A STUDY IN MORALITY: SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE'S SHERLOCK HOLMES _______________ A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of San Diego State University _______________ In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in English _______________ by Tishna M. Asim Spring 2016 iii Copyright © 2016 by Tishna M. Asim All Rights Reserved iv DEDICATION This work is dedicated to Dr. Quentin Bailey—the Holmes to my Lestrade. Thank you. v ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS A Study in Morality: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes by Tishna M. Asim Master of Arts in English San Diego State University, 2016 Sherlock Holmes inhabits a rarefied position in the global cultural landscape. There are hundreds of fictional detectives, yet he is considered the best and most enduring of his brethren. He is considered the archetype of genius detective, and his allure spans borders and generations, even today, one hundred and thirty years after his inception by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He has attained mythical status, both in popular-cultural and academic circles, from his instantly-recognizable profile, complete with deerstalker cap and magnifying lens, to his legendary address at 221B Baker Street in London. Yet the Holmes of myth represents a misreading of Doyle’s original sixty stories. Instead of the cold, unemotional, misogynistic automaton that seems cemented in public imagination, the textual Sherlock Holmes is much warmer, more spiritual, and more humane than his myth suggests. This thesis will demonstrate the humanity of Holmes as he exists in the original works, tracing his professional relationships, his views on justice, and his attitudes toward women, to establish a true reading of the famous sleuth. Doyle’s original texts depict a gliding evolution by Holmes toward increased morality, spirituality, and fairness, as he serves justice and the greater good. In contradicting the myth, this thesis offers an alternative view of the man himself as he always existed on the page—brilliant in reasoning and scientific deduction, but also kind, responsible, and inherently good. The real Sherlock Holmes, as he exists in Doyle’s canon, is certainly worth mythologizing. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE ABSTRACT ...............................................................................................................................v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: (RE)MAKING A MYTH ..............................................................1 2 NO “I” IN TEAM ........................................................................................................17 3 “A GOOD MAN AND A ROGUE” ............................................................................36 4 AIDEZ LA FEMME ....................................................................................................59 WORKS CITED ......................................................................................................................75 vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank the inimitable women of the SDSU 2016 Thesis Support Group: Tricia, Bonnie, and Chelsie, you made this whole process fun and enlightening. Thanks, too, to Dr. Edee Benkov and Dr. Mike Borgstrom. I knew I was lucky to call you my mentors, but I’m even luckier to call you my friends. Thanks for your support, insight, and kindness. It’s been an honor and a privilege to work with you. Special thanks to Dr. Quentin Bailey, for three years’ worth of enlightenment, humor, and fun. From my first semester to my last, it’s been such an honor to work with you and learn from you. I also want to thank my family for their unflagging support, constant encouragement, and unconditional love: Christina, Paul, Tanya, Shawn, Stephen, Charlotte, Timur, Taner, and Vicki. I hope to always make you proud. Finally, to NNH, my unwavering light amidst all this dark London fog, thank you for always guiding me home, and for sharing me with Mr. Holmes for so long. I love you. 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION: (RE)MAKING A MYTH Almost one hundred and thirty years after his inception by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the character of Sherlock Holmes still captures the imagination and fervent admiration of millions of fans worldwide. From his debut in 1887 as the only consulting detective in the world, to his final case in March 1927, Holmes’ popularity has only gained momentum, resulting in numerous television shows, movies, comic books, video games, and fan clubs. He has the ability to bridge the seemingly-insurmountable gap between hormonal Tweeters and staid, cerebral academic scholars; his panache is more timeless than that of most celebrities, and his name is synonymous with intelligence and stylish deductions. He has, in short, risen to mythical proportions. More than this popularity, though, he has attained a unique position in history: people believe—or at least desperately wish—that “Sherlock Holmes and John Watson (and their retinue, right down to Billy the Page) were real; that their adventures really happened” (Dundas 232). However fantastic, this desire is widely held: T.S. Eliot said that “Holmes is real in a way that only the greatest fictional characters ever achieve” (Clausen 66, emphasis in original), demonstrated by the “letters of admiration and requests for help [which] are still addressed to the mythical rooms” at 221 B Baker Street (66).1 The address and its inhabitants are so well known that “there must be very few people over the age of ten in the English-speaking world who have never heard of” Sherlock Holmes (66). Given that the complete stories have been translated into 60 languages, Holmes’ fame now reaches global proportions. Audrey Jaffe pinpoints the phenomenon, stating “no writer 1 Eliot himself was so inspired by the stories that he based “his poetic mystery cat Macavity on Conan Doyle’s villain Moriarty” (Dundas 16). 2 is more famously effaced behind his creation than Conan Doyle, who, as a world of Sherlockania attests, seems to have created an actual person rather than a fictional character” (419). Doyle and Holmes are so synonymous that most people forget that the Holmes stories “represent little more than 10 percent of Doyle’s total output” (Orel, “Introduction” 3). Doyle fades into the background: many readers indulge in a game “which posits as its basic assumption a conviction that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are historical figures, and that Doyle is a figment of their imagination—or at best, acts as Dr. Watson’s literary agent” (2). Holmes has outlived Doyle, despite Doyle’s attempted murder of his most famous character in 1894. Ellen F. Higgins concurs with this mythos, calling Holmes “a universal hero, a ubiquitous and instantly recognizable cultural symbol” (135)—truly a Mythologized Holmes. However well-intentioned this homage may be, the character which inspires such mania seems entirely divorced from the actual, textual character who appeared in Doyle’s original stories—those sixty stories which have been “elevat[ed]…to the status of a ‘Sacred Canon’” (Orel, “Sherlock” 169) by every generation since (and even during) Doyle’s writing of them. This thesis will demonstrate, in part, how the Canonical Holmes conflicts with and complicates the much adored Mythologized Holmes, and establishes why the distinction is important. This thesis further asserts that the Canonical Holmes is a much more evolved, warmly spiritual character than his cold, emotionless pop-culture persona allows; the Mythologized Holmes is prized, in part, because of his icy hauteur and inhumanity, even though both of those traits are largely absent from Doyle’s texts. Yet despite bearing little resemblance to his textual source, the Mythologized Holmes continues to captivate worldwide audiences. Who is this globally-recognized myth? Stephen Knight asserts: “Everyone knows the traditional image of Sherlock Holmes…a deerstalker hat, a checked Inverness cape, large curved pipe and a magnifying glass…[and] the world famous icon is complete” (“Great Detective” 55, emphasis added). Holmes, “neither the first nor the last of his kind, remains the archetype” of genius detective (Accardo 14), and while the deerstalker cap has produced some controversy (given that it is never once mentioned over the course of sixty stories), this image of Holmes is eternally etched on the social and cultural landscape of the planet. Just as his appeal knows no geographical borders, his accessibility is universal: the tales, 3 can be read by a child for the story alone, can be read by a teenager for a sense of construction, and can be read by an adult for his knowledge of why we are intrigued by those dogs that did not bark in our night. (Winks 93) This demographic-less, ageless, global appeal has led to the proliferation of films and television shows, in particular, featuring diverse actors as Holmes: in addition to Benedict Cumberbatch, the actor who currently portrays Holmes on the BBC’s smash-hit television show Sherlock, Basil Rathbone inhabited the role in 14 films during Hollywood’s so-called Golden Age of the 1940s. Robert Downey, Jr., took up the sleuth’s pipe with Jude Law as his Watson in two Guy Ritchie-directed confections for Warner Bros., while a third one is currently in pre-production. Disney threw their deerstalker hat into the ring with Basil of Baker Street, the hero of The Great Mouse Detective. After his turn singing “On the Street Where You Live” to Audrey Hepburn’s Eliza Doolittle in the film version of My Fair