If Watson was proficient in his profession, he would be used to Holmes’s “train of thought” (ibid. 8) and it would not be a problem for him to understand how Holmes finds evidences and arrives at his conclusions. This confirms the logical paradox which takes centre stage whenever Holmes’s great capability of finding evidences and coming to conclusions or, conversely, Watson’s total failure to do so are described.
The logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority towards Watson pervades many Sherlock Holmes narratives. Not only does Holmes repeatedly succeed in finding evidences and coming to conclusions about Watson’s person (his profession, having spent time in Afghanistan, the previous owner of his watch etc.). Holmes is also able to solve many crimes by applying his science of deduction. “He uses logic, science, and strict analytical cognitive processes to solve his mysteries” (Rufa 3). Watson, on the contrary, is a scientist but, paradoxically, lacks scientific method whether in connection to bodies or to other crime-related features. He is emotional and subjective and does not apply logical and scientific strategies at all.
In A Study in Scarlet, for example, Holmes manages to find crucial evidences in the crime scene, which are entirely invisible for Watson. He can provide the inspectors Gregson and Lestrade as well as Watson with remarkably precise information on the murderer’s gender, age, height, shoe size, footwear, and the cab in which he arrived as well as the reason for the victim’s death. Furthermore, he can add details about the horse which was the cab’s draft animal, the cigar the murderer smoked, the murderer’s face, and the length of the murderer’s fingernails. In the end, Holmes arrives at a conclusion and does not only leave Gregson and Lestrade “open-mouthed behind” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 35) but, paradoxically, also Watson (cf. ibid. 34-35). As explained above, Watson as a doctor should be experienced in a scientific approach which deals with reasoning from effects to causes or, in other words, from symptoms to diagnoses. However, he is totally unable to see how his companion has arrived at his results.
The fact that Holmes is much better at finding evidences and coming to conclusions than Watson is also depicted in The Sign of the Four in various instances. Holmes, for example, quickly deduces that two men, one of them with a wooden leg and the other one short in height, must be held responsible for Bartholomew Sholto’s death. He immediately realises that it was not a child who climbed the roof to assist the wooden-legged man but an aborigine from the Andaman Islands. Just as quickly, he comes to the result that Sholto must have been poisoned. He finds evidence straight away – a poisoned thorn in Sholto’s neck (cf. Doyle, The
33 Sign of the Four 33-40). Watson, on the other hand, fails at finding and reading these evidences and at establishing a correct conclusion. He repeatedly interrogates Holmes about his investigations, which Holmes is not always fond of: ‘My dear Watson, try a little analysis yourself,’ said he, with a touch of impatience. ‘You know my methods. Apply them, and it will be instructive to compare results.’ (ibid. 36) The explanations above and this statement point at the logical paradox that Watson is incapable of finding evidences and coming to conclusions although he should be able to as a doctor. And even when Holmes explicitly urges Watson to overcome his incapability and to apply a scientific method, i.e. Holmes’s science of deduction, Watson is unable to do so.
The more Holmes describes his science of deduction to Watson, the clearer and the simpler it seems for him (cf. Rufa 4) because it is easier to apply than he thinks (cf. Knight 56-57): ‘When I hear you give your reasons,’ I [(Watson)] remarked, ‘the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive instance of your reasoning I am baffled, until you explain your process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours.’ (Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” 104) In terms of Holmes’s superiority over Watson or, conversely, his own inferiority, this seems to be a glimmer of hope. Watson starts to understand how Holmes’s science of deduction works. However, this does not make the implementation of the science of deduction easier for Watson. According to Holmes, the reason why Watson is incapable of reading symptoms is that he sees but does not observe (cf. ibid.). The problem is that Watson does not know which symptoms he should look at in order to be able to reach a diagnosis – he is lacking in knowledge which is vital for a successful observation and deduction (cf. Konnikova 231-34).
As outlined above, Holmes’s superiority over Watson already figures a central logical paradox. Interestingly, Holmes’s superiority becomes even more paradoxical when the fact that Holmes is able to come to conclusions without having seen the evidences himself is considered: ‘But do you mean to say,’ I [(Watson)] said, ‘that without leaving your room you can unravel some knot which other men can make nothing of, although they have seen every detail for themselves?’ ‘Quite so. I have a kind of intuition that way. […]’ (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 21-22) It is difficult to imagine that any human being is able to come to a result without having looked at the single components that have led to this particular result himself or herself. However, Holmes can be considered as ingenious through his science of deduction. Although he sometimes leaves out the second step of his problem-solving method, i.e. observation, he is able to come to conclusions. He draws on his knowledge and combines it with the observations other people have made for him, through which he can successfully conclude.
34 This shows how logically paradoxical something might seem at first glance, whether for Watson or for the readers, and how simple this paradox can be resolved at second glance.
“A detective must be able to ‘read’ the narrative of the crime that the criminal has written and ‘write’ the narrative of how the crime was committed along with its solution and resolution” (Sweeney quoted in Greenfield 23), which suggests that steps such as knowledge, observation and deduction are vital for Holmes. Therefore, the science of deduction is the main explanation for the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over Watson. Holmes has a scientific method to come from effects to causes whereas Watson as a scientist does not have. This constitutes the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over Watson. However, it becomes even more interesting; considering Holmes’s superiority or, conversely, Watson’s inferiority, a paradox within the paradox can be detected.
The Paradox within the Paradox: Sherlock Holmes’s Dependence on Dr Watson
The paradox within the paradox builds up from Dr Watson’s inferiority as well as Sherlock Holmes’s superiority. Even though there is a cognitive imbalance between Holmes and Watson and it appears that Watson is not of considerable help to Holmes, Holmes appreciates Watson’s company. Holmes repeatedly asks Watson to stay and to assist him (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 27; cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 10) and states that “[Watson’s] presence will be of great service to [him]” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 40). In “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Holmes even declares that when Watson leaves, “[he will be] lost without [his] Boswell” (Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” 106). Just like Watson of Holmes, Boswell was “biographer and travelling companion of Samuel Johnson” (McCrea 329) and therefore, indispensable for him. Holmes’s dependence on Watson represents a logical paradox because due to Holmes’s superiority or Watson’s inferiority, Watson’s help does not seem to be valuable for Holmes at all. Therefore, the question or logical paradox why Holmes does not want to do without Watson raises.
The straightforward explanation for this logical paradox or, in other words, Holmes’s dependence on Watson is that without him, Holmes would not be so famous. Watson chronicles Holmes’s cases and successes, which provides Holmes with clients who bring him money. If Holmes could not earn his living with being a consulting detective, he would not be able to put so much effort into the investigation of cases and, consequently, would not be so successful.
35 Probably the more convincing explanation for the logical paradox of Holmes’s dependence on Watson is that Watson stimulates Holmes’s mind, which Holmes declares in The Hound of the Baskervilles: “[i]t may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it” (Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles 6). Holmes further explains to Watson that “in noting [his] fallacies [he] was occasionally guided towards the truth” (ibid.). With this assertion, Holmes indicates that he needs Watson because he is a kind of stimulation or inspiration to him.
In any case, it has to be noted that Watson is a central and important character within the Sherlock Holmes canon. Not only is he indispensable for Holmes; also for the readers, Watson is a vital character. Without him, the novellas and the short stories “would be so much weaker” (McConnell 179): The detective, the purely rational and therefore eccentric individual who understands the new and dangerous world, needs his interpreter. Otherwise he might appear altogether too strange for us to accept him, and the myth of reason he brings with him. (ibid.) It seems that the readers of the Sherlock Holmes narratives need Watson’s incapability through which he can interrogate Holmes about his methods and provide the readers with important information. Otherwise, the readers might not be able to follow Holmes’s thought process and the Sherlock Holmes narratives might be weak indeed.
As suggested by the examples given and analysed above, Holmes’s superiority over Watson or Watson’s inferiority to Holmes are logically paradoxical. It is a logical paradox that Watson as a scientifically trained doctor is not able to reason from symptoms to causes, which makes it the more paradoxical that Holmes as a consulting detective is. The reason for Holmes’s superiority is that he masters his science of deduction and his concept of the brain attic. Nevertheless, the Holmes-Watson relationship constitutes one aspect in which logical paradoxes can be found. The circumstance that Holmes needs Watson although Holmes’s science of deduction makes him superior to his companion makes the whole situation even more paradoxical. As if the logical paradoxes of Holmes’s and Watson’s relationship were not enough, another logical paradox unfolds: the logical paradox of Holmes’s relationship to Scotland Yard.
4.1.3 Sherlock Holmes’s Relationship to Scotland Yard
In terms of Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard, the third grave logical paradox within the Sherlock Holmes series can be found. It is logically paradoxical that Holmes as a single
36 consulting detective is able to solve the most mysterious crimes whereas the British police force is not; in fact, in many instances, neither normal police officers nor Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones, whom Holmes refers to as “the pick of a bad lot [of Scotland Yard]” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 26), are able to come to solutions. Already in the first Sherlock Holmes novella, A Study in Scarlet, the police’s inferiority and Holmes’s superiority are presented. The police detectives fail to interpret important clues such as the woman’s wedding ring and the bloodstained wall correctly; Holmes, however, is successful. The logical paradox of the police’s failure and Holmes’s success pervades almost all Sherlock Holmes narratives. Actually, in many other Sherlock Holmes novellas and short stories, Scotland Yard is depicted in an inferior and negative way whether they play an active part or are only referred to by Holmes, Dr Watson or Holmes’s clients. Holmes is well aware of his superiority or, in other words, the police’s inferiority and he talks openly about it: I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their depths – which, by the way, is their normal state – the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist’s opinion. (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 4) This statement shows that Holmes knows that he is able to “clear[…] up those mysteries, which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police” (Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” 102); in fact, “[i]t is [his] business to know what other people [such as the police officers] don’t know” (Doyle, “The Blue Carbuncle” 197). “[T]hings which have perplexed [the police] and made the case more obscure have served to enlighten [Holmes] and to strengthen [his] conclusions” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 64). Holmes’s above-mentioned statement and all the remarks within this paragraph underline the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority and the police’s incapability.
In many Sherlock Holmes narratives, such statements and remarks suggest that Scotland Yard is incapable to protect Great Britain’s and especially London’s citizens. There are instances, however, when Holmes even more drastically points out how inferior the police including the police detectives Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones are to him. For example, Holmes states that he even favours the assistance of a dog to the help of the police. He says to Watson that “[he] would rather have Toby’s help than that of the whole detective force of London” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 40). If it comes to tracking dogs which are able to follow certain smells and to find blood or bodies whether alive or dead, Holmes’s point is clear. However, if Holmes’s statement is interpreted in more general terms due to the fact that it is not mentioned that Toby is a specially trained tracking dog, the incapability of the Scotland Yard becomes obvious.
37 Taking the above-mentioned statements and remarks into account, the question of why Holmes as a single consulting detective is depicted as more successful at solving crimes than the whole British police force is a central one. The manifoldness of reasons with which this question can be answered shows that the logical paradox of Scotland Yard’s failure and Holmes’s success is a complex one. Holmes’s science of deduction, his application of forensics, and his eccentricity play an important role in the analysis of the logical paradox of the police’s inferiority and Holmes’s superiority.
Scotland Yard’s Unfamiliarity with Sherlock Holmes’s Science of Deduction
The main reason for the logical paradox of the police officer’s inferiority to Sherlock Holmes is the fact that, just like Dr Watson, they are unable to apply the science of deduction. They miserably fail at successfully combining knowledge, observation, and deduction.
In terms of the first component of the science of deduction, i.e. knowledge, the police detectives are inferior to Holmes because, in opposition to him, they are not specialised on details. Holmes actively engages with details; according to him, he wrote a couple of monographs on subjects which are of interest for a consulting detective (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 6). Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones, on the other hand, are not able to classify cigar and tobacco ashes or to follow footsteps and they know nothing about the marks with which the hands of craftsmen are branded (cf. ibid.). Holmes states that “[i]t is just [in] such details that the skilled detective differs from the Gregson and Lestrade type” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 37). This crime-related knowledge which the Scotland Yard detectives are wanting and which Holmes has can be connected to Holmes’s supremacy in forensics, which will be referred to in detail further down (cf. Sherlock Holmes as the Precursor of Forensics).
Another aspect in which the police detectives are inferior to Holmes is his knowledge of criminal history. Holmes occupies himself with old cases; according to Watson, “[h]e appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 18). Holmes justifies his knowledge about criminal history stating, “There is nothing new under the sun. It has been done before” (ibid. 30). Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones lack knowledge with regard to old cases, which is a factor why they are inferior to Holmes. Both Holmes’s specialised insight into crime-related details and his interest in criminal history prove how central knowledge, of which Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones do not have enough, is to be able to successfully solve crimes. Scotland Yard’s lack of knowledge is one explanation for the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over them.
38 Considering the second aspect of the science of deduction, observation, Scotland Yard are worse than Holmes because they do not know how and on what to focus their attention in order to be able to observe successfully. In A Study in Scarlet, for example, the police constable John Rance, who found Enoch Drebber’s corpse, stood right before the murderer. Due to the fact that Rance did not know how and on what to focus his attention, i.e. that the murderer might pretend to be drunk to distract from his own person, he missed the opportunity to arrest him: ‘I’ve seen many a drunk chap in my time,’ he said, ‘but never anyone so cryin’ drunk as that cove. He was at the gate when I came out, a-leanin’ up ag’in the railings, and a-singin’ at the pitch o’ his lungs about Columbine’s New-fangled Banner, or some such stuff. He couldn’t stand, far less help.’ (ibid. 40-41) From Rance’s further descriptions about the drunkard’s appearance, Holmes deduces that it must have been the sought criminal. Holmes informs Rance about the fact that “[t]he man whom [he] held in [his] hands is the man who holds the clue of [that] mystery, and whom [Holmes and the police] are seeking” (ibid. 41). Rance’s failure which might be the reason why “[he] will never rise in the [police] force” (ibid.) is only due to poor observation in connection with unsystematic attention. Everything on which Rance focussed was the actual crime scene; he did not pay attention to other vital aspects (cf. Konnikova 70-71). Psychologists refer to this phenomenon with “attentional blindness” or “attentive inattention” (ibid. 71) and declare that it is impossible for human beings to observe or to focus their attention on two different things at the same time with equal intensity. This poses the logical paradox of why Holmes is able to focus his attention on different important aspects simultaneously. In comparison to average human beings such as the police officers, Holmes is trained and practiced, which makes “the importance – and effectiveness – of training, of brute practice, […] overwhelmingly clear” (ibid. 72).
Considering the fact that the police detectives Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones are inferior to Holmes in terms of knowledge and observation, it is hardly surprising that they are also incapable of the third element of the science of deduction, i.e. deduction. In fact, their lack of sufficient knowledge and their inadequate or wrong observations cannot lead to correct deductions. Nevertheless, sometimes the police hit the head on the nail and stock their brain attic adequately. For instance, in A Study in Scarlet, Gregson correctly observes that the hat next to the victim has an inscription of its manufacturer. He visits this manufacturer, who tells him that he sent that hat “to a Mr Drebber, residing at Charpentier’s Boarding Establishment, Torquay Terrace” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 54). So far, Gregson’s work has been sound. Gregson, then, visits the Charpentiers and after having interrogated Madame Charpentier and
39 her daughter, he deduces improperly and wrongfully identifies Charpentier’s son, Lieutenant Charpentier, as Drebber’s murderer (cf. ibid. 53-58). This example shows that the police officials are incapable of deducing correctly; even if the Scotland Yard detectives have knowledge and correct observations with which they can work, they are still unable to deduce successfully. The fact that the police is unable to deduce correctly poses the logical paradox of why Holmes is able to.
The question of why Holmes is superior in deduction can be answered in different ways. First, people prefer “simplicity” over “factor[s] that stand[...] in the way of [...] causal concreteness” (Konnikova 161). Therefore, people such as Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones frequently deduce “ahead of the data [...] and often in spite of the data” (ibid. 162). This is also the case in the above-mentioned example, in which Gregson accuses Lieutenant Charpentier of the murder of Drebber just because Charpentier’s mother and sister tell Gregson that Charpentier was furious when he heard that Drebber wanted to begin a relationship with Charpentier’s sister. Of course, it can be argued that Charpentier had a motive to kill Drebber and so it might be simple to charge him for the murder indeed; however, as stated above, Gregson deduces “ahead of the data” (ibid.) and makes up a cohesive story based on random guesses. Holmes, on the contrary, investigates more carefully: he only deduces based on his knowledge and observations and he does not add or remove information in order to arrive at a simple solution.
Second, “many people [...] are suffering from a plethora of surmise, conjecture, and hypothesis” (ibid. 173) and so do the police inspectors repeatedly. Considering the above- mentioned example, Gregson suffers from too much information. Although the information about Charpentier’s anger against Drebber proves to be unimportant in the end, Gregson includes it in his brain attic from which he makes his deductions. In other words, he is not able to separate the important part of information from the unimportant one. Holmes, however, “[goes] through all alternatives, one by one, sifting the crucial from the incidental” (ibid. 166, original emphasis), from which he draws his deductions: The difficulty is to detach the framework of fact – of absolute undeniable fact – from the embellishments of theorists and reporters. Then, having established ourselves upon this sound basis, it is our duty to see what inferences may be drawn and what are the special points upon which the whole mystery turns. (Doyle, “Silver Blaze” 7-8)
Making deductions only based on hard facts adding nothing and leaving nothing out (cf. Konnikova 161-162) and separating important from unimportant data (cf. ibid. 168-177) go hand in hand with the third reason for Holmes’s superiority in terms of deduction, i.e.
40 probability. Many people including Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones consider something which seems to be improbable as impossible because, based on their experiences, they are guided into a wrong direction (cf. ibid. 180). Unfortunately, the issue of probability cannot be explained via the example of Gregson, who wrongfully accuses Charpentier for the murder of Drebber. However, it can be connected to “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, in which the honourable gentleman Mr Neville St Clair dressed up as the beggar Hugh Boone and Scotland Yard do not think about the possibility that Boone could be the missing St Clair; Holmes, however, does. This means that in opposition to the police, Holmes excludes nothing, which he explicitely refers to in The Sign of the Four (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 35).
Considering the three essentials of deduction mentioned above, it might seem to be astonishing that imagination, which is another feature that obviously distinguishes the police officials from Holmes (cf. Konnikova 110-112), is the fourth important aspect of deduction. Although Holmes’s thinking process is highly scientific, he argues that imagination is a vital component in his science of deduction (cf. Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles 35). Through imagination, knowledge and observations can be processed and an important step towards deduction is taken (cf. Konnikova 112). In fact, “[m]uch of imagination is about making connections that are not entirely obvious, between elements that may appear disparate at first” (ibid. 112). In opposition to Holmes, Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones do not use imagination in order to link different elements with each other during their investigations. Correspondingly, Holmes declares, “It strikes me, my good Lestrade, as being just a trifle too obvious. [...] You do not add imagination to your other great qualities [...]” (Doyle, “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder” 29). This statement shows that Holmes considers Lestrade’s missing imagination as one explanation for his failure, i.e. with regard to “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder”, his failure of arresting the right man.
As can be seen, one major reason for the logical paradox of the police’s inferiority to Holmes is their inability to apply the science of deduction. When the police are at their wit’s end, Holmes only starts to gain insight into the truth about cases. He uses his knowledge and makes observations, through which he can deduce and ascertain what has happened. However, as mentioned above, there is another reason for the logical paradox of Scotland Yard’s incapability and Holmes’s superiority, i.e. Holmes’s application of forensics.
41 Sherlock Holmes as the Precursor of Forensics
In opposition to Scotland Yard, Sherlock Holmes uses forensics and he uses them successfully. Holmes especially applies fingerprinting, the identification of footprints, the analysis of handwriting and print, and cryptology (cf. O’Brien 48-81). This is of course an important reason for the logical paradox of why Holmes is superior to the police including Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones.
Interestingly, not only the police within the Sherlock Holmes series are ignorant of forensics until the later novellas and short stories; when the first Sherlock Holmes narratives were written, also the police outside the story world did not use forensics at all or struggled with the successful use of forensics for their investigations (cf. ibid. 49-50). Of course, there were people engaging with technologies such as fingerprinting before the release of Sherlock Holmes; however, none of these people achieved a real breakthrough with their theories mainly due to the fact that they were ineffective in crime-related matters (cf. ibid. 50-52). Doyle’s literary figure Holmes, however, uses forensics successfully and so it can be argued that Holmes substantially contributed to the introduction of forensics to police work. “The publication of [‘The Adventure of the Norwood Builder’] in 1903[, in which Holmes successfully solves a crime taking fingerprints into consideration,] preceded by two years the first successful use of fingerprints by the police” (ibid. 54). Therefore, Holmes can be considered as the precursors of modern forensic technologies.
Fingerprinting is prominent in seven Sherlock Holmes narratives (cf. ibid. 50). In The Sign of the Four, published in 1890, Holmes observes a fingerprint on the envelope sent from Thaddeus Sholto to Mary Morstan (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 12). Similarly, in “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, released in 1892, Holmes notices a thumb-mark on a letter from Mr Neville St Clair to his wife (cf. Doyle, “The Man with the Twisted Lip” 175). However, in both of these cases, the fingerprints do not contribute to the solutions of the cases (cf. O’Brien 53). Whereas in both The Sign of the Four and “The Man with the Twisted Lip” only Holmes is aware of the fingerprints, also the police notices them in “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder”, which was published in 1903. Lestrade discovers a bloody fingerprint on a wall and identifies John Hector McFarlane as the murderer of Jonas Oldacre. In reaction to Holmes’s doubts about McFarlane’s guilt, Lestrade says, “You are aware that no two thumb-marks are alike” (Doyle, “The Adventure of the Norwood Builder 35). Although Lestrade is right with his assertion, Holmes is correct and McFarlane is not Oldacre’s murderer. In fact, Oldacre is still alive; he copied McFarlane’s fingerprint from a wax seal and placed it on the wall to
42 incriminate him (cf. ibid. 23-40). According to James O’Brien, “it is likely that this is the first time in literature that the idea of a false fingerprint is used” (54). This analysis of Holmes’s use of fingerprinting as a means for solving crimes proves that in the early Sherlock Holmes narratives, Holmes’s habitude of taking fingerprints into account is an explanation for the logical paradox of his superiority over the police. In the later Sherlock Holmes stories, however, the police use fingerprints for their string of reasoning. Nevertheless, they fail at interpreting fingerprints correctly, which is the reason why Holmes is still superior.
In opposition to fingerprinting, the identification of footprints has never developed to a scientific process (cf. Moenssens et al. quoted in ibid. 56) because “mass-produced shoes are difficult to distinguish from each other” (Wagner quoted in ibid. 60). Nevertheless, Holmes uses footprints in order to be able to solve cases; in fact, the identification of footprints in clay soil, dust, and mud is presented in 26 Sherlock Holmes narratives (cf. ibid. 57). Considering A Study in Scarlet, Holmes thoroughly investigates the crime scene including footprints and other tracks on the floor. To John Rance’s astonishment, Holmes can reconstruct Rance’s movement through the crime scene telling him which route he took and where exactly he stopped (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 39-40). However, Rance is not the only member of the police who is not aware of how important footprints are in order to be able to solve a crime. Also Gregson does not realise the importance of marks on the ground. Although he apparently knows about the relevance of evidences and, therefore, leaves everything untouched in the Lauriston Garden crime scene, he does not think about footprints or other tracks on the floor: ‘I [(Gregson)] have had everything left untouched.’ ‘Except that!’ my friend [(Holmes)] answered, pointing at the pathway. ‘If a herd of buffaloes had passed along there could not be a greater mess. […]’ (ibid. 28-29) Holmes’s answer to Gregson’s assertion that nothing has been changed in the crime scene shows that the police are not aware of the pivotal role of marks which can be found on the ground. Due to the fact that the police are ignorant of footsteps and other important marks, they unconsciously cover the murderer’s traces up. Therefore, they are not able to figure out that “[the murderer] came here with his victim in a four-wheeled cab, which was drawn by a horse with three old shoes and one new on his off foreleg” (ibid. 35), which Holmes can and which proves to be of immense importance for the solution of a case.
Similarly, in The Sign of the Four, the police do not investigate footsteps in order to draw conclusions about Bartholomew Sholto’s murderer; as described above, they neglect data and reason ahead of data at the same time (cf. Scotland Yard’s Unfamiliarity with Sherlock Holmes’s Science of Deduction) and arrest Thaddeus Sholto for the murder of his brother (cf.
43 Doyle, The Sign of the Four 38). Holmes, however, is superior and after telling Dr Watson to “[j]ust sit in the corner [...] [so] that [his] footprints [do] not complicate matters” (ibid. 33), he immediately figures out that two men must have been present when Sholto was killed: one with a wooden leg and the other with remarkably small feet (cf. ibid. 34, 35-36). This analysis of Holmes’s attention to footprints and other marks on the ground or the police’s ignorance of them proves to be an explanation for the logical paradoxes of Holmes’s superiority over the police.
Holmes’s use of forensics is not restricted to fingerprinting and the identification of footsteps; Holmes also concludes about people’s identities from their handwritings, which fits to the discovery of the importance of handwriting for criminal detection at the time when the first Sherlock Holmes narratives were written and published (cf. O’Brien 60). In The Sign of the Four, for example, Holmes can figure out that the letters which Mary Morstan received had been written by one and the same person, which significantly helps him in his investigations. He states, “[T]here can be no question as to the authorship. See how the irrepressible Greek e will break out, and see the twirl of the final s. They are undoubtedly by the same person” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 13, original emphasis). Such utterances can be found in different narratives throughout the Sherlock Holmes canon. The police detectives including Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones, on the other hand, usually do not focus on handwritings in order to be able to solve crimes, which explains the logical paradox of their inferiority to Holmes.
In “The Reigate Puzzle”, the police’s ignorance of the analysis of handwritings becomes most visible because they are completely at a loss solving the crime whereas Holmes analyses a handwritten document, which directly leads him to the solution of the case. In investigating the crime scene, Holmes discovers a message with two different handwritings next to the victim William Kirwan: [T]here cannot be the least doubt in the world that [the message] has been written by two persons doing alternate words. When I draw your attention to the strong t’s of ‘at’ and ‘to’, and ask you to compare them with the weak ones of ‘quarter’ and ‘twelve,’ you will instantly recognize the fact. A very brief analysis of these four words would enable you to say with the utmost confidence that the ‘learn’ and the ‘maybe’ are written in the stronger hand, and ‘what’ in the weaker. (Doyle, “The Reigate Puzzle” 110) Based on the two different handwritings, Holmes reasons that Kirwan must have been murdered by two men. Holmes figures out that this message served as a trap for Kirwan set by his murderers in order to be able to kill him secretly.
Interestingly, Holmes does not only deduce that the sheet contains two different handwritings which suggests that Kirwan was murdered by two men, but he is able to identify certain
44 characteristics of the two murderers. According to Holmes, “it is clear that the one who wrote the ‘at’ and ‘to’ was the ringleader” (ibid.) because he used “the stronger hand” (ibid.) noting down “all his words first, leaving blanks for the other to fill up” (ibid.). Considering the two men’s age, Holmes deduces that the man with the strong handwriting must be younger than the man with the weaker handwriting: ‘[…] You may not be aware that the deduction of a man’s age from his writing is one which has been brought to considerable accuracy by experts. In normal cases one can place a man in his true decade with tolerable confidence. I say normal cases, because ill-health and physical weakness reproduce the signs of old age, even when the invalid is a youth. In this case, looking at the bold, strong hand of the one, and the rather broken-backed appearance of the other, which still retains its legibility although the t’s have begun to lose their crossing, we can say that the one was a young man and the other was advanced in years without being positively decrepit.’ (ibid. 111) On top, Holmes recognises that the two handwritings are related because certain letters resemble each other; “[t]hey belong to men who are blood-relatives” (ibid.). Taking all these observations and deductions into account, Holmes concludes that Alec Cunningham and his father must have murdered Kirwan to make sure that he cannot publicise the Cunningham’s attempt to steal important documents of an enemy (cf. ibid. 99-113).
All these examples show that Holmes’s skills in analysing handwritten documents make him superior to the police (cf. O’Brien 66-68). His knowledge about “the stylistic features of handwriting” (ibid. 66) serves him to gain vital information about people who might be of considerable importance for his investigations; occasionally, he can even solve crimes with the means of analysing handwritings. This is one fundamental explanation for the logical paradox that Holmes is more skilful in detective work than Scotland Yard.
Although the police within the Sherlock Holmes series are ignorant of the possibility to analyse handwritings in large parts, it seems that some criminals know about the option to draw conclusions about identities by investigating handwritten documents. Therefore, in “A Case of Identity”, Hosmer Angel decided to use a typewriter in order not to leave any traces which might lead to his person. However, Holmes is one step ahead and analyses the typewritten letters. Holmes explains, “It is a curious thing […] that a typewriter has really quite as much individuality as a man’s handwriting. Unless they are quite new, no two of them write exactly alike” (Doyle, “A Case of Identity” 136). In the end, he can identify Angel as James Windibank; in fact, he reveals that Angel has never existed. Windibank pretended to be Angel in order to prevent his stepdaughter Sutherland from marrying, which would have meant financial loss for him (cf. ibid. 136-139). Although the police were not involved in this case, it can be argued that Holmes’s skill of analysing printed documents makes him superior.
45 As the police within Sherlock Holmes usually ignore handwritten documents, the police might have never taken a printed document into account. Interestingly, the police outside the Sherlock Holmes story world started to integrate typewriter analyses only in 1933 (cf. O’Brien 73).
The above-mentioned examples show that the use of forensics is an important factor of Holmes’s success. If the police including Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones had applied forensics, they would have been more likely to be successful at solving crimes. Therefore, it can be argued that Holmes’s skills at analysing fingerprints, footprints, and handwritten and printed documents etc. have contributed to the logical paradox of his superiority over the police.
Sherlock Holmes’s Eccentricity and Isolation
Sherlock Holmes’s science of deduction and his knowledge about forensics are the principal reasons for the logical paradox of why Holmes is superior to the police. However, there is a another cause for Holmes’s supremacy: “[t]he paradox of Holmes’s eccentricity and isolation” (Clausen 114). According to Christopher Clausen, “in order to protect the social order effectively, one must separate oneself from it” (ibid.). In comparison to Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones, Holmes does so. He disconnects himself from the society around him as far as possible and works on his own. Holmes only relies on Dr Watson, who figures as the stimulator of Holmes’s mind (cf. chapter 4.1.2). Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones are different; they interfere with each other, which is featured in different Sherlock Holmes narratives. For example, in A Study in Scarlet, both Gregson and Lestrade take part in the competition of who is the first one able to solve the Lauriston Gardens case and to seize the criminal. In opposition to Gregson and Lestrade, Holmes realises that they are or will be unable to come to a conclusion about the perpetrator and how he or she committed the crime if they do not work together: ‘Gregson is the smartest of the Scotland Yarders,’ my friend [Holmes] remarked; ‘he and Lestrade are the pick of a bad lot. They are both quick and energetic, but conventional – shockingly so. They have their knives into one another, too. They are as jealous as a pair of professional beauties. There will be some fun over this case if they are both put upon the scent.’ (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 26) As Holmes describes, both Gregson and Lestrade are not foolish; in fact, they belong to the best ones in their profession. Nevertheless, they are still very often incapable of solving crimes. Holmes ascribes their inferiority to the fact that they compete with each other rather than support each other. Holmes, contrary to the police officials, works in isolation relying on
46 his own skills and on his friend Watson. “Holmes’s eccentricity and isolation” (Clausen 114) is another reason for the logical paradox of why Holmes is so successful and the police is not.
Holmes’s science of deduction, his knowledge about forensics, and his faith in himself are the major reasons why he repeatedly outscores Scotland Yard. Considering the many instances in which Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones visit Holmes in order to gain a specialist’s opinion in order to be able to come to a conclusion of a case, it is hardly surprising that Holmes and the police detectives have developed some kind of a friendship; however, a paradoxical one.
The Paradox within the Paradox: Friendly Rivalry
Regarding Scotland Yard’s incapability and Sherlock Holmes’s superiority but especially their thoughts about and remarks to each other, one might think that the police detectives and Holmes have a tough relationship. Already in the first Sherlock Holmes narratives, i.e. in A Study in Scarlet and in The Sign of the Four, the police officials portray Holmes in rather negative terms. For example, they claim that Holmes’s success “was more by good luck than good guidance” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 37) but that “[they] can’t deny that [he] hit[s] the nail on the head sometimes” (ibid. 38). Holmes, of course, does react to such statements. For instance, he uses Goethe’s poetic remark “Wir sind gewohnt [sic!] dass die Menschen verhöhnen was sie nicht verstehen” (ibid. 40, original emphasis) to refer to the police’s attitude towards himself and his success. To Watson, Holmes does not mince words in denouncing the police’s incapability; he repeatedly gossips about the single police detectives. For example, he calls Lestrade a “fool” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 53) and describes Jones as “an absolute imbecile in his profession” (Doyle, “The Red-Headed League” 156). Sometimes, he even directly mocks the police officers with a pejorative undertone. For example, he exclaims, “But hallo! here are the accredited representatives of the law” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 36).
Scotland Yard and Holmes do not only think and talk negatively about each other. Another problem is that the police “pocket all the credit” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 27) although, as shown above, they are commonly unable to solve crimes: ‘I [(Holmes)] told you that, whatever happened, Lestrade and Gregson would be sure to score.’ ‘That depends on how it turns out.’ ‘Oh, bless you, it doesn’t matter in the least. If the man is caught, it will be on account of their exertions; if he escapes, it will be in spite of their exertions. It’s heads I win and tails you lose. Whatever they do, they will have followers.’ (ibid. 51) In this conversation between Holmes and Watson, Holmes talks about the fact that the police always win no matter whether they are really successful and catch a criminal or not. Holmes
47 justifies this circumstance stating “Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire” (ibid. translated by McCrea 140-141: “A fool can always find a greater fool to admire him”), which means that he considers normal people as even more foolish than the police detectives because normal people do not realise Scotland Yard’s incapability. Illustrated more drastically, Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones also “pocket all the credit” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 27) when they are only successful due to the help of other people such as Holmes. In fact, if the police are able to catch a criminal, they only do because of Holmes’s help in many instances. But although they get Holmes’s help again and again, they “would cut [their] tongue out before [they] would own [their success] to any third person” (ibid.) or, in other words, to Holmes.
In the light of Scotland Yard’s and Holmes’s relationship with each other, i.e. what they say and think about each other and Scotland Yard’s ingratitude towards Holmes, it is understandable that Holmes feels assaulted when he is compared with the police. In “The Speckled Band”, for instance, Helen Stoner’s stepfather calls him “Scotland Yard jack-in- office” (Doyle, “The Speckled Band” 213), with which “self-important petty official[s]” (McCrea 328) are referred to. In this context, Holmes remarks, “‘Fancy his having the insolence to confound me with the official detective force!’” (ibid. 214), which conveys a bitter undercurrent and shows that Holmes feels offended.
Although Holmes and the police sometimes excoriate each other, and the police detectives reap the benefits of Holmes’s successes, Holmes and Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones have a good relationship with each other, which points to a paradox within the paradox. As outlined above, it is logically paradoxical that Holmes is superior to Scotland Yard; however, it is also logically paradoxical that Holmes and the police inspectors maintain a friendship (cf. Ousby 144) even though they gossip about each other and the inspectors do not credit their successes to Holmes – but why do they still accept and appreciate each other? The answer is simple: both Holmes and the police force need each other. On the one hand, Holmes needs them because he is addicted to solving crimes (cf. chapter 4.2.1) and through Gregson’s, Lestrade’s, and Jones’s incapability and their call for help, he has access to criminal cases. This argument can be strengthened by the fact that Holmes says that “[he] [is] not retained by the police to supply their deficiencies” (Doyle, “The Blue Carbuncle” 202), which implies that Holmes does not support the police for their sake but for his own pleasure: ‘[…] I [(Holmes)] claim no credit […]. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field of my peculiar powers, is my highest reward. […]’ (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 4)
48 On the other hand, the police force depend upon Holmes because without him, they would be unable to solve delicate cases and to retain or re-establish the Victorian order. Holmes knows about his importance to Scotland Yard, which he makes clear when he states that “it is best that [he] should not leave the country. Scotland Yard feels lonely without [him], and it causes unhealthy excitement among the criminal classes” (Doyle, “The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax” 97).
The relationship between Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones and Holmes is not always an easy one. In many instances, they think and talk about each other negatively and Holmes does the work for Scotland Yard, which covers oneself with glory. Nevertheless, it can be argued that there is some kind of friendship between the police detective and Holmes. Therefore, their logically paradoxical relationship can be referred to as a friendly rivalry (cf. Ousby 144). The logical paradox of Holmes’s friendly rivalry with the police is an indicator that something can simultaneously be paradoxical and true.
As shown within this chapter, Holmes is more successful at solving crimes than the police, which constitutes a third logically paradoxical aspect within the Sherlock Holmes series. There are different reasons for Holmes’s superiority over the police; his science of, his knowledge of forensics, and his eccentricity and isolation make him more successful than Scotland Yard.
Apart from the different forms paradoxes on the level of logical paradoxes, i.e. crime-related logical paradoxes, the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over Watson, and the logical paradox of Holmes’s relationship to Scotland Yard, another level of paradoxes can be found. Two forms of metaphysical paradoxes within Sherlock Holmes will be looked upon in the following.
4.2 Sherlock Holmes – A Paradoxical Character
As outlined in chapter 3.1, the major metaphysical paradox within the Sherlock Holmes novellas and short stories is Sherlock Holmes’s complex and multifaceted paradoxical character. Holmes represents certain character traits which are totally contradictory to each other. On the one hand, he can be considered as a Victorian gentleman or even as a Victorian hero who, influenced by his experiences of Victorian attitude towards life, stands up for other people in need. On the other hand, Holmes does not ultimately stick to Victorian values as he employs criminal strategies or takes drugs in order to be able to solve his cases successfully.
49 Interestingly, the character of Holmes is a paradoxical one due to other reasons as well. Holmes embodies a pseudo-paradox of whether he can be seen as a man, a machine or an animal because he epitomises a trinity of human, mechanical, and animalistic features. This chapter will explain and analyse these metaphysical paradoxes and pseudo-paradoxes within selected Sherlock Holmes novellas and short stories and it will show that these paradoxes and pseudo-paradoxes can be connected to paradoxes which were omnipresent for people during the Fin de Siècle.
4.2.1 A Victorian Gentleman or a Criminal?
“There are [many] Victorian texts, mainly late ones, that relish the dramatic splitting of good and evil” (Davis 56). Sherlock Holmes’s character suggests such a crack in the form of a split personality; however, Holmes’s crack is not depicted as dramatically as the rift between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, for example (cf. ibid.). Nevertheless, Holmes’s character simultaneously exhibits a personality clash between gentlemanly and ungentlemanly and sometimes even criminal virtues, which can be considered as a metaphysical paradox in the form of a character paradox. This claim is confirmed by different literary scholars. Whereas Daniel P. Malloy argues that “Holmes is a Victorian gentleman in almost every way” (266), Ian Ousby states that Holmes “is a gentleman, polished and suave in his manners, but reclusive and eccentric in his habits” (140). John Greenfield asserts that Holmes acts like a real Victorian gentleman in different aspects although Holmes’s character shows quite ungentlemanly eccentricities such as “his [passion for] chemical experiments, his cocaine smoking, his preference for the bohemian lifestyle over the bourgeois, [and] his showiness in making inferences” (20). Of course, ungentlemanly habits and eccentricities do not straight indicate that Holmes must be considered as a criminal; nevertheless, Holmes’s ungentlemanly habits and eccentricities point to Holmes’s immoral and vicious side. The following sections aim at explaining in which aspects Holmes can be considered as a gentleman or as a criminal and will make Holmes’s character paradox visible.
Sherlock Holmes as a Victorian Gentleman
Sherlock Holmes can be considered as “a Victorian gentleman in almost every way” (Malloy 266). Clausen, for example, argues that Holmes is “a gentleman by birth and education” (105). However, it is difficult to prove the first part of Clausen’s claim, i.e. that Holmes is a gentleman by birth. The Sherlock Holmes novellas and short stories do not contain much
50 information about Holmes’s family background. The Sherlock Holmes readers learn that “[Holmes’s] ancestors were country squires” (Doyle, “The Greek Interpreter” 245), with which “[men] of high social standing[s] who own[…] and live[…] on an estate in a rural area, especially the chief landowner[s] in such an area” (Oxford English Dictionary, “squire” 1) were entitled. Furthermore, the readers are introduced to Holmes’s brother Mycroft Holmes and they get to know that Holmes’s grandmother was the sister of the French painter Horace Vernet (cf. Doyle, “The Greek Interpreter” 245). From this information, one might be able to conclude about Holmes’s social background and argue that Holmes is a gentleman by birth.
For the second part of Clausen’s claim, i.e. that Holmes is a gentleman by education (cf. 105), it is much easier to find evidence. Holmes is a genius in his profession of a consulting detective, for which knowledge in different subject areas is absolutely necessary. According to Watson, Holmes has moderate knowledge in botany and geology and profound knowledge in chemistry, anatomy, sensational literature, and law (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 18). This proves that Holmes is well-educated in areas that are essential for solving crimes successfully, which hints towards Clausen’s assertion that Holmes is a gentleman by education (cf. 105).
Holmes is not only educated in terms of his profession; he also has common knowledge. Although Watson is of the opinion that Holmes is uneducated in fields which are not directly connected to his profession of a consulting detective such as classical literature, philosophy, astronomy, and politics (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 18), Holmes demonstrates the contrary. In terms of literature, Holmes repeatedly quotes or makes remarks about Goethe (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 40; 100) and thereby shows that he is literarily educated. Without having read Goethe’s works, this would hardly be possible. It seems that Holmes also has knowledge of different languages. He speaks German as he does not quote translated versions of Goethe but the originals (cf. ibid.) he can identify Rache as a German expression (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 15). Holmes also seems to be proficient in French as he repeatedly releases statements in French (cf. ibid. 51; cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 39; cf. Doyle, “The Red- Headed League” 161). Furthermore, Holmes has knowledge of music; he plays the violin perfectly (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 18) and he attends concerts of Norman Neruda (cf. ibid. 38; cf. Round 137). Moreover, Holmes can speak “on miracle plays, on medieval pottery, on Stradivarius violins, on the Buddhism of Ceylon, and on the warships of the future – handling each as though he had made a special study of it” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 67). Holmes’s knowledge of literature, languages, music etc. evidences that he is well- educated not only in terms of his profession but also in more general fields. Therefore,
51 Holmes can be considered as “a cultured and intellectual gentleman” (Round 137) or, in other words, a gentleman by education (cf. Ousby 105).
For a Victorian man, it was definitely not enough to be a gentleman by birth and education; virtues such as “rationality, logical thought, and a lack of emotion” (Round 135) were at least as important. Holmes is rational, emphasises the logic, and abhors emotions, which his science of deduction stands for (cf. chapter 4.1.2; cf. chapter 4.1.3). However, also qualities such as bravery and courage were necessary for Victorian gentlemen, which includes being able to defend oneself and one’s family or friends against the criminals of the time with fists or weapons. Holmes is able to do so; according to Watson, Holmes “[i]s an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 18), which Holmes proves to be in many Sherlock Holmes narratives.
Holmes makes use of all virtues which characterise him as a gentleman, i.e. his education, his rationality, his bravery to protect other people, which does not only make him a real gentleman but rather a Victorian hero. In fact, it is the job of a consulting detective to help or even rescue other people. His inclination to help other people becomes particularly visible when Holmes rescues a damsel in distress (cf. Greenfield 26). In “A Case of Identity”, for example, he can free Ms Mary Sutherland from her worries about her missing fiancée Hosmer Angel. Similarly, in “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, Holmes can help Mrs St Clair in clearing up the mystery of her husband’s disappearance. However, Holmes’s inclination towards rescuing damsels in distress becomes even more serious in “The Speckled Band”, in which his success or failure is a matter of life or death. In the end, Holmes can save Helen Stoner from meeting the same fate as her sister, i.e. the death through intoxication through a snake bite (cf. chapter 4.1.1). Holmes’s urge to save or rescue damsels in distress is one major aspect which makes him a real Victorian cavalier. This is confirmed by Ousby (161), who claims that “[i]n his treatment of […] clients he is customarily the embodiment of the polished English gentleman” (161). Ousby adds that “[w]ith the distressed women who form so large a part of his clientele, he is […] courteous and mildly avuncular” (ibid.). Of course, also Holmes’s friend Watson is repeatedly warned or even rescued by Holmes (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 73-74); however, Holmes’s gentlemanly side is not emphasised as much as when Holmes rescues a woman in need.
The explanations above show that Holmes can be considered as a Victorian gentleman. He is “refined, cultured, and above his baser urges [...] and possess manly skills such as boxing, fencing, and so forth” (Round 137). Although Holmes is “a gentleman by birth and
52 education” (Clausen 105) and by his nature to help other people who are in need (cf. Ousby 161), he does not necessarily adhere to the Victorian order; according to Julia Round, “[h]e frequently behaves outside Victorian notions of appropriateness” (138). In some cases, he even breaks the law even though he as a Victorian gentleman and consulting detective should do differently (cf. Clausen 105), which showcases one metaphysical paradox in Holmes’s character.
Sherlock Holmes as a Criminal
As a Victorian gentleman and as a consulting detective fighting for law and order, Sherlock Holmes should actually strictly adhere to legal procedures; however, Holmes repeatedly makes use of criminal methods and strategies in order to be able to solve crimes. This becomes visible in “A Scandal in Bohemia,” in which Holmes and Watson hold a conversation about their readiness for breaking the law: ‘You don’t mind breaking the law?’ [(Holmes)] ‘Not in the least.’ [(Watson)] ‘Nor running a chance of arrest?’ ‘Not in a good cause.’ ‘Oh, the cause is excellent!’ ‘Then I am your man.’ ‘I was sure that I might rely on you.’ (Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” 115) Not only do Holmes and Watson approve of the acceptability of breaking the law; Holmes and Watson kind of violate the law at least twice within “A Scandal in Bohemia.” First, Holmes, together with his accomplices dressed up as loafers, simulates a brawl to pretend an injury with the purpose of being carried off to Irene Adler’s home. Second, with Watson’s help, Holmes pretends fire in Adler’s house to find out about the whereabouts of the photograph of the King of Bohemia together with Adler. Through this juxtaposition of ungentlemanly or even criminal deeds, i.e. demanding unauthorised access to Adler’s house and feigning an emergency, Holmes manages to make Adler show him the stash of the photograph he longs for within only a couple of minutes (cf. ibid. 115-120).
This above-mentioned example shows that Holmes as a Victorian gentleman and consulting detective does not bother to engage in ungentlemanly activities. Today’s readers probably would not consider Holmes’s actions as particularly criminal; however, it is difficult to determine whether Holmes’s actions were regarded as criminal during the time in which “A Scandal in Bohemia” was written; at least Holmes’s and Watson’s conversation suggests so (cf. ibid. 115).
53 Another thing which makes Holmes to a criminal is that he repeatedly performs vigilante justice, in some cases to the culprits’ advantage. In “The Blue Carbuncle,” for example, Holmes lets the perpetrator escape due to human reasons. Holmes says, “I suppose that I am commuting a felony, but it is just possible that I am saving a soul” (Doyle, “The Blue Carbuncle” 202). This statement suggests that Holmes is aware of the fact that he should have informed the police about his findings and that he should have handed the culprit over to Gregson, Lestrade, and Jones because covering up the perpetrator is criminal itself. Nevertheless, he decides for the criminal act of protecting a perpetrator and, thereby, making himself to a criminal. In “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange”, Holmes explains his reasons for covering up criminals now and then: Once or twice in my career I have done more real harm by my discovery of the criminal than ever he had done by his crime. I have learned caution now, and I had rather play tricks with the law of England than with my own conscience. (Doyle, “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” 206) Holmes’ statement suggests that “[Holmes] is willing to break a minor law in order to achieve what might be a cosmically greater good: saving a soul” (Sexton 19).
In “The Speckled Band,” Holmes takes the law into his own hands again – this time to the culprit’s detriment, which even leads to the culprit’s death. Although the deadly serpent which was supposed to kill Helen Stoner is the murderer of the actual culprit Dr Grimesby Roylott, Holmes could have intervened and killed the snake before it wound back to Roylott. Holmes admits that “[i]n this way [he] [is] no doubt indirectly responsible for Dr Grimesby Roylott’s death, [but] [he] cannot say that it is likely to weigh very heavily upon [his] conscience” (Doyle, “The Speckled Band” 226). Holmes demonstrates criminal energy by not saving the culprit; if the police were informed of Holmes’s actions, Holmes possibly would have been charged due to neglected support.
Apart from the fact that Holmes can be seen as a criminal because he sometimes breaks the law in order to be able to solve cases or to perform vigilante justice, there is another reason why Holmes can be identified as a criminal: he seems to know everything about criminal strategies, which, in fact, only real criminals should – “[he] recognizes the most beautifully crafted criminal master plans” (Lahr 190). Holmes, looks at crime scenes and has, often immediately, an idea of what could have happened. Therefore, the question of whether Holmes must be considered as a criminal himself arises. Watson pointedly expresses Holmes’s vast forensic knowledge and his extraordinary forensic skills stating that “[Holmes] would have made [a terrible criminal] had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law, instead of exerting them in its defence” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 36).
54 The examples above show that Holmes behaves ungentlemanly or even criminal at times. Occasionally, he acts in a criminal way to solve crimes or to take the law into his own hands. In other instances, he appears to be a criminal because he has knowledge and skills which only real culprits should have. Considering the fact that Holmes can be considered as a gentleman (cf. Sherlock Holmes as a Victorian Gentleman) and as a criminal, it can be argued that Holmes embodies different characters. This is metaphysically paradoxical because a single person usually cannot unite completely contradictory character traits and behaviours. Therefore, this duality in Holmes’s character constitutes a metaphysical paradox, more narrowly defined a character paradox; it is highly paradoxical that a single person can be a Victorian gentleman and a consulting detective and a criminal at the same time.
Interestingly, there is not only the discrepancy between the gentleman Holmes and the criminal Holmes; there is also the contradiction between Holmes’s refined character and his consumption of drugs and his addiction. This can be defined as a second metaphysical paradox in Holmes’s character.
Sherlock Holmes as a Drug Consumer and as an Addict to Crimes
A number of scholars such as Anna Neill (cf. 611) and Kate Rufa (cf. 7) argue that Sherlock Holmes is addicted to drugs, i.e. to tobacco, cocaine, and morphine. This is not by chance: There are numerous examples within the Sherlock Holmes series which suggest that Holmes is addicted to drugs. Already in the second Sherlock Holmes novella, The Sign of the Four, Watson detailedly describes the act of Holmes’s drug consumption (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 3) and the effect they have on him, “a long sigh of satisfaction” (ibid.). Watson’s statement that “[t]hree times a day for many months [he] had witnessed [that] performance” (ibid.) strengthens the notion that Holmes is addicted to drugs.
One can hold against Neill’s (cf. 611) and Rufa’s (cf. 7) assertion about Holmes’s drug addiction claiming that Holmes is despised and dismissed neither by his fellows in the Sherlock Holmes narratives nor by the Sherlock Holmes readers. Usually, an addict is someone who is depicted rather negatively and Holmes is not. Quite the contrary, Holmes can control his drug consumption and he sometimes uses drugs effectively for solving crimes.
Kilroy sees Holmes’s drug consumption as a stimulator for Holmes’s mind (cf. 249). Kilroy argues that “Holmes uses drugs with the intention to explore the intricacies of consciousness, to purposefully sculpt his collection of knowledge, and to grow more attune with the event of being” (ibid.). This fits to Holmes’s assertion in The Sign of the Four. He claims, “I suppose
55 that [the drug’s] influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 4). Consequently, when Holmes is at his wit’s end, he takes drugs, which usually help him to concentrate and focus on the respecting case in order to be able to solve it.
So does Holmes in “The Man with the Twisted Lip.” Holmes is almost certain that Mr Neville St Clair must have fallen victim to crime and Holmes does not believe him to be still alive. However, Holmes’s deductions are jumbled up when Holmes learns about a letter from Neville to his wife. Having no clue, Holmes withdraws to think the matter over: [Holmes] constructed a sort of Eastern divan, upon which he perched himself cross-legged, with an ounce of shag tobacco and a box of matches laid out in front of him. In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old brier pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still between his lips, the smoke still curled upwards, and the room was full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of shag which I had seen upon the previous night. (Doyle, “The Man with the Twisted Lip” 177) Due to the fact that Holmes knows about the whereabouts of St Clair in the morning, Watson’s description about how Holmes spent the night shows that Holmes makes use of drugs when thinking about a case. For Holmes, drugs seem to be cognitively stimulating, which he confirms confessing, “I reached this [solution] [...] by sitting upon five pillows and consuming an ounce of shag” (ibid. 183). Holmes’s drug consumption in “The Man with the Twisted Lip” agrees with Rufa’s claim about why Holmes consumes tobacco, cocaine, and morphine: “Holmes’s drug use is his attempt to stay in an active state [...] for as long as possible” (10).
Holmes does not only utilise drugs as a means of mind stimulator; he also uses his experiences with drugs in otherwise difficult situations. In “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, Holmes dresses up as an old opium-addicted man to conduct secret investigations in the opium den so that even Watson cannot recognise him (cf. Doyle, “The Man with the Twisted Lip” 164-165). According to Ed Wiltse, “Holmes’s complete immersion in the environment of the opium den” (113) is remarkable. Also Holmes himself states that his integration into the opium den was so seamless that it would not be surprising for him if Watson thought that “[he] [had] added opium-smoking to cocaine injections and all the other little weakness” (Doyle, “The Man with the Twisted Lip” 165-166). This integration might be due to the fact that Holmes is experienced with drugs himself. Interestingly though, it has to be noted that Holmes never takes opium as he restricts himself to tobacco, cocaine, and morphine.
56 It seems to be astonishing that Holmes makes use of drugs in order to be able to solve crimes because drugs usually have a destructive effect on the consumer. This, for the today’s reader rather surprising presentation of drugs within the Sherlock Holmes narratives, might be due to the fact that at least tobacco and cocaine were not considered as harmful at the time when the detective stories were written (cf. Tallman 129). Also morphine could be legally purchased (cf. Diniejko n.p.) even though the consumption of morphine was considered to be more detrimental than the consumption of cocaine as “morphine addicts [were frequently treated] with cocaine” (Wiltse 112).
Holmes does not only consume tobacco, cocaine, and morphine for the purpose of solving crimes; according to Amy Kind, drugs also serve him as distractor “during the lull between cases to escape the dull routine of day-to-day existence” (118). Similarly, Clausen claims that drugs have a distracting effect on Holmes when “he cannot bear the boredom of everyday life” (105). Therefore, it can be argued that Holmes is not addicted to drugs but to crimes or at least to the thrill of investigating cases and solving them. Drugs only serve him to ease his pain during periods with no criminal cases: ‘My mind’, he said, ‘rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.’ (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 4) With this statement, Holmes explicitly says that he needs something to engage his mind with, i.e. in his case crimes; “[he] cannot live without brain-work” (ibid. 9). When there are “problems” (ibid. 4) on hand, with which Holmes refers to criminal cases, he is in good condition, physical as well as mental. However, when there are no mysteries around, he needs drugs in order to be able to cope with the lack of “mental exaltation” (ibid.). This circumstance speaks for Holmes’s addiction to crimes; Holmes is addicted to criminal cases because they are “the chance [for him] to fend off boredom for a little while” (Malloy 261).
At the beginning of The Sign of the Four, Holmes does not have a case to occupy his mind with. Due to his addiction to crimes and the fact that there are none to investigate and to solve, he appears to be lethargic or even depressed. One could even speak of emotional withdrawal symptoms which Holmes suffers due to the lack of crimes: ‘[…] May I ask whether you have any professional inquiry on foot at present?’ ‘None. [...] What else is there to live for? Stand at the window here. Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world? See how the yellow fog swirls down the street and drifts across the dun-coloured houses. What could be more hopelessly prosaic and material? What is the use of having powers, doctor, when one has no field upon which to exert them? Crime is commonplace, existence is commonplace, and no qualities save those which are commonplace have any function upon earth.’ (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 9)
57 From Holmes’s statement, one can see that without cases to investigate and to solve, Holmes is barely able to cope with his boredom, which suggests Holmes being addicted to crimes.
The notion of Holmes’s addiction to crimes is strengthened by Watson’s assertion that Holmes’s mood alters drastically based on whether he has a case to engage his mind with or not. Watson affirms that Holmes can be “bright, eager, and in excellent spirits, a mood which in his case alternate[s] with fits of blackest depression” (ibid. 14). This is exemplified in “The Reigate Puzzle”, in which Holmes spends time in the countryside in order to recover from an illness. Unexpectedly, Holmes and Watson are confronted with a murder, which cures Holmes’s disease at once: When he raised his face again, I was surprised to see that his cheek was tinged with color, and his eyes as bright as before his illness. He sprang to his feet with all his old energy. (Doyle, “The Reigate Puzzle” 103) Watson’s description suggests that when Holmes is at his worst and a case emerges, Holmes becomes a totally different person at once. His lethargic or even depressive mood changes instantaneously and he appears to be fit and healthy again within no time. At the end of the “The Reigate Puzzle,” Holmes himself points out that “[Holmes’s and Watson’s] quiet rest in the country has been a distinct success” (ibid.) as he feels able to “return much invigorated to Baker Street” (ibid.). This proposes that having a case to engage his mind with, cures Holmes from his disease or, conversely, satisfies his desire for investigating and solving crimes.
Holmes’s addiction to crimes does not only become visible when there are none around; his dependence on criminal cases also looms up when he cannot progress in his investigations. For instance, in The Sign of the Four, even Ms Hudson realises Holmes’s awful state of health when he cannot proceed and can do nothing but wait for news by the Baker Street Irregulars (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 60). Watson comments on Holmes’s alarming physical condition that “[he] knew how his keen spirit was chafing against this involuntary inaction” (ibid.). Holmes himself moans about his supposed failure of solving the case stating that “[that] infernal problem is consuming [him]” (ibid. 61). However, Holmes’s mood can alter from one minute to another depending on the success of his investigations. Watson pointedly expresses that “[Holmes’s] bright humour mark[s] the reaction from his black depression” (ibid. 67).
A different aspect that emphasises Holmes’s addiction to crimes is the fact that in A Study in Scarlet, he moans about his lately engagements lacking of severity and genius: ‘There are no crimes and no criminals in these days.’ He said, querulously. ‘What is the use of having brains in our profession? I know well that I have it in me to make my name famous. No man lives or has ever lived who has brought the same amount of study and of natural talent to
58 the detection of crime which I have done. And what is the result? There is no crime to detect, or, at most, some bungling villainy with a motive so transparent that even a Scotland Yard official can see through it.’ (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 23) This statement seems to be paradoxical in itself because at the time of the Fin de Siècle, Great Britain but especially London were affected by disorder (cf. McConnell 174). Many West End gentlemen “[felt] […] inadequately protected against foreign agitators, unionized laborers, reds, or simply vagrants” (Clausen 111). Enunciated more dramatically, many citizens of London were menaced by barbaric crimes, especially by the unsolved Whitechapel crimes blamed on a man with the pseudonym Jack the Ripper (cf. McConnell 174). However, what is central in terms of this quote and metaphysics is Holmes’s split character. Although Holmes can be considered as a gentleman (cf. Sherlock Holmes as a Victorian Gentleman), he longs for crimes which are even more obscure than the ones at the turn of the 19th century were; he needs more absorbing and captivating atrocities to satisfy his addiction. Sawyer J. Lahr even claims that “[Holmes] points out flaws and imperfections in the best crimes and never stops searching for the criminal who is a better aesthete than he” (190).
Although the consumption of drugs was not something that was despised and dismissed by the late Victorian society and Holmes takes tobacco, cocaine, and morphine in an “elegant, controlled” (Conti 109) way, Holmes’s penchant for these stimulants does not correspond with being a Victorian gentleman with a rational character (cf. Neill 611; cf. Rufa 7). Therefore, Holmes’s drug consumption constitutes a metaphysical paradox in the form of a character paradox. Greg Littmann even defines Holmes’s inclination for drugs as “[t]he greatest mystery in the Sherlock Holmes canon” (269). Due to the fact that a Victorian gentleman with a rational character should not have been ignorant of the destructive effect of drugs (cf. ibid.), Watson cannot imagine Holmes taking drugs at the beginning of the Sherlock Holmes series. Watson states that “[he] might have suspected [Holmes] of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his whole life forbidden such a notion” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 15). This shows that Watson does not anticipate Holmes consuming drugs because the character of Holmes, the Victorian gentleman with rational thought, does not convey so. In the Sherlock Holmes narratives that follow A Study in Scarlet, however, Watson realises that Holmes does indeed consume drugs now and then. Although Watson repeatedly makes Holmes aware of the fact that drug consumption is dangerous for his body as well as for his mind, Holmes ignores his companion’s advice (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four 4), which is again paradoxical for a rational man.
59 What makes Holmes’s character even more paradoxical on the metaphysical level is his addiction to crimes. Victorian gentlemen were not attracted or even addicted to crimes; they rather feared the perpetrators of their time and the dangers they might have been exposed to (cf. Clausen 111). After all, who in the world would yearn for crimes in a time of uncertainty and disorder as it was the case during the Fin de Siècle. In Holmes’s case it becomes more metaphysically paradoxical: a Victorian gentleman with rational thought, who strives for the people’s security and has even become an icon of safety and justice for his contemporaries, can hardly be addicted to crimes or a proponent for criminal acts.
As can be seen from this chapter, Holmes’s character is metaphysically paradoxical. On the one hand, he can be considered as a Victorian gentleman; on the other hand, he must be seen as a criminal, as a drug consumer and as an addict to criminal cases. This unification of different character traits within one person is highly paradoxical and, therefore, Holmes is a paradoxical character.
4.2.2 A Man, a Machine, or an Animal?
Apart from the metaphysical paradox of being a Victorian gentleman and a criminal consuming drugs and being addicted to crimes, the character of Sherlock Holmes embodies further paradoxical character traits. On the one hand, Holmes is undoubtedly a human being, at least in the sense of a literary figure. In the Sherlock Holmes narratives, numerous passages which emphasise Holmes’s human side, e.g. his weaknesses, are to be found. In many instances, Holmes is depicted so humanly that he is considered to be a real human being by many Sherlock Holmes readers (cf. Saler 609). On the other hand, Holmes’s character conveys the idea of being a machine or an animal. As for appearing as a machine, Holmes usually does not show feelings and emotions. In terms of generating the image of an animal, Holmes possesses certain abilities which normally only animals have. Due to the fact that Holmes can definitely be considered as a literary human being who unites his human side with mechanical and animalistic features, Holmes’s character can be considered as pseudo- paradoxical on the metaphysical level. The following sections aim at explaining which mechanical and animalistic characteristics are united by Holmes’s character and will show in which aspects this trinity of human, mechanical, and animalistic traits is paradoxical.
60 Holmes as a Man
Even though Sherlock Holmes is frequently compared to machines and animals, it is still clear that Holmes is a human being. This undeniable fact is underpinned by an outstanding circumstance: Holmes has weaknesses; he is not the epitome of perfection as he might seem to be for many readers. He makes mistakes on different levels, e.g. on the level of detection and on the level of his own person.
On the level of detection, Holmes commits a couple of errors; most seriously, he unintentionally allows criminals to slip away. In A Study in Scarlet, for example, the criminal Jefferson Hope dresses up as an old lady to regain his deceased fiancée’s wedding ring. Even though Holmes claims that he is one of the best detectives and that “[i]t is his business to know what other people don’t know” (Doyle, “The Blue Carbuncle” 197), he does not realise Hope’s disguise and Hope can escape (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 48–49). In the later part of the short story, Holmes can rectify his mistake and hands Hope over to the police. Nonetheless, if he had not made this mistake, Hope could have been caught earlier.
Within the field of detection, Holmes’s mistakes are not restricted to the culprits who manage to escape; Holmes’s errors also happen in his process of reasoning. In “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, for instance, Holmes is almost certain that missing Mr Neville St Clair is dead, which he communicates as such to Neville’s wife. To Holmes’s surprise, it turns out that Neville’s wife received a letter by her lost husband which proves that the latter is alive and okay (Doyle, “The Man with the Twisted Lip” 174). Holmes comments to his failure that “he [has] been as blind as a mole, but it is better to learn wisdom late, than never to learn it at all” (ibid. 178).
The above-mentioned examples show that Holmes makes mistakes on the level of detection. However, this is not the only level on which he is erroneous; Holmes is at least equally flawed concerning his own person, e.g. in terms of his inclination for drugs (cf. chapter 4.2.1). As pointed out previously, Holmes should know that tobacco, cocaine, and morphine are damaging for his body and for his mind; nevertheless, he frequently consumes such stimulants. Rufa engages in the question of “[w]hy [...] Holmes, the master of logical, analytical thinking, this objective and rational machine that so astounds [the readers], allow[s] himself to make such an obvious miscalculation?” (9). Her answer is that “Holmes is not a machine. He is a human being and, as such, not above human error” (ibid.).
Rufa’s assertion that Holmes is a human being who is sometimes mistaken (cf. ibid.) does not only apply to his inclination for drugs but it also applies to making errors on the level of 61 detection. Human beings make mistakes and so does Holmes and this is why Holmes’s weaknesses, i.e. his mistakes and his flaws, strenghten his human side.
Holmes as a Machine
Although Sherlock Holmes is a literary human being, he embodies certain characteristics of a machine. This raises the question of how human beings and machines can be differentiated. Pierre Cassou-Noguès claims that “[machines] can only be distinguished from human beings by their lack of emotion” (20). This seems to be far-fetched at first sight. However, considering the Oxford English Dictionary’s definition for the term ‘machine’, i.e. “[a]n apparatus using mechanical power and having several parts, each with a definite function and together performing a particular task” (1), Cassou-Noguès’s assertion becomes clearer. A human body works similarly to a machine. Just like a machine, a body consists of different parts and together, they fulfil the essential body functions. If a human body does not show emotions, the notion of a machine is further strengthened. Cassou-Noguès’s claim that emotions are the only distinction between human beings and machines (cf. 20) is the major reason why Holmes is frequently associated with a machine.
In various instances in the Sherlock Holmes narratives, Holmes is depicted as highly unemotional. In fact, Holmes himself despises and dismisses feelings and emotions. He claims that “emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 13) and that “whatever is emotional is opposed to that true cold reason which [he] place[s] above all things” (ibid. 100). According to him, to be unbiased by feelings and emotions is an essential thing for detectives. In the light of Holmes’s profession, i.e. a consulting detective with scientific spirit, Holmes’s emotional “cold-bloodedness” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 10) is necessary; otherwise, he would not be successful. Correspondingly, Rufa holds that “[Holmes’s] cool and precise nature allows him to examine clues without prejudice and place each puzzle piece together until he has a complete picture before him” (4).
Also Watson notices Holmes’s emotional coldness. Watson states that “[a]ll emotions, and [love] particularly, were abhorrent to [Holmes’s] cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind. […] He never spoke of softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer” (Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” 102). Watson adds that basically nothing “would [...] be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as [Holmes’s]” (ibid.). These statements by Watson confirm that Holmes is not an emotional person; he rather condemns feelings and emotions.
62 Regarding Cassou-Noguès’s claim that it is only possibly to distinguish between human beings and machines by the means of emotions (cf. 20), it can be argued that Holmes’s character can be compared to a machine due to his lack of feelings and emotions. This might be the reason why Watson repeatedly refers to Holmes with mechanical terms. In The Sign of the Four, Watson describes his companion as “an automaton” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 13) or “a calculating machine” (ibid.) showing “something positively inhuman […] at times” (ibid.). In “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Watson talks about this impression even more drastically; he claims that Holmes is “the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen” (Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” 102). Rufa summarises Holmes’s mechanical features aptly. She claims that “[b]ecause [Holmes’s] mind is not cluttered with irrelevant and, therefore, useless thoughts that might hinder his investigations [(feelings and emotions)], Holmes is capable of examining clues and crime scenes with an almost automaton quality” (5).
Of course, Holmes’s lack of feelings and emotions is not the only element which suggests his artificial and unnatural side. Another example of Holmes conveying the notion of a machine rather than of a human being is the fact that he neither has to eat or drink nor to sleep when there is a crime on hand. In “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Holmes states that “[he] [has] been too busy to think of food, and [he] [is] likely to be busier still this evening” (Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” 14). In The Sign of the Four, Holmes argues that he can perfectly cope without sleep claiming that “[he] never remember[s] feeling tired by work” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 57). This idea of indefatigability is also depicted in “The Man with the Twisted Lip”, in which Watson explains that “when [Holmes] [has] an unsolved problem upon his mind[,] [he] would go for days, and even for a week, without rest” (Doyle, “The Man with the Twisted Lip” 176-177). Human beings usually need enough nourishment and sleep to be able to be successful. Holmes, however, does not need to eat and to drink or to rest when he is upon a case. At this point, it has of course to be noted that all human beings, not only Holmes, can renounce nourishment and sleep in stressful situations. The release of the stress hormone adrenalin increases attention as well as the ability to concentrate and enhances people’s performances. Nevertheless, it seems that Holmes can manage without the fulfilment of basic human needs much longer than other people. This circumstance suggests that Holmes is closer to a machine than to a human being.
Holmes’s and Watson’s statements quoted above show that due to Holmes’s unemotional character, Holmes’s character exhibits a mechanical side. Also Holmes’s ability to deprive of nourishment and sleep fosters this impression. However, the fact that Holmes embodies
63 mechanical features cannot only be proven by his own and Watson’s assertions and the circumstance that Holmes does not have to eat and drink or to rest when he is upon a case. Also the author of the Sherlock Holmes narratives, Doyle, himself states that Holmes “is a calculating machine, and anything [one] add[s] to that simply weakens the effect” (Memories and Adventures 92).
Combining all these hints, it can be argued that although Holmes is a human being, he embodies a mechanical side. Human beings are usually filled with feelings and emotions and they normally need nourishment and sleep; to Holmes, however, these things are redundant. This circumstance is utterly incongruous. Interestingly, Holmes is not only a human being embodying certain mechanical features; his character is made even more incongruous by another aspect.
Holmes as an Animal
Sherlock Holmes is a human being sometimes acting similar to an animal representing animalistic characteristics. This begs the question of how the terms ‘animal’ and ‘animalistic’ are defined. The Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘animal’ as “[a] living organism [...], typically having specialized sense organs and nervous system and able to respond rapidly to stimuli” (1) and specifies ‘animalistic’ as “[c]haracteristic of animals, particularly in being physical and instinctive” (1). These definitions can be applied to Holmes in different situations. He sometimes moves as skilfully as animals and appears to have an animalistic instinct. Doyle’s formulations further strengthen the notion of Holmes’s animalistic side.
Holmes is repeatedly compared to different animals – frequently to birds or to dogs. In A Study in Scarlet and in The Sign of the Four, for example, Holmes is referred to as a dog or a bird within only one sentence or one paragraph: Leaning back in the cab, this amateur bloodhound carolled away like a lark while I mediated upon the many-sidedness of the human mind. (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 42) He wipped out his lens and a tape measure, and hurried about the room on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin nose only a few inches from the planks and his beady eyes gleaming and deep-set like those of a bird. So swift, silent, and furtive were his movements, like those of a trained bloodhound picking out a scent […]. (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 36) These are not the only instances in which Holmes is compared to a dog or a bird due to his rather animalistic movements and instincts. In “A Scandal in Bohemia”, Holmes “was hot upon the scent of some new problem” (Doyle, “A Scandal in Bohemia” 103) and, likewise, in “The Reigate Puzzle”, “he was on a hot scent” (Doyle, “The Reigate Puzzle” 107), which
64 both describe Holmes as a dog. The notion of Holmes being a bird is further reinforced in “The Reigate Puzzle”, in which Holmes refers to himself as “a stormy petrel” (ibid. 109). However, Holmes is not only compared to dogs and birds. In The Sign of the Four, Watson claims that “[he] could see [Holmes] like an enormous glow-worm crawling very slowly along the ridge” (Doyle, The Sign of the Four 44). All these examples simultaneously point at two different incongruities. On the one hand, it is incongruous that someone who is referred to as a hunting dog can be described as a singing bird and as a glow worm within one sentence, one paragraph, or a couple of pages. On the other hand, it is contradictory that Holmes, who is a literary human being, is described like an animal at all.
The contradiction of Holmes being a human being but displaying animalistic characteristics becomes even more obvious in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery.” Watson claims that Holmes shows rather animalistic features when he is on a problem: Sherlock Holmes was transformed when he was hot upon such a scent as this. Men who had only known the quiet thinker and logician of Baker Street would have failed to recognise him. His face flushed and darkened. His brows were drawn into two hard black lines while his eyes shone out from beneath them with a steely glitter. His face was bent downward, his shoulders bowed, his lips compressed, and the veins stood out like whipcord in his long, sinewy neck. His nostrils seemed to dilate with a purely animal lust or the chase [...]. (Doyle, “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” 45) Wiltse argues that “this description animalizes Holmes at work to a strange and striking extent” (115). It implies that Holmes does not only own skills like an animal, e.g. he has a nose like a dog or he possesses eyes like a bird, but that he can also be wild like a beast. Again, the incongruity in the above stated example is twofold, i.e. that a human being is described like a wild animal and that Holmes, the greatest reasoner in the world, reacts to a case so much.
The examples above have shown that Holmes is repeatedly described as an animal. Although he is a human being, he unites different animalistic features whether positive, i.e. that he is flexible and swift in movement and instinctive, or negative, i.e. that he can be wild like an animal. This unification of a human being embodying animalistic features can be regarded as highly incongruous.
Where is the Paradox?
The incongruities or contradictions which are explained above cannot unfold to a full-fledged metaphysical paradox, i.e. character paradox, as it is clear that Sherlock Holmes is a human being and not a machine or an animal. Nevertheless, Holmes as a literary human being frequently resembles a machine or an animal due to his emotional coldness or his animal-like
65 instincts and movements. These incongruities and contradictions create a tension within Holmes’s character. This tension can be defined as a metaphysical pseudo-paradox which means that although it is clear that Holmes is a human being, he unites paradoxical character traits within his person. It is metaphysically paradoxical that a human character shows mechanical and animalistic features.
It is this pseudo-paradox which makes Holmes who he is. Without merging certain mechanical and animalistic features within his human character, Holmes would not be able to be so successful in solving crimes. It is important for him to be unemotional like a machine because feelings and emotions would hinder his objective crime analysis. Holmes’s animal- like skills are pivotal due to the fact that through them, he is able to overcome human limitations. His movements are quick and his senses are exceptionally sharpened. Therefore, the pseudo-paradox of Holmes being a man who embodies mechanical and animalistic character traits places him above all other people.
This chapter has shown that Holmes unites features of a man, a machine, or an animal. Nevertheless, the tension between these different character traits cannot be defined as a full paradox; it must rather be regarded as a pseudo-paradox.
Taking all of Holmes’s paradoxical or pseudo-paradoxical characteristics into account, i.e. being a Victorian gentleman and a criminal consuming drugs and being addicted to crimes at the same time as well as simultaneously featuring traits of a man, a machine, and an animal, it can be argued that Holmes is a truly paradoxical character.
As outlined in this chapter, Doyle provides the Sherlock Holmes readers with paradoxes on two different levels, i.e. on the logical level and on the metaphysical level. In face of this duality, it can be argued that Doyle uses paradoxes intensively. However, this duality is not reason enough to refer to Doyle as prince of paradox. It is necessary to go a step further and analyse whether these paradoxes have contributed to Sherlock Holmes’s success. Therefore, the next chapter will investigate whether and in how far these paradoxes explained and analysed in the chapters 4.1 and 4.2 have fascinated the readers and thereby have led to the stories’ triumph.
66 4.3 Sherlock Holmes – The Object of Fascination
Just like Sherlock Holmes argues for one of his cases that “[t]here is something in it which fascinates [him] extremely” (Doyle, “The Reigate Puzzle” 103), the Sherlock Holmes readers have been fascinated by the Sherlock Holmes narratives and by Holmes as a person for a long period of time. This raises the question of why and how the Sherlock Holmes canon and the person of Holmes himself have generated such a prevailing fascination for people around the world over a period of more than 130 years. This chapter will provide different approaches to answer for the long-lasting success of Sherlock Holmes such as its genre, its serial publication, and its historico-cultural connection to the period in which it was written. Furthermore, this chapter will focus on the theme of paradox in Sherlock Holmes and it will argue that the logical and metaphysical paradoxes discussed above (cf. chapter 4.1 and 4.2) have substantially contributed to the fascination which Sherlock Holmes and its protagonist have exerted on the readers.
4.3.1 Literary Fascination
Fascination is a comprehensive notion as it can be applied to many different spheres and just as broad is its definition. Baumbach has intensively engaged with the study of literature and fascination. In this context, Baumbach has concentrated on the term ‘fascination’ and claims that “[f]ascination is commonly used to describe an attraction of and an intense interest for objects [...] which enthral us, draw us in [...] by the wonder or admiration as well as by the terror and trepidation we feel on encountering them” (11).
Narratives can exert fascination on the readers via different aspects. According to Baumbach, “the structural backbone of literature, the narrative [...] patterns, the conceptual scaffold and the strategies, elements and themes dominate[...] literary fascination” (25). Hence, it can be argued that literary texts that thrill readers do not fascinate them due to individual tastes (cf. ibid. 26); “[readers] respond emotionally to [certain] triggers” (Hogan 187) on different levels. One particular trigger of fascination is focalisation (cf. Baumbach 28). The question of “who sees” (Genette 186) and whether the narrator is reliable might be one aspect which fascinates readers (cf. Baumbach 28). Other triggers of literary fascination are “unexpected immediate rupture [...] or a sudden tension between opposing states of mind caused by images that simultaneously elicit repulsion and attraction” (ibid.). There are further causers of fascination. Certain “themes, figures and motifs” (ibid. 29) such as “love metaphors”, “the
67 mirror, the serpent or the gaze”, “the femme fatale”, and “mythical figures” (ibid. 15) attract the readers to an extremely high extent. However, on each level, the readers have to “invest [...] both cognitively and emotionally. The greater the readers’ investment in the possible worlds constructed in literature, the more intense the luring powers of these worlds become” (ibid. 30).
However fascination is created in literary texts, it is “a modern drug” (ibid. 1) that many people are addicted to. The huge success of the Sherlock Holmes narratives and their main protagonist must undoubtedly be attributed to fascination. People are addicted to fascination (cf. ibid.) and this is why they are addicted to Sherlock Holmes.
4.3.2 The Fascination with Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes and its main character are highly fascinating for many people all around the world. This can be proven by the circumstance that the Sherlock Holmes narratives have been highly successful, that many readers were frantic about the presumed death of Sherlock Holmes which would have meant the series’ end, and that pastiches have been created in the form of texts, movies, and TV series drawing on Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes stories. Of course, there are many reasons why Sherlock Holmes and its main character are fascinating for the readers, e.g. its genre, its serial publication, and its historico-cultural focus on the time when it was written.
Fascination with Detective Stories
The starting point for the readers’ fascination with the Sherlock Holmes canon can definitely be found in its genre. Detective stories are always connected to crimes to some extent. Interestingly, crimes have been fascinating for people ever since; otherwise the genre of crime stories, crime movies, and crime-related documentaries would have never been successful; Ian Rankin even claims that “[h]umans are fascinated by evil” (quoted in Lawson n.p.). The people’s interest into crimes and their fascination with them can be connected to Baumbach’s assertion that “terror and trepidation” (11) can be factors which exert “simultaneous attraction and repulsion” (ibid. 123) within the readers in such an amount that one could speak of fascination. Therefore, it can be argued that the genre or, in other words, the mere fact that crimes are reflected upon in the Sherlock Holmes narratives is one aspect why the readers have been so fascinated by them.
68 Not only do detective stories contain crimes; they also offer the possibility to solve them. Crimes can be compared to “interesting puzzl[es]” (Takacs n.p.). “[The readers] see a puzzle, and [they] need to solve it” (ibid.). They have to pay extra attention to what they read because they are aware that the solution might lie in everything and everywhere. This chance to be a part in solving a puzzle or solving a crime might be fascinating for the readers because they know that if they are attentive enough, they might be able to solve the crime before the detective is able to (cf. ibid.). If they are not able to solve the case before the detective does, “[they] [still] enjoy seeing a difficult case unravel” (ibid.).
Serial Publication
Another aspect of the readers’ fascination with Sherlock Holmes and its success is definitely to be found in the narratives’ serial publication. As early as 1839, Thomas Arnold claimed that besides the “character” (quoted in Wiltse 105) or the “cheapness” (ibid.) of a literary text, the “mode of publication” (ibid.) was one major reason why students were diverted from their studies or, in other words, fascinated by narratives: [Texts] not being published periodically, did not occupy the mind for so long a time, nor keep alive so constant an expectation; nor, by dwelling thus upon the mind, and distilling themselves into it, as it were drop by drop, did they possess it so largely, colouring even, in many instances, its very language, and affording frequent matter for conversation. (ibid.) Taking Arnold’s view into account, it can be argued that the serial publication of Sherlock Holmes in the Strand magazine contributed to the readers’ fascination with the canon and its protagonist and subsequently, to the magazine’s and the canon’s success. This opinion was also shared by Doyle who claimed that the publication of the Sherlock Holmes narratives in the monthly magazine would increase the sales figures of the Strand and consequently, the popularity of Sherlock Holmes (cf. Doyle quoted in Wiltse 105). Through the “interconnectedness and independence” (ibid. 108) of the Sherlock Holmes narratives, people could “join in at any point during the series with a significantly smaller investment of time and money” (ibid.). Arnold’s and Doyle’s assertion proved to be right because although the first two Sherlock Holmes novellas, A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, did not raise an immediate interest in many people (cf. ibid. 107), the short stories which followed them resulted in an overwhelming reader fascination and therefore, in an immense triumph.
Fascination with the Historico-Cultural Connection
Of course, not only the genre and the serial publication of Sherlock Holmes has led to the readers’ fascination with the stories; also the content has enormously contributed to their
69 success. According to McCrea, Sherlock Holmes is a product of the time in which it was written: the narratives “are in part the result of a confluence of nineteenth- and twentieth- century currents” (ix). Therefore, many narratives deal with conditions with which people during the Fin de Siècle were concerned. McConnell is of the opinion that it was Doyle’s good fortune that he was born into this “interesting age” (174), i.e. an age of economic, social, political, and environmental change (cf. chapter 3.2), and that he could suffuse his Sherlock Holmes narratives with these circumstances by which huge parts of the society were affected. In other words, he managed to use the Fin de Siècle as an interesting age to his advantage because he wrote about the problems of the time and the people’s fears and anxieties connected to them (cf. McConnell 174).
As pointed out in chapter 3.2, there was a huge growth of population at the end of the 19th century caused by a lower mortality rate. Through new scientific achievements such as the steam engine and the steam ship, travelling was made much easier and the growth of population was further strengthened by immigration, especially in London. This is also depicted in Sherlock Holmes in which Watson claims that “London [...] [is a] great cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 8). This concentration of people led to a higher crime rate in Great Britain’s capital compared to other parts of the country (cf. Tobias 42). And also in London itself, people in certain districts were faced with delinquency more than people in other parts were. Such a hotspot of crime was London’s East End including Whitechapel (Banerjee n.p.). Only a couple of months after the publication of Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet, the murderer of Whitechapel, who became famous as Jack the Ripper, started to commit the murders on prostitutes (cf. McConnell 174). This high crime rate in London during the Fin de Siècle was certainly a problem for people back then. Doyle reflected upon this problem of crimes and the people’s fears and anxieties related to them. He created criminals who commit this wide range of crimes, i.e. murder, blackmail, theft, and crimes connected to greed and inheritance (cf. Clausen 111) with which people had to deal at the turn of the 19th century. Although people have always feared the criminals of their time and so did the late 19th century citizens of London, felonies have been captivating for them. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that the Sherlock Holmes stories dealing with crimes on different levels were fascinating for people about 130 years ago (cf. Fascination with Detective Stories).
As also referred to in chapter 3.2, there was a second problem for London citizens during the Fin de Siècle which was strongly connected to the problem of the high crime rate in the capital: the people felt inadequately protected by the British police force. This is hardly
70 surprising considering the fact that “it was practice in the Metropolitan Police until the 1930s to list many reported thefts as lost property” (Emsley n.p.). Therefore, “Scotland Yard suffered a scandal that resulted in its reorganization and, for some time, a loss of public confidence” (Clausen 111). Doyle reflected upon the people’s fears and anxieties concerning the incompetency of and the scandal in the British police force. Hence, the police in the Sherlock Holmes narratives are represented as extremely weak. In Holmes, London’s citizens and, as a consequence, many other people found a person whom they could rely on and who was able to create “order amid disorder” (McConnell 172). It was reassuring for people that Holmes could compensate for Scotland Yard’s incapacity, at least within the Sherlock Holmes narratives. “Doyle supplied the formula for which the writers of the 1870s and 1880s, in their disillusion with the police detective, had been fumbling” (Ousby 141). This circumstance that Holmes was a person whom people could trust is another aspect why Sherlock Holmes was so fascinating for them at the end of the 19th century. This is confirmed by Julian Symons who claims that “what crime literature offered to its readers for half a century from 1890 onward was a reassuring world in which those who tried to disturb the established order were always discovered and punished” (11). Symons adds that “[p]art of Holmes’s attraction was that, far more than any of his later rivals, he was so evidently a [...] superior man. It was comforting to have such a man on one’s side” (68).
Of course, there are many more aspects of the Victorian age and particularly the Fin de Siècle which Doyle assembled in his Sherlock Holmes narratives and which might have been fascinating for the readers. As pointed out in chapter 3.2, the Victorian era was highly influenced by all kinds of new inventions. There was a strong focus on science, on which Doyle managed to reflect upon. Proof can be found in Holmes’s scientific strategy to crime solving and his knowledge about forensics. According to Konnikova, Holmes “is the perfect spokesperson for the revolution in science and thought” and, therefore, “a clear product of [his] time and place in history” (12). This focus on science led to different scientific achievements such as the steam engine and the steam ship which made travelling easier for people. As a consequence, migration increased which is also reflected upon in the Sherlock Holmes canon: foreigners commit felonies in Great Britain (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet; cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four), different crimes take place in the US (cf. Doyle, A Study in Scarlet) or in India (cf. Doyle, The Sign of the Four), oriental animals sometimes play a vital role, e.g. snakes (cf., Doyle “The Speckled Band”), and foreign tobacco and other drugs are repeatedly consumed. The facts that Doyle reflected upon science and the foreign might also have been a reason why people have been fascinated with the Sherlock Holmes canon.
71 As shown above, the genre and serial publication of Sherlock Holmes were decisive factors for the fascination people developed for the narratives. Even more importantly, Doyle managed to reflect upon the historico-cultural context of the time in which the Sherlock Holmes series was born (cf. McCrea ix). In this way, he achieved to exert fascination on many of his contemporaries: A character like Holmes could grow to full stature only in a time when crime could plausibly be seen as the greatest threat to order and its detection the greatest of services, when the police were widely believed to be ineffectual, when science was viewed by its enthusiasts as a new force crusading for progress against ignorance and unreason – above all, when the prospect of a major war could seem less menacing than an unsolved robbery or murder. (Clausen 123) Clausen’s assertion sums up the possible reasons for Doyle’s success with his Sherlock Holmes narratives quite aptly. However, not only did the Sherlock Holmes stories fascinate the contemporary readers at the time when they were written; people are still fascinated by them today. The reason for Sherlock Holmes’s prevailing success stems from the fact that many fears and anxieties of the people during the Fin de Siècle were similar to our today’s concerns (cf. McCrea ix) in terms of criminalisation (strongly connected to urbanisation and immigration), our feeling to be inadequately protected by the police, and economic, social, political, and environmental change in general.
The people’s fascination with the Sherlock Holmes canon cannot only be attributed to the genre, the form of publication or “the distinctive socio-historical backdrop to the stories” (ibid.). Paradoxes, both logical and metaphysical ones, play a decisive role for the fascination which the Sherlock Holmes narratives exert on the readers.
4.3.3 The Fascination with the Paradoxes of Sherlock Holmes
Although Konnikova claims that the readers usually “dislike any factor that stands in the way of […] simplicity and causal concreteness [because] [u]ncertainty, chance, randomness, [and] nonlinearity [...] threaten [their] ability to explain, and to explain quickly and (seemingly) logically” (161), paradoxes seem to exert fascination on the readers. This can be connected to Baumbach’s claim that [f]ascination is most frequently initiated by the disruption of familiar categories and the frustration of readers’ expectations insofar as their astonishment felt over incompatibilities and unanticipated divergence from the norm can lead to arrested attention. (17) If paradoxes are considered to be disruptive elements which attack certain assumptions and beliefs of the readers in order to capture their attention, they can certainly be an important factor for the readers’ development of fascination.
72 Considering the effect paradoxes can have on the readers, it is hardly surprising that they are frequently used within literary writings; so they are in Sherlock Holmes. As shown in the chapters 4.1 and 4.2, the Sherlock Holmes stories are pervaded by many paradoxes on the logical and the metaphysical level. In the following, these particular paradoxes are looked upon in connection with the concept of fascination and hypotheses of why these paradoxes are necessary and responsible for the readers’ development of fascination are put forward.
Fascination with Crime-Related Logical Paradoxes
Crime-related logical paradoxes exert a deep fascination in the readers. Otto Penzler compares logically paradoxical deeds but first and foremost the logical paradox of locked-room mysteries to the magic. Penzler states that “[t]he effect [of locked-room mysteries] is so magical that we somehow expect the cause to be magical also. When we see it isn’t wizardy, we [might] call it tomfoolery” (ibid.). Nevertheless, it can be argued that locked-room mysteries “fascinate[...] the reader[s] precisely the same way that the magician is able to bring wonder to his audience” (ibid.). They sometimes bear such a fascination for the readers that they are frustrated when the riddle is resolved in the end (cf. ibid.). But according to Penzler (cf. ibid.), to close the book before the locked-room mystery is resolved is no option. Although the “delicious frisson of wonder” (ibid.) of the locked-room mystery is over, a “different kind of satisfaction” (ibid.) is brought about, i.e. admiration for the detective.
The question of why crime-related logical paradoxes in general but especially locked-room mysteries exert such a fascination on the readers can be answered by Konnikova’s assertion that “[t]he [i]mprobable [i]s [n]ot [i]mpossible” (177). The readers often fail to take the improbable into consideration because based on their experiences, they are guided into a wrong direction (cf. ibid. 178-179). This points to the importance of experience for our deductive skills. Konnikova is of the opinion that “even the best and sharpest mind is necessarily subject to its owner’s unique experience and world perception” (180). Logically paradoxical deeds and locked-room mysteries in detective stories make the readers aware that they have to consider all available evidences and not only things that they have in their brain attics (cf. ibid. 184). Due to the fact that the readers see what they believe or think to know, it might be fascinating for them that the Sherlock Holmes narratives point out their incapability to regard the seemingly improbable as possible. This might be the explanation for the fact that crime-related logical paradoxes including locked-room mysteries are so fascinating for the readers.
73 The awareness raising that something that seems to be improbable can be possible occurs in many Sherlock Holmes narratives. The seemingly improbable and impossible logically paradoxical deeds in A Study in Scarlet, “A Case of Identity”, and “The Man with the Twisted Lip” explained and analysed in chapter 4.1.1 make the readers aware that all probabilities must be taken into account although they sometimes appear to be implausible. The locked- room mysteries in “The Speckled Band” and in The Sign of the Four convey this message even more drastically; they shock the readers into the awareness that sometimes they are on a completely wrong line of thinking. This is confirmed by Konnikova who states that “Holmes [...] shock[s] us out of that easy narrative and force[s] us to consider that something [...] unlikely [...] may be the very thing we need to solve our case” (178). This shock is the element by which the readers might be fascinated.
Another possible explanation for the readers’ fascination with crime-related logical paradoxes but, first and foremost, with locked-room mysteries might lie in the fact that they are rationally explainable. Westlake states that at the end of the 19th century, the realist movement demanded every mystery to be rationally explainable (7-8) and especially locked-room mysteries were. This is clear for Holmes. He knows that walls, floors, locked doors and locked windows are not permeable and that there must be an ‘invisible’ hole through which people or animals can gain entrance. He is aware that criminal acts cannot be carried out by non-living beings such as ghosts or demons which can enter a room although it is locked (cf. ibid. 8). According to Clausen, “[l]ike many other nineteenth-century enthusiasts, Holmes thinks of science as a purifying discipline whose chief goal is clearing away of mysteries” (110). Westlake claims that “[t]he locked room mystery has perhaps been popular exactly because of the reassurance it offers. At least in the world of stories, the madly irrational can be demonstrated to be logical, as long as one is clever enough to interpret detailed observations” (ibid.). In other words, the resolution of logical paradoxes including the locked- room mysteries fostered the realistic trend of the late 19th century towards a disenchanted world, a world without mysteries, a world of reason, and this was a cause why people were fascinated with them.
Whereas Holmes symbolises a disenchanted world by representing certain attitudes such as “secularism”, “rationalism”, and “scepticism” (Saler 607) and thereby solves a huge amount of felonies, it can also be argued that Holmes promoted a re-enchantment of the world. According to Saler, Holmes and the Sherlock Holmes narratives are “magical without introducing magic” (603). This might be due to the introduction of other paradoxes on the logical as well as on the metaphysical level, which are not resolved by Holmes. It can be
74 argued that these logical and metaphysical paradoxes have contributed to the re-enchantment of the world, which of course might have also fascinated the readers.
Fascination with the Paradox of Sherlock Holmes’s Superiority over Watson
Just like Watson states, “I confess how much [Holmes] stimulated my curiosity, and how often I endeavoured to break through the reticence which he showed on all that concerned himself” (Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 16), the readers of the Sherlock Holmes narratives are intrigued by Holmes’s person. Watson and the readers are fascinated by Holmes mainly because he embodies a “mystique” (Johnson 27) as he “always knows the answer” (ibid.); they are “fascinated by the way he can reason his way to the correct solution” (O’Brien xiii). Watson and the readers, on the other hand, usually fail to see what Holmes sees.
As analysed and explained in chapter 4.1.2, the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over Watson is mainly due to Holmes’s science of deduction. Without the logical paradox of Holmes’s and Watson’s utterly different crime solving capacities, this scientific crime solving approach would not be visible to many readers. They need the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over Watson or, conversely, Watson’s inferiority to Holmes in order to realise about this fascinating aspect in the Sherlock Holmes series. In other words, they require Watson’s simple-mindedness to become aware of Holmes’s thought process because through Watson’s incapacity, their attention is repeatedly drawn to Holmes’s science of deduction. Although Holmes explains his science of deduction repeatedly, Watson and also the readers never fully understand Holmes’s train of thought. This is confirmed by McCrea who states that “[i]t is one of the sources of fellowship between [the readers] and Watson that [they] never master Holmes’s skill” (xi). He adds that “[this] is part of the stories’ compulsive hold on [their] attention that [they] keep feeling [they] might” (ibid.) And indeed, according to Konnikova, “System Watson may take years to become more like System Holmes, and even then it may never get there completely, but by being mindfully focused, it can sure get closer” (82). The logical paradox of Holmes’s success and Watson’s failure highlights the science of deduction and makes the readers desperate for more Sherlock Holmes stories through which they think they might be able to fully understand Holmes’s crime solving procedure. George Grella (cf. 32) does not share McCrea’s view (cf. xi). Grella suggests that “the reader[s] generally cannot solve [the mysteries] by the detective’s means, and thus derive[…] [their] chief pleasure not from duplicating but from observing the mastermind’s work” (32). Either way, the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over Watson is fascinating for the readers
75 because it indicates that there is something like the science of deduction which they are desperate to master or simply enjoy watching.
Another approach for the readers’ fascination which is brought about by the logical paradox of Holmes’s success over Watson can be connected to Watson’s incapability. Kayman claims that many ‘normal’ readers think they master Holmes’s cases much better than Watson, which makes them feel superior (cf. 49). Interestingly, this unfolds even to a bigger logical paradox. Kayman’s assertion raises the question of how ‘normal’ readers should be able to establish a scientific method similar to Holmes’s science of deduction or to follow Holmes’s steps towards a solution better than Watson, who has a scientific education and has already had the chance to assist Holmes. However, Watson’s incapability might lead to the circumstance that the readers feel superior over him and this can be a reason for the readers’ fascination with the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over Watson.
Fascination with the Paradox of Sherlock Holmes’s Relationship to the Police
The logical paradox of Sherlock Holmes’s superiority over the Scotland Yard officials is very much concerned with the historical background of the Sherlock Holmes narratives. As explained above (cf. chapter 4.3.2), in a time of serious economic, social, political, and environmental change, the police force was untrustworthy. This unreliability is reflected upon in Sherlock Holmes through the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over the police, which has contributed to the readers’ fascination with the canon.
Considering the untrustworthiness of the police during the Fin de Siècle, it was necessary for Doyle to present an exceptionally skilled consulting detective as a kind of national hero. Greenfield argues that “[i]n an age when the criminals were becoming more professional in their methods of deception and crime, the detective had to be able to match and overcome the criminal with logic and application” (21). Holmes’s “extraordinary powers of ratiocination” (Neill 612), “[the] skill at interpreting evidence” (ibid.), and “[the] ability to empty his memory of superfluous cultural knowledge” (ibid.) were necessary in order to defeat the criminals of his age. Furthermore, Holmes’s attitude towards crimes was essential: “[Holmes] is continuously unimpressed with the crimes and criminals he pursues and his unperturbed countenance makes him an exceptionally entertaining hero” (Rufa 3). On the other hand, the representation of the weak police force of the Fin de Siècle was vital in order to produce the effect of Holmes’s supremacy more drastically.
76 The logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over the police was fascinating for readers because due to the incapability of the real-life police, Holmes’s skills were reassuring for people back then even though at least most of them knew that Holmes was only a fictional character. This is confirmed by Greenfield who claims that “the ideological project of […] Doyle” (19) was “[to] [provide] a reassuring order in the face of threats from both domestic and foreign crime and intrigue” (ibid.). Today, the logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over the police might still be fascinating for the readers because the discrepancy between someone so exceptionally skilled and Scotland Yard depicted so weak provides them with “the disruption of familiar categories” (Baumbach 17) and might lead to “the frustration of readers’ expectations” (ibid.).
Fascination with the Character Paradoxes of Sherlock Holmes
Metaphysical paradoxes or more narrowly defined character paradoxes are fascinating for the readers because people with entirely incongruous character traits attract attention. The readers do not reckon with persons who are, for example, a Victorian gentleman and a criminal at the same time or who exhibit human, mechanical, and animalistic features simultaneously. This assertion is confirmed by Linda Seger. She claims that character inconsistencies are “particularly compelling” (32) for the readers and “that [they] draw [the readers] toward certain people” (ibid.); in other words, “paradoxes often form the basis for creating a fascinating and unique character” (ibid.). Leonard Tourney even goes so far as to state that “paradoxes are the crux of fascinating characters” (quoted in ibid. 33).
As outlined in chapter 4.2.1, Sherlock Holmes can be regarded as a paradoxical character in various respects. He unites gentlemanly traits such as his family background, his education, his ability to defend himself, Watson, and his clients, and his inclination to rescue damsels in distress with criminal schemes: he breaks the law to solve cases and repeatedly takes the law into his own hands when he does not hand criminals over to the police or when he seeks revenge. This character paradox might be fascinating for the readers because they do not foresee Holmes being simultaneously a Victorian gentleman and a criminal.
It is not only the contradiction within Holmes’s character which fascinates the readers; it is also the implications which are brought about by Holmes’s character paradox. Due to Holmes’s gentlemanly nature, he repeatedly takes advantage of his criminal energy in the interest of his fellow people. “[H]e’s not just playing at being a detective. He wants justice to prevail, and where necessary he’s willing to flout the law in order to ensure that it does” (“A
77 Point of View: The enduring appeal of Sherlock Holmes” n.p.). Especially his preference for taking the law into his own hands serves the characters within the Sherlock Holmes stories as minor criminals are reprieved and especially dangerous culprits are punished with full rigour, in some cases even with death. “[Holmes’s] [...] flexible [...] pursuit of justice” (Greenfield 27) might have also been reassuring for the readers at the rather dangerous time in which the canon was written. Correspondingly, Greenfield argues that “in cases of justified revenge”, “the detective [is placed] in a position of being a dispenser of a justice that seems right to readers even though it is not strictly legal” (19). It was fascinating for the readers during the Fin de Siècle to have someone to rely on whether by legal or illegal means and it still is fascinating for people today. What has been even more fascinating for the Sherlock Holmes readers is the fact that “Holmes isn’t simply didactic like other detectives, and that’s the appeal” (Saler quoted in Crum, n.p.).
As also pointed out in chapter 4.2.1, Holmes’s character must be regarded as paradoxical due to other reasons as well: although Holmes can be considered as a Victorian gentleman, he takes drugs and is addicted to crimes. Considering the drugs, the fact that Holmes can control his drug consumption and uses the stimulating effect of them to solve cases is fascinating for the readers. In terms of crimes, it is different: Holmes cannot control his need for engaging his mind with crimes. This might be fascinating for the readers due to the fact that being a gentleman and longing for crimes is something which is completely opposed to rational thought. That Holmes’s inclination to drugs and addiction to crimes are fascinating for many readers is confirmed by Dean DeFino, who claims that Holmes’s weaknesses do not disturb the readers (cf. 74). He argues that “these features only attest to [Holmes’s] genius (like the unkempt scientist with the tangled explosion of hair) and [his] charm” (ibid.). Therefore, it can be argue that Holmes’s shortcomings, i.e. his inclination for drugs and his addiction to crimes, fascinate the readers rather than deter them.
The pseudo-paradox describing Holmes’s three-dimensional character, i.e. his human, mechanical, and animalistic side, is fascinating for the readers due to the fact that it makes Holmes who he is. Through Holmes’s human side, the aspect that Holmes makes mistakes is strengthened. This is fascinating for the readers because they can never be sure if Holmes is able to solve the case in the story they are reading (cf. O’Brien xiii). In this way, “Holmes’s appeal is that he is a flawed character” (ibid.) However, without being unemotional and thereby excluding the subjective and without having animal-like instincts, Holmes would not make such an exceptional consulting detective. And this is what counts for the readers: being entertained and fascinated by someone superior.
78 Holmes’ paradoxical character is something which definitely fascinates the readers. The contradiction in his character traits, i.e. being a Victorian gentleman and a criminal displaying various very ungentlemanly virtues and revealing a trinity of human, mechanical, and animalistic features at the same time, captivates the readers. According to Sarah Day, “[w]e can’t get enough of Sherlock Holmes” (n.p.) because “Holmes is not just a solver of mysteries, but a mystery himself” (ibid.).
This chapter has shown that all the logical and metaphysical paradoxes explained and analysed in the chapters 4.1 and 4.2 might be to some extent fascinating for the readers. Some of them are even essential because without them, the Sherlock Holmes narratives might not have been successful at all. Therefore, it can be argued that paradoxes on different levels are pivotal for the generation literary fascination, especially in the case of Sherlock Holmes. The fact that paradoxes in the Sherlock Holmes canon exert fascination on the readers confirms Baumbach’s claim that “[f]ascination is most frequently initiated by the disruption of familiar categories and the frustration of readers’ expectations insofar as their astonishment felt over incompatibilities and unanticipated divergence from the norm can lead to arrested attention” (17).
79 5 Conclusion
The aim of this thesis has been to show that in light of the paradoxical atmosphere with which people were confronted during the Fin de Siècle, the theme of paradox has been presented and reflected upon in Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes novellas and short stories and paradox has been a major factor for the people’s fascination with the canon. This thesis has proven that Doyle managed to stock the Sherlock Holmes narratives with different paradoxes on two levels and it has shown that these paradoxes fulfil the function of exercising fascination on the readers and, hence, have contributed to Sherlock Holmes’s success.
The Victorian age but especially the Fin de Siècle was a period in which British citizens were exposed to a paradoxical atmosphere due to certain cultural and historical movements. The 19th century was a period of change in different ways: the industrial revolution brought about many positive as well as negative developments for the Victorian population, the clash between religion and science led to uncertainty among people, and an unfamiliar societal change was pre-eminent. The people’s fears of these new developments were confronted by their faith into what was to come in the modern era. At the end of the century, this paradoxical atmosphere was especially palpable because these changes were difficult to evaluate: it was tough to decide whether to worship or to demonise the industrial revolution, whether to rely on the supernatural or on science, and whether to approve or to criticise the new changes and trends in society; in other words, it was impossible to determine whether to trust in the old or to admit the new.
This paradoxical atmosphere was presented and reflected upon by Doyle. He pervaded his Sherlock Holmes narratives with paradoxes on two different levels: Doyle processed the contrast between superstition and science mainly via crime-related logical paradoxes and further reinforced them by logical incongruities based on the notions of the industrial revolution and the societal problems of the Fin de Siècle. Furthermore, Doyle bolstered these logical incongruities by enclosing metaphysical paradoxes in the character of Sherlock Holmes.
On the level of logical paradoxes, Doyle focused on crime-related logical inconsistencies. He pervaded the different types of crimes which mainly centre around cultism, revenge, murder, identity and deception, inheritance and greed, crimes against property, threats from foreign or domestic political intrigue, and cheating with various logically paradoxical features. Of particular note is Doyle’s use of locked-room mysteries, the archetypal form of the logical
80 paradox in the genre of detective fiction. In “The Speckled Band”, Doyle is especially successful providing the readers with an exceptionally well-constructed locked-room mystery. Doyle further reinforces this crime-related logically paradoxical notion via two other logical incongruities: Holmes’s superiority over Watson and Holmes’s relationship to the police. Although Watson is a scientist and Scotland Yard is one of the most successful police authorities throughout the world, Holmes is vastly superior. His focus on science including forensics aid him to achieve maximum success in solving the crimes in which Watson and the police fail.
The logically paradoxical spirit of the Sherlock Holmes narratives is strengthened by metaphysical paradoxes. Doyle conveys these metaphysical inconsistencies via Holmes’s paradoxical character: Holmes simultaneously embodies gentlemanly and criminal features and unites human, mechanical, and animalistic characteristics. The former metaphysical paradox is mainly brought about by Holmes’s Victorian virtues such as being well-educated, being brave and courageous, and being inclined to support or sometimes even rescue other people in need, clashing with his willingness to apply criminal methods in order to be successful. The notion of Holmes’s criminal side is further reinforced by his desire for artificial stimulants but most importantly by his addiction to solve terrible misdeeds. Holmes’s trinity of human, mechanical, and animalistic traits cannot be considered as full- fledged metaphysical paradox due to the fact that it is undeniable that Holmes is a literary human being; nevertheless, this pseudo-paradox intensifies the impression of Holmes’s paradoxical nature.
Even though Sherlock Holmes was and still is captivating for many people due to multifarious reasons, logical paradoxes strikingly strengthen the fascination of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Crime-related paradoxes, especially the locked-room mystery, fascinate the readers because they are made aware that the improbable is possible, that superstition can be rejected in favour for rational thought. The logical paradox of Holmes’s superiority over Watson is not only fascinating for the readers, it is also necessary for them to understand the science of deduction. Watson’s incapacity provides the readers with many explanations about Holmes’s train of thought. The fascination with this logical paradox sets in when the readers feel desperate for more information about the science of deduction to fully grasp Holmes’s methods. The attraction with the logical paradox of Holmes’s relationship to the police can definitely be linked to the historical component. During the Fin de Siècle, the police were immensely weak and the Sherlock Holmes readers were fascinated by a character who was able to protect them from all evil.
81 Not only do logical paradoxes exert fascination on the Sherlock Holmes readers, also metaphysical paradoxes are captivating for them. Holmes’s paradoxical traits make him an interesting and compelling character. Holmes is not only willing to dedicate his life to protecting people; he is even prepared to break the law to do so. The readers are fascinated by Holmes’s paradoxical attitude because it has offered reassurance in times of uncertainty: there is always somebody to rely on. The metaphysical pseudo-paradox of Holmes’s multidimensional character, i.e. his human, mechanical, and animalistic side, is alluring for many readers due to the fact that it makes Holmes who he is. Without uniting human thought, mechanical coldness, and animalistic instinct, Holmes would have never been so successful.
On the whole, the theme of paradox is pre-eminent in the Sherlock Holmes stories that were analysed for the purpose of this thesis. Doyle managed to present and reflect upon the paradoxical atmosphere of the Fin de Siècle by introducing paradoxes on different levels into Sherlock Holmes. These paradoxes have served the function of fascinating the readers due to different reasons and, therefore, have substantially contributed to the canon’s success. In face of these findings, Doyle can truly be considered a prince of paradox.
82 6 Sherlock Holmes, Its Paradoxes, and Their Fascination in the EFL Classroom
After having dealt with the theme of paradox in the Sherlock Holmes stories and having argued that it is Doyle’s use of paradoxes on different levels that has mainly contributed to the readers’ fascination with the canon and its main character, this chapter aims at offering suggestions on how to implement this topic in an EFL classroom. In doing so, it will connect to sources on teaching literature in EFL classrooms and it will outline in how far teaching literature is proposed in the CEFR and the Austrian curriculum for English. Furthermore, this chapter will develop an approach on how to integrate the topic of Sherlock Holmes, its paradoxes, and their fascination in the EFL classroom, providing a variety of tasks and detailed explanations on how to realise them. In doing so, this chapter will specify the target group and, more importantly, the teaching aims of the individual tasks.
6.1 Teaching Literature in EFL Classrooms
Although many people are of the opinion that teaching literary texts in EFL classrooms is not worthwhile because pupils would not really benefit from it, it can be argued differently (cf. Savvidou 1-2). Christine Savvidou claims that [t]here are many benefits to using literature in the EFL classroom. Apart from offering a distinct literary world which can widen learners’ understanding of their own and other cultures, it can create opportunities for personal expression as well as reinforce learners’ knowledge of lexical and grammatical structure. (4) The CEFR agrees with this claim stating that literature “serve[s] many [...] educational purposes – intellectual, moral and emotional, linguistic and cultural” (Council of Europe 2001, 56) and, of course, “aesthetic” (ibid.). In face of these assertions, it is hardly surprising that the Austrian curriculum for English claims that the introduction of English literary texts in class is an essential part of humanistic education (cf. BMBWF 4).
In order to obtain the maximum benefits from reading literary texts in class, it is necessary to increase to students’ motivation for reading literature (cf. Haß 149). This can be achieved by skilfully choosing class readings. According to Truong Thi My Van, EFL teachers “should consider literature that students can access and relate to” (3). Therefore, it is necessary that teachers use texts “that match the level they are teaching” (ibid.), especially in terms of “vocabulary and syntax” (ibid.), and that students are not confused by “the historical, social, and political references that add complexity” (ibid.) to the text. Too complex texts “create[...]
83 passive students and negatively affect[...] their motivation due to the lack of enjoyment or benefit from the experience” (ibid. 4). Frank Haß agrees with Van that the difficulty of the texts should be adapted to the pupils’ language skills because otherwise, motivation might get lost. In doing so, he argues that the short story is a genre that is particularly suitable for pupils due to its limited length and its thematic diversity (cf. 148). This will be considered when suggesting how to implement Sherlock Holmes, its paradoxes, and their fascination in the EFL classroom.
Apart from the appropriate level of difficulty, the motivation to engage with a text is influenced by the “approach[...] to literary analysis” (Van 2) that is used in EFL classrooms. Van lists the “[s]ix [most] frequently discussed approaches to literary analysis” (2): “New Criticism”, “Structuralism”, “Stylistics”, “Reader-Response”, “Language-Based”, and “Critical Literacy” (ibid. 2-3). He argues that “there is obvious crossover among the approaches” (ibid. 8). However, the combination of student-centred approaches, i.e. the combination of the reader-response and the language-based approach, is most motivating for pupils because it emphasises the readers’ personal involvement with the text without neglecting the language component (cf. ibid.). Therefore, these approaches will play a central role for my suggestions on how Sherlock Holmes, its paradoxes, and their fascination can be implemented in the EFL classroom.
The reader-response approach is about “encourag[ing] students to draw on their personal experiences, opinions, and feelings in their interpretation of literature” (Van 5). This means that the reader-response approach strives for individual reader reactions according to the readers’ personal lifeworlds. In this sense, one and the same text can never be absorbed alike by different readers; they react individually according to their “interests” (ibid. 6) and their “experiences” (ibid.). As a result, “an author’s idea about a work may be described in a multitude of ways” (ibid.). The reader-response approach allows for this individuality and even fosters it. Following different scholars, the reader-response approach is successful because it “increases student participation and motivation” (ibid.) due to the fact that by making use of their background knowledge, pupils can access the literary text much easier (cf. ibid.). Furthermore, they can “give opinions without the fear of having responses different from the teacher” (ibid.) and they can “work collaboratively in pairs or groups to debate a topic” (ibid.).
The language-based approach focuses on “the language of literature” (ibid. 7). Therefore, students are faced with different tasks which somehow relate to language and, accordingly, to
84 the improvement of their language skills (cf. ibid.). According to different scholars, the language-based approach is stimulating for pupils “because it fulfills students’ needs in learning about literature and language” (ibid.).
All this shows that the most important aim of reading texts in school is to stimulate the pupils’ motivation and enjoyment of reading (cf. Haß 159), no matter which literary texts or methods are used in the EFL classroom. Through the successful implementation of literature in school, pupils might be encouraged to read different literary texts in their leisure time, which does not only extend their general education, but which primarily enhances their language skills (cf. BMBWF 3).
6.2 Proposed Lessons
In the following, the students and the students’ CEFR-levels will be referred to, the suggested lessons including their aims will be described and analysed, and the teaching materials will be provided:
Setting
Topic: Sherlock Holmes, Its Paradoxes, and Their Fascination Literary Text: “The Speckled Band” Time: 3-4 hours Grade: 8th grade, AHS CEFR-Level: B2+
The three to four consecutive lessons (depending on how much time the students need for the individual tasks) are be about Sherlock Holmes, its paradoxes, and their fascination. They are planned according to the reader-response and the language-based approach (cf. Van 5-7) and mainly consist of three different steps: “pre-, while-, and post-reading activities” (Haß 151). The pupils will deal with a short story because, as mentioned above, due to its limited length, it can be implemented into class for few consecutive lessons without having to interrupt for other contents. An interruption can sometimes be difficult because the students’ focus and motivation might get lost. I have decided to work with “The Speckled Band”, which is in my opinion one of the most exciting and thrilling short stories within the Sherlock Holmes canon, and should therefore also be interesting for the target group. Furthermore, this short story
85 seems to be appropriate for the topic of the lesson due to the fact that it contains “the classic detective fiction paradox” (Stumme 35) – the locked-room mystery.
The lessons are planned for pupils attending an eighth grade AHS. The class consists of 18 pupils aged 17-18, equally distributed by gender. As stated above, the students are on an upper B2 level according to the CEFR. In terms of reading literary texts, the CEFR distinguishes between two different scales: “Expressing a personal response to creative texts (including literature)” (Council of Europe 2017, 112, original emphasis) and “Analysis and criticism of creative texts (including literature)” (ibid. 113, original emphasis). Due to the fact that the pupils’ experiences and individual opinions play a central role in the proposed lessons and the lessons are oriented towards the reader-response approach in connection with the language-based approach, the first mentioned scale seems to be appropriate for designing the lessons. On B2 level it says that the student [c]an give a clear presentation of his/her reactions to a work, developing his/her ideas and supporting them with examples and arguments. [c]an describe his/her emotional response to a work and elaborate on the way in which it has evoked this response. [c]an express in some detail his/her reactions to the form of expression, style and content of a work, explaining what he/she appreciated and why. (ibid.) These can-do statements will prove to be essential for compiling the tasks and, ultimately, the consequent lessons.
Description and Analysis of Lessons
Pre-reading Activities:
Pre-reading activities serve to prepare the students for the text by stimulating them to access their prior knowledge and their personal experiences (cf. Haß 151). According to Haß, successful pre-reading activities include working with word fields, pictures, the title of the text, significant quotes etc., which are related to the text that is to be read (cf. ibid.). Due to their significance, pre-reading activities will be taken into consideration in the following tasks.
Task (1): Guess Who?
The students have not dealt with Sherlock Holmes in class so far and all they know about the canon and Holmes himself is connected to their prior knowledge and their personal experiences. The teacher does not tell them that they will deal with Holmes and read a short story of the Sherlock Holmes canon in the next couple of lessons. Instead, the teacher only explains that they will read and work with a short story with a very famous main character,
86 about whom they are going to do a quiz now. The teacher points out that it is the students’ task to play detective and guess whom the clues are referring to. The teacher reads ten to fifteen pieces of information aloud (e.g. quotes from newspapers and magazines, quotes from the Sherlock Holmes stories), from which the pupils have to guess whom they are about. The pieces of information will start rather vague and towards the end, they will become more obvious so that it should become clear who the person that is looked for is. In the end, the students should know that the sought person is Holmes (cf. Teaching Materials). Therefore, task 1 is all about a quiz.
The aim of the first task is to gradually introduce the students to Holmes by activating their previous knowledge and their personal experiences. The quiz ‘Guess Who?’ serves to interest and motivate the students for the person of Holmes and for the Sherlock Holmes story that is to be read later on because they have the chance to play detectives themselves.
Task (2): The Fascination of Sherlock Holmes
In task 2, the students watch a short movie about Holmes, which briefly refers to the historico-cultural context of the Sherlock Holmes stories, the buildings and other features throughout London which still remind of the fictional character of Holmes, and the fascination the person of Holmes and the narratives exert on the people. Now that the students are familiar with the topic, it is their task to think and then to discuss with their neighbours about Holmes and the Sherlock Holmes stories and the fascination which he and they exert on people all around the world. In order to be able to do so, they get questions which help “to move the discussion forward in a productive way” (Council of Europe 2017, 115) (cf. Teaching Materials). Afterwards, the students’ thoughts are shared in class. According to the Council of Europe, “collaborative engagement [...] may lead to new knowledge” (ibid.).
The major aim of this task is that the pupils dive deeper into the topic of Sherlock Holmes and its fascination. As it is difficult to predict which prior knowledge the students have with the topic, highly diverse answers are to be expected. According to the reader-response approach, this is desirable because it increases the pupils’ motivation to talk about their own ideas and opinions. The minor aims of this task are connected to language. Due to the fact that the pupils listen to a short film sequence and then discuss their thoughts in groups of two and afterwards in plenum, the pupils further develop their language skills, mainly in terms of listening and speaking including presenting.
87 Task (3): What is “The Speckled Band” about?
The students have now thought about Sherlock Holmes and its fascination in general. Before they start reading “The Speckled Band”, they are getting prepared to the text and its contents in particular by task 3, which is mainly about predicting the text’s content. They receive the title of the short story and a picture (cf. Teaching Materials), which serve as a starting point for predicting what might happen. They try to answer the questions which role ‘the speckled band’ might play in the short story and what the locked door could be about, discussing their thoughts in groups of three or four.
The aim of this task is to raise the students’ interest for the short story and to motivate them to read it in order to be able to check their predictions: will they be right in their assumptions about what happens in “The Speckled Band”? This task definitely fosters the pupils’ imagination and creativity. Furthermore, the pupils develop skills in speaking and debating about their own views.
While-reading Activities:
While-reading activities serve to intensify the students’ reading experiences (cf. Haß 152). By reducing the reading speed or interrupting the reading through integrating tasks into the reading process, readers can concentrate on individual aspects of the text, which is a common method of literary analysis (cf. ibid.). Furthermore, while-reading activities are important because through them, important features of the text must be noted down (cf. ibid.). In face of these benefits readers gain from while-reading activities, a while-reading task will be implemented into the process of reading “The Speckled Band.”
Task (4): Reading: “The Speckled Band” and Its Fascination
Task 4 is all about reading and compiling a double-entry journal. The students begin to read “The Speckled Band” in class and finish it at home until next lesson. They read the short story individually because it should be possible for the students to pause whenever they consider it necessary to think something over: the act of reading is a personal procedure. At the same time, they are asked to compile a double-entry journal. They work with a list consisting of two different columns (contents and quotes and personal thoughts) in which they add quotes or content descriptions that are fascinating for them on the left and their personal thoughts and reasons why they think these are fascinating on the right (cf. Teaching Materials). The students are asked to bring the double-entry journal to class next lesson.
88 The aim of this task is that the students read the short story and think about it and analyse it in the context of fascination. Due to the fact that this task is designed according to the reader- response approach, the students’ double entry journals will definitely look very different as everybody notes down his/her own personal thoughts and feelings. However, it is likely that many students record aspects which are connected to the major logical paradox of the short story, i.e. the locked-room mystery, the person of Holmes, the person of Watson, the foreign animals etc. Through this task, the students’ abilities of analysing a text according to certain features will be strengthened. Furthermore, the students can check whether their assumptions and predictions made in task 3 are true or false. Another aim of this task is language based, i.e. that the students enhance their overall reading competence.
Post-reading activities:
Post-reading activities are tasks which the students engage with after having read a text. In this phase, both the text itself and questions which were addressed in the pre-reading and while-reading tasks can be tackled (cf. Haß 152). There is a big variety of methods which can be used for post-reading activities, e.g. discussions, different writing tasks, and more creative approaches such as ‘hot-chairing’ or the simulation of a trial (cf. ibid.). In order to be able to round off the three to four proposed lessons, the following post-reading activities serve as a suggestion to conclude the topic of Sherlock Holmes, is paradoxes, and their fascination.
Task (5): Discussion: “The Speckled Band” and Its Fascination
After the students read the short story and made notes about what has fascinated them within the text at home, they will discuss their ideas and opinions as well as their personal thoughts and feelings in connection to the text and its fascination at school. Therefore, task 5 is about forming groups of four to five students whose task it is to discuss questions that are related to the pre-reading activities (fascination with Sherlock Holmes in general, prediction about what the text might be about) and the while-reading activity (fascination with “The Speckled Band”) (cf. Teaching Materials). The students also get the statement that “paradox is essential to many detective stories” (Stumme 32). They are asked whether there are paradoxes in “The Speckled Band” and whether these paradoxes have contributed to their fascination with this short story (cf. Teaching Materials). After the group discussion, the pupils’ ideas and opinions as well as their personal thoughts and feelings are shared within the whole class.
The aim of task 5 is to reflect upon the pre-reading and while-reading assignments, discussing “The Speckled Band” in connection with fascination. In this context, the students are asked
89 whether this short story includes paradoxes and whether these are especially fascinating for them. They should at least figure out that the locked-room mystery is a logical paradox; any other type of paradox within the Sherlock Holmes narratives is rather complex and also difficult to infer from only one short story. The students should be encouraged to talk about their own beliefs about the short story and its potential fascination in small groups. Afterwards, their beliefs will be shared in class. Therefore, the students’ competence to analyse a text according to certain features is further developed through this task. Moreover, the pupils have the chance to enhance their speaking skills through group and class discussions.
Task (6): Writing a Review: “The Speckled Band” and Its Fascination
In task 6, the students write a review about the most important contents of “The Speckled Band”, in which they argue whether or not the short story is fascinating and why (cf. Teaching Materials). Haß suggests that the text form of a review is appropriate for concluding reading a longer text because students have to summarise its most important aspects (cf. 152). Furthermore, the text form of a review is suitable in the context of the topic of the proposed lessons (Sherlock Holmes, its paradoxes, and their fascination) because the students can integrate the fact that there is a fascinating locked-room mystery into their text.
The aim of this task is to round off the three to four consecutive lessons. The students can reflect upon everything they have worked for in the previous tasks and finish the lessons that were centred on “The Speckled Band” with a specific result, i.e. a self-written text. They can write about “The Speckled Band”, its paradoxes, first and foremost its locked-room mystery, and the fascination they exert on the readers. Of course this task does not only aim at completing the lessons about Sherlock Holmes, but it also aims at developing language-based skills. Especially the students’ writing skills are practised.
Conclusion
As shown within the descriptions and analyses of the proposed tasks and within the teaching materials (cf. chapter 6.3), the tasks which circle around “The Speckled Band”, its paradoxes and their fascination are designed according to the reader-response and the language-based approach. Following Van, these are especially motivating for students due to the fact that they can form their own opinions about the text without being told whether they are right or wrong (cf. 8). Literary interpretations differ significantly between the readers and these approaches foster this individual access to literature. Furthermore, different methods are used for the
90 individual tasks which include, for example, guessing, predicting, analysing, and discussing. This variety of methods serves as a means of dealing with the individual assignments in the best possible way and prevents boredom among pupils. Moreover, different language skills are required in order to be able to complete the tasks: the assignments include all four language skills, i.e. reading, listening, speaking, and writing.
The different tasks achieve different objectives. However, the most important aim of the proposed lessons is to inspire the students’ enthusiasm for reading literature, no matter of which genre. They should stimulate the students’ interest for engaging with literary texts because reading can have a positive effect on the other language skills including vocabulary.
6.3 Teaching Materials
Task (1) Clues to be read aloud by the teacher: The sought person is referred to as “[t]he man who never lived and will never die”1 According to IMDb, he is the most filmed fictional character2 The author thought about calling him Sherringford3 The sought person says that “[he] cannot live without brain-work”4 He thinks that “[t]he emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning”5 He says that “[i]t is [his] business to know what other people don't know”6 He claims to be “the last and highest court of appeal in detection”7 The sought person lives at 221B Baker Street He says, “‘Come, Watson, come!’ [...] ‘The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come!’”8 He says, “I’m a consulting detective, if you can understand what that is”9
1 Title of an exhibition in the Museum of London, 17 Oct 2014 – 12 Apr 2015 2 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/oliver-tearle/sherlock-holmes-facts_b_3931674.html 3 ibid. 4 Doyle, The Sign of the Four 9 5 ibid. 13 6 Doyle, “The Blue Carbuncle” 197 7 Doyle, The Sign of the Four 4 8 Doyle, “The Adventure of the Abbey Grange” 194 9 Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 21 91 Task (2) Movie to be watched: https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/word-street/sherlock-holmes Questions to be raised by the teacher (either orally or via the data projector): Holmes, referring to one of his cases, himself said, “There is something in it which fascinates me extremely.”10 Why are so many people fascinated with the person of Holmes, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and adaptations of every kind? The woman in the movie said that “it looks like that [Holmes] is going to continue being a popular fictional character for many more years to come.”11 Why do you think that is?
Task (3) Look at the title of the short story and this picture and together with two or three of your classmates, make predictions about what the title could refer to, what could be behind this locked door, or what could have happened in general within the short story.
“The Speckled Band”
https://cyanidepublishing.com/2017/04/27/the-locked-room-mystery-committing-the-impossible-crime/
10 Doyle, “The Reigate Puzzle” 103 11 https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/en/word-street/sherlock-holmes, 3:40-3:46 92 Task (4) Read “The Speckled Band” and note down contents, quotes etc. which are particularly fascinating for you personally in the left column and explain your thoughts and reasons in connection with the respecting contents and quotes on the right side.
DOUBLE-ENTRY JOURNAL
CONTENT, QUOTES, ... PERSONAL THOUGHTS
Task (5) Discuss about the following questions in groups of four to five people. Afterwards, share your thoughts in class.
Which of your predictions about the short story’s content have been fulfilled? Which of them have not turned out to be correct? Could you ever have imagined the short story’s ending? Was the short story fascinating and if so, what did you personally find fascinating? Could these features also have to do with the great success of Sherlock Holmes? According to different scholars, “paradox is essential to many detective stories.” 12 Are there paradoxes in “The Speckled Band” and if so, which ones? In how far did these paradoxes contribute to the fascinating sensation of the text?
12 Stumme 32 93 Task (6) Write a review about “The Speckled Band” and specifically refer to its fascination. Use the discussion questions (task (5)) as a starting point:
Reviews wanted
Have you read something recently that has grabbed your attention? Write a review of this text, explaining what this story is about and what it is that makes it fascinating. Tell us whether or not you would recommend this text to readers. The best reviews will be published in our magazine.13
13 https://www.fceexamtips.com/articles/how-to-write-a-review-fce, adapted by Sabrina Innerhofer 94 7 Works Cited
Primary Sources:
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