Lacan and Sherlock Holmes: Understanding the Savage

'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 elements¹. 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 reflections². 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 Club³, and so remains more or less invincible from physical danger. Sherlock, on the other hand, remains versed in singlestick, boxing and fencing⁴ 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 Moriarty⁵. 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 survives⁶.

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.

1 Neill, Anna. ‘The Savage Genius of Sherlock Holmes’. Victorian Literature and Culture. Cambridge University Press. 2009. pp 611-622. Print.

2 Lacan, Jacques. “The mirror stage as formative of the function of the I as revealed in psychoanalytic experience”. Ecrits: A Selection. W. W. Norton & Company. 1966. pp. 29-34. Print.

3 More or less a direct quote from Guy Ritchie’s 2012 film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.

4 Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. “A Study in Scarlet”. London. Ward Lock & Co. 1887. pp. 24. Print.

5 I have here refrained from giving the Professor the given name James as there is substantial dispute over whether James is his name, or his brother’s name. There is a humourous sketch in which all three Moriarty brothers are called James.

6 Poignantly punctuated in the 2012 Sherlock episode ‘The Reichenbach Fall’, an adaptation of The Final Problem. Moriarty, when in confrontation with Sherlock says ‘you’re me!’ and shoots himself directly after.