The Addicted Detective

G Luciana University Dunarea de Jos Faculty of Letters Romanian- English Second Year

16. 05. 2012 17. 05. 2012

Galati
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to adopt almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve difficult cases.Holmes, who first appeared in publication in 1887, was featured in four novels and 56 short stories. The first novel, A Study in Scarlet, appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual in 1887 and the second, The Sign of the Four, in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in 1890. The character grew tremendously in popularity with the first series of short stories in Strand Magazine, beginning with A Scandal in Bohemia in 1891; further series of short stories and two novels published in serial form appeared between then and 1927. The stories cover a period from around 1880 up to 1914. All but four stories are narrated by Holmes's friend and biographer, Dr. John H. Watson; two are narrated by Holmes himself ("The Blanched Soldier" and "The Lion's Mane") and two others are written in the third person ("The Mazarin Stone" and "His Last Bow"). In two stories ("The Musgrave Ritual" and "The Gloria Scott"), Holmes tells Watson the main story from his memories, while Watson becomes the narrator of the frame story. The first and fourth novels, A Study in Scarlet and The Valley of Fear, each include a long interval ofomniscient narration recounting events unknown to either Holmes or Watson. ( en.wikipedia.org) The genre of The Adeventures of Sherlock Holmesis mistery. The focus of each story is on solving a central problem, and that means there's suspense. The tone used is imagistic and suspenful. Conan Doyle trys to make the reader to pay attention to what is happening through passeges of dens imagery: The equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had
screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life and to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of civilization.( www.pagebypagebooks.com)

The tone of Watson's narration is also suspenseful. Suspense grows out of the awareness that we, the readers, know less about something than certain characters in a story do. And

we're always going to know less than the great Sherlock Holmes. As a first person narrator, Watson helpfully draws attention to what we don't know by regularly pointing out what he doesn't know: "It was obvious to me that my companion's mind was now
made up about the case, although what his conclusions were was more than I could even dimly imagine" (www.pagebypagebooks.com). Or "What a tissue of mysteries and improbabilities the whole thing was!" (www.pagebypagebooks.com). Every

time Watson exclaims over how little he understands, he emphasizes the huge gap between our knowledge and Holmes's something that only increases our need to know how it's all going to come together in the end.Watson, the narrator, is the main charachter in these stories. Watson is telling his own story but only as that story relates to Mr. Sherlock Holmes. We never hear more than a paragraph or two of Watson's experiences when Holmes isn't around. It is a bit challenging to speek about Holmes character in The Adeventures of Sherlock Holmes ,even the author, Conan Doyle, said that everyone knows who is Sherlock Holmes, the Great Detective.At the begining of A scandal in Bohemia, Watson makes a quick intro to Holmes: Holmes, who loathed every form of
society with his whole Bohemian soul, remained in our lodgings in Baker Street, buried among his old books, and alternating from week to week between cocaine and ambition, the drowsiness of the drug and the fierce energy of his own keen nature. [Holmes] was still, as ever, deeply attracted by the study of crime, and occupied his immense faculties and extraordinary powers of observation in following out those clues and clearing up those mysteries which had been abandoned as hopeless by the official police . (www.pagebypagebooks.com).

From this little paragraph we descover a lot of things about the Great Detective.First of all we found that Holmes is not fond of other people,then that he is ridiculously smart, also we discover that he is the king of a drug addict,it is working unofficialy to fight crime. Watsons narrations describe Holmes as a very complex and moody character who, although of strict habit, is considerably untidy. His London abode at 221B, Baker Street, is tended by his housekeeper, Mrs. Hudson. Holmes appears to undergo bouts of mania and depression, the latter of which are accompanied by pipe smoking, violin playing, and cocaine use. Nevertheless, Holmes's friendship with Watson is his most significant relationship. In several stories, Holmes's fondness for Watsonoften hidden beneath his cold, intellectual exterioris revealed. For instance, in "The Adventure of the Three Garridebs", Watson is wounded in a confrontation with a villain;

although the bullet wound proves to be "quite superficial", Watson is moved by Holmes's reaction: It was worth a wound; it was worth
many wounds; to know the depth of loyalty and love which lay behind that cold mask. The clear, hard eyes were dimmed for a moment, and the firm lips were shaking. For the one and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain. All my years of humble but single-minded service culminated in that moment of revelation.

(www.pagebypagebooks.com).

In all, Holmes is described as being in active practice for 23 years, with Watson documenting his cases for 17 of them . Watson describes Holmes as "bohemian" in habits and lifestyle. According to Watson, Holmes is an eccentric, with no regard for contemporary standards of tidiness or good order.What appears to others as chaos, however, is to Holmes a wealth of useful information. Throughout the stories, Holmes would dive into his apparent mess of random papers and artefacts, only to retrieve precisely the specific document or eclectic item he was looking for. His chronicler does not consider Holmes's habitual use of a pipe, or his less frequent use of cigarettes and cigars, a vice. Nor does Watson condemn Holmes's willingness to bend the truth or break the law on behalf of a client (e.g., lying to the police, concealing evidence or breaking into houses) when he feels it morally justifiable. Holmes is pleased when he is recognised for having superior skills and responds to flattery, as Watson remarks, as a girl does to comments upon her beauty. Holmes is a loner and does not strive to make friends, although he values those that he has, and none higher than Watson. Holmes's emotional state and mental health have been a topic of analysis for decades. At their first meeting in A Study in Scarlet, the detective warns Watson that he gets " in the dumps at times" and doesn't open his "mouth for days on end". Many readers and literary experts have suggested Holmes showed signs of manic depression, with moments of intense enthusiasm coupled with instances of indolent self absorption. Other modern readers have speculated that Holmes may have Asperger's syndrome based on his intense attention to details, lack of interest in interpersonal relationships and tendency to speak in long monologues. The detective's isolation and neargynophobic distrust of women is said to suggest the desire to escape; Holmes "biographer" William Baring-Gould and others, including Nicholas Meyer, author of the Seven Percent Solution, have implied a severe family trauma (i.e., the murder of Holmes's mother) may be the root cause.( en.wikipedia.org)

Holmes uses occasionally addictive drugs, especially when lacking stimulating cases. He is a habitual user of cocaine because he belives that the drugs stimulates his brain when it is not in use.Holmes injects the cocaine in his body with a syringe that he keeps in leather case and occasionally he takes also morphine.And if that wasnt enough, both Holmes and Watson are serial tobbacco users, including cigarettes, cigars and pipes. Dr. Watson strongly disapproves of his friend's cocaine habit, describing it as the detective's "only vice" and expressing concern over its possible effect on Holmes's mental health and superior intellect. In later stories, Watson claims to have " weaned" Holmes off drugs. Even so, according to his doctor friend, Holmes remains an addict whose habit is " not dead, but merely sleeping". This last suggests that Conan Doyle himself suspected both that addiction is a chronic disease--and years before it was first so described, and that neither alcoholics (as opposed to alcohol abusers) nor drug addicts can ever truly be declared " fully and/or
permanently cured."

At the time (1887 1927), cocaine and morphine were perfectly legal to use for recreational purposes. In the first of Sir Conan Doyles Holmes mysteries, A Study in Scarlet, Holmes everfaithful sidekick Dr. Watson narrates: . . . for days on end he would lie upon the
sofa in the sitting-room, hardly uttering a word or moving a muscle from morning to night. On these occasions I have noticed such a dreamy, vacant expression in his eyes, that I might have suspected him of being addicted to the use of some narcotic, had not the temperance and cleanliness of his

(www.pagebypagebooks.com) The later work, The Sign of Four, starts with this disturbing opener: Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece and his hypodermic
whole life forbidden such a notion. syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined arm-chair with

(www.pagebypagebooks.com) and continues, a little later with the concrete truth: It is cocaine, he said, a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?(www.pagebypagebooks.com)
a long sigh of satisfaction.

I will conclude saying that Sherlock Holmes is very clever and observent.He is a loner, and he is never interested in women (the only one he was slightly interested in was Irene Adler). But he is also very brave and is willing to "rough it" in order to get a job done. He doesn't really sympathize with his clients. If he

ever makes a mistake or loses a client, he berates himself greatly. He's very conceited and vain, but he still admits that his older brother, Mycroft Holmes, is more observant than he, though he himself is more energetic.

LIST OF REFERENCE http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/269523/Sherlock-Holmes http://www.pagebypagebooks.com/Arthur_Conan_Doyle/The_Adventures_of_Sherlock_H

olmes/

http://www.shmoop.com/sherlock-holmes/three-act-play.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes