A Study in Scarlet

Want to read this along with me? This essay is part of A Study in Scarlet, published in 1887. I used the epub version found on Feedbooks.com.

Since these essays, by necessity, discuss the plot points of each story, I encourage you to read them after you’ve read the story in question. Of course, now that I’ve said that, I’m going to immediately make a comment about A Study in Scarlet before you read it – it’s only half of a Sherlock Holmes novel (and a slim novel overall by modern standards). You can skip chapters one through five of the second part and not miss much of anything. Look up that section of the plot on Wikipedia or something, or read it if you really want the whole experience, but know going in that I’m going to skip lightly over a large chunk of this book.

Since this is the very first Sherlock Holmes story, there’s a lot of groundwork to establish Watson and Holmes as characters before the case begins in earnest. Really, even if you decide you don’t want to go over the entire canon, reading just the first two chapters of Scarlet tells you a lot about the two characters that dispels quite a number of myths and misconceptions about them.

Before I start with Watson, it’s already time for my first rant. If there is one thing I want to beat into the minds of every person who thinks they know something about Sherlock Holmes, it’s this: Watson is not an idiot. After a few pages of Scarlet, we learn that he’s a full medical doctor and has served in the military. He’s incredibly observant (like in chapter five, when he rattles off a series of observations that are sound, even if his deductions are off), and he frequently makes good perceptions of the character of people throughout the canon.¹ He’s clearly not on Holmes’ level as a detective, but even Holmes frequently calls Watson’s observations “invaluable,” and not just because Holmes is being sarcastic.

Again, these first two chapters do a lot to dispel this myth. Watson’s conversation with Stamford demonstrates that Holmes has difficulty making friends with people, and yet Watson manages it pretty quickly after meeting him. Watson challenges Holmes’ knowledge in chapter two, flat-out chastising him for his lack of knowledge of the solar system.² He even notices Holmes “being addicted to the use of some narcotic” just by watching him lie on the couch. If anything, Watson is guilty of not trusting his own observations – he discounts his own observation of Holmes’ addiction in the same scene.

As we enter the story, Watson has been shot in military action in Afghanistan. Notice that he explicitly mentions being shot in the shoulder (and the conversation in chapter two clarifies that it’s the left shoulder) – this will come up later in one of the most notoriously debated details in the canon. Regardless, the war injury brings up a point for people who point to Watson’s passivity in this novel as a common sign of his character: he’s recovering from a debilitating illness, one that caused him to be shipped out of action on very short notice. Watson even confesses that he becomes lazy when he’s ill, and that he has “other vices” when he’s well. (We’ll learn about those other vices in later stories.)

Another interesting thing I noticed on my rereading this is that Watson actually doesn’t like London that much, referring to it as “that great cesspool” at one point. I had it in my head that both Holmes and Watson were in love with London, but Watson is there only because of his disability, and Holmes only because it is the best place to practice his new profession. I’ll have to keep an eye on that to see if that opinion changes over the canon, or if it’s an assumption of mine. Also, Watson mentions that he keeps a “bull pup,” but that never comes up again. It might refer to his service revolver and not a dog, but either way, it only comes up this one time³

The conversation with Stamford bring up a key point that will come up over and over again in the canon – the conflict of superstition and science in Victorian England. Stamford refers to Holmes as being too “cold-blooded” for his tastes, and ties it to Holmes’ scientific mind and inclination. This point is writ large in stories like The Hound of the Baskervilles and “The Sussex Vampire,” as well as in pastiches like The Italian Secretary by Caleb Carr, but you’ll see points of it over and over again everywhere. What’s interesting is that Doyle himself became more inclined toward the Spiritualism movement as he grew older, but his stories constantly have Holmes battling (and overcoming) superstition. Watson constantly straddles this line as a doctor and as a man who has seen terrible things in his young life – he wants to believe in Holmes’ rational world, but sometimes he can’t help regressing to superstitious thoughts. That doesn’t make him an idiot; it just makes him a man in Victorian England.