'I
cannot live without brain-work. What else is there to live for?' –
Sherlock Holmes, The Sign of Four.
In Sir
Arthur Conan Doyle’s canon of Sherlock Holmes, it is clear that the
creation and continual substantiation of the consulting detective is
not solely derived from his own character, but through the mirroring
of other, specifically male, characters. When applying Jacques
Lacan’s mirror stage to a reading of Sherlock Holmes, it is evident
that there is an indexical relation to Lacan’s theory and the
interactions between Sherlock Holmes, and the three most prominent
characters, Doctor John Watson, Mycroft Holmes, and Professor
Moriarty. This mirroring is appropriate in conveying a Gothic
sensibility to the stories as Sherlock Holmes himself embodies a
Gothic spectacle.
In her article, ‘The Savage Genius of Sherlock Holmes’, Anna
Neill discusses several points in which the Sherlock Holmes diegesis
invokes several Gothic elements.
The narrative mode is said to contain “realism
of detective fiction…encounters and overcomes that fiction’s own
attraction to the Gothic: to the horrific, the concealed, and the
(often) apparently supernatural”. Neill then cites Nils Clausson
who surmises that by its very nature, a Gothic tale must destabilize
the scientific analysis of criminal science. Therefore, the character
of Sherlock Holmes seems to represent a level of cognitive
dissonance- he possesses a ‘divinatory gift’ which makes him a
‘logical genius’.
It is this juxtaposition, or as Neill refers to
it, “mongrelizing” which provides an insight into the Gothic
characterization of Sherlock Holmes. The detective contains many
traits that could validly classify him as a common archetype of
Gothic fiction, a Byronic hero (being arrogant, distasteful of
society, intelligent and disrespectful of authority) but his ability
for observation and deduction, as C. Auguste Dupin called it
‘ratiocination’, is so great that it is verging on supernatural,
making Holmes a Gothic spectacle as well. In one display of Holmes
deducing facts from Doctor Watson’s married life in A Case of
Identity, Watson even says “you
would certainly have been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago”.
Holmes’ overlap between Byronic hero and Gothic
spectacle is important as during the course of the canon, he meets
characters who he finds can act as a mirror to himself. In the 1996
essay “The
mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in
psychoanalytic experience”, Jacques Lacan investigates the
psychological phenomenon that takes place between infants and their
reflections.
Lacan interprets a human infant recognizing its image (imago)
to be the moment of apperception, when the infant can recognize
itself as a physical object (gestalt).
This self-identification however is flawed as the infant believes
that their reflection is greater than their own physical body as
their own physical body does not have a great degree of self-control
and is physically vulnerable. The imago therefore becomes something
for the infant to strive for, the Ideal-I.
One instance
in which Lacan’s mirror theory could be applied is in the
relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. In A Study in
Scarlet, Watson finds himself drawn to London as he has ‘neither
kith nor kin’ and is discovered by Stamford, who appears to be his
only friend. Stamford introduces Watson to Holmes who, for the
duration of the novel, also seems to remain without kith or kin.
As Holmes and
Watson were brought together as they both had the same problem (they
needed a flatmate to continue living in the city), it is obvious that
Holmes, to some degree, acts as a reflection for Watson’s own
personal affairs. The scene in which Holmes and Watson meet show that
they mirror each other in their tastes; both enjoying the smell of
strong tobacco, the sound of a good violinist and being awake at
“ungodly hours”. In this sense, Holmes is the imago
to Watson. Watson realizes his measure as a gestalt
by being Holmes’ ‘Boswell’, as evidenced in The Hounds of the
Baskervilles where Watson is even able to competently investigate in
Holmes’ steed.
However,
Watson is also shown to see Holmes as his Ideal-I
in the detective profession which Watson so often admires. In the
short text ‘How Watson Learned the Trick’, Watson attempts to
demonstrate how he mastered Holmes’ and claims that Holmes has an
important client named Barlow that he will visit, is speculating in
finance and was greatly preoccupied in the morning. Holmes disproves
all of Watson’s deductions, showing that Holmes is still an
idealized version that Watson must strive for (indeed, Holmes even
encourages Watson to pursue the ‘trick’). However, by the time of
the last chronological story in the canon, ‘His Last Bow’ Watson
still does not seem to have matched Holmes in this particular field.
This may underline the relationship between the human infant and the
Ideal-I;
the infant can never attain the state of being as his reflection.
In the story ‘The Greek Interpreter’, there is a sequence in
which Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson head to the Diogenes Club to
visit Sherlock’s older brother Mycroft Holmes. In what is Watson’s
original encounter with both of the brothers together, Sherlock and
Mycroft take turns standing at a window and deducing that a man is an
old soldier, who served in India, was widowed recently. Mycroft wins
the game by deducing that the soldier had children, and not a single
child as Sherlock thought.
In the scene, Mycroft acts as a Lacanian mirror for Sherlock in a
number of ways. Watson’s opening narration of the tale denotes that
he believed Sherlock to be an ‘isolated phenomenon’, a term that
could be applied to mean the singular, as an infant would believe
itself to be. As Sherlock positions himself beside his brother, he
looks into his imago as Mycroft, quite uniquely, has
Sherlock’s seemingly-supernatural powers of deduction. Mycroft has
“eyes,
which were of a peculiarly light, watery grey, seemed to always
retain that far-away, introspective look which I had only observed in
Sherlock's when he was exerting his full powers” which helps to
serve as a physical echo of Sherlock’s image. Mycroft
then engages with Sherlock as a gestalt, as a reflection of
his skills as a detective.
Mycroft functions as the Ideal-I in two ways to Sherlock. The
first is that he is an idealized version of Sherlock in his more
astute reasoning skills. The second is that Mycroft very rarely
strays from the path from his home, to the government bureau in which
he works and the Diogenes Club,
and so remains more or less invincible from physical danger.
Sherlock, on the other hand, remains versed in singlestick, boxing
and fencing
and yet still in The Adventure of the Illustrious Client, Sherlock is
incapacitated after being injured by thugs.
Finally, there is a distinct corruption in the Lacanian mirror
relation between Sherlock Holmes, and his nemesis Professor
Moriarty.
In the deceptively titled story “The Final Problem”, there is a
scene which Holmes describes to Watson in which Moriarty visits 221B
Baker Street. When Moriarty sees Holmes, it is clear that Moriarty
finds Holmes to be an imago intellectually when the two exchange the
following dialogue:
Moriarty: Everything I have to say has already crossed your mind.
Holmes: then possibly my answer has crossed yours.
Here,
the duplicity is obvious. However, Moriarty’s intentions were to
try and peacefully negotiate with Holmes to cease his investigations.
Moriarty grows his gestalt when he declares war on Holmes, “You
hope to beat me. I tell you that you will never beat me.” Moriarty
defines himself in opposition of Holmes, thus he grows into a
tangible character.
Moriarty also
views Holmes as an Ideal-I,
but unlike how Watson views Holmes, Moriarty seems to be undone by
this vision. Indeed, when in confrontation with his Ideal-I,
Moriarty dies in the process while Holmes survives.
However, it
could be argued that Sherlock Holmes cannot act as a Lacanian mirror
for more than male spectacle. Irene Adler, or ‘The Woman’, from
the story ‘A Scandel in Bohemia’ is known to be the most famous
of Holmes’ adversaries besides Moriarty, but her meetings with
Holmes are always through written correspondence or while Holmes is
in disguise. As she has the honour of being the first chronological
person, and only female, to outsmart Holmes, it is clear that she is
just as mentally adept as Holmes. In the only sequence in which
Watson is present for both Holmes and Adler, Adler simply says ‘good
night, Mr. Holmes’ while in disguise. As she ‘eclipses the whole
of her species’ it remains apparent that no female can be Holmes’
mirror.
Holmes
embodies a Gothic spectacle which permeates in his Lacanian doubles,
Watson, Mycroft, and Moriarty. This can result in the insight of each
character, which has created an approach to the canon which, while
improbable, is not impossible.
