Intro
One of the best-known fictional detectives of all time, Sherlock Holmes has captivated readers since the nineteenth century. In fact, he’s as popular as ever today thanks to a bunch of hit TV series (Netflix-created and otherwise) and movies focusing on the adventures of Holmes and his trusty sidekick Dr. Watson. What’s most striking from a semiotics perspective, though, is Holmes’s ability to draw out details and associations that stun the officials working on the same cases and continue to amaze Watson.
The [original] Adventures of Sherlock Holmes is a short story collection in which Holmes finds himself faced with an assortment of baffling mysteries and uses his freakily powerful deduction skillz to solve the crap outta them. In each case, a person turns up on Holmes’s doorstep having heard about said skillz and seeking help, usually in relation to someone who’s gone missing, been wrongly accused of a crime, or found themselves at the heart of some sort of bizarro situation.
Each case is chronicled by the trusty sidekick Watson, who also gives us a peek into Holmes’s character and almost savant-like skills. Most striking about many of these cases are the conjectures that Holmes is able to make from the simplest details. A famous example is the hat in “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle,” which tells Holmes basically the whole thing behind the mystery, but there are plenty of other instances.
And these deductions aren’t always vital to the case itself: in “The Boscombe Valley Mystery” Holmes can tell where the window in Watson’s bathroom is located by observing that his shaving is uneven (meaning that Watson can see one side of his face better than the other).
Want another? In “The Red-headed League,” Holmes rightly concludes that his latest visitor has done manual labor, takes snuff (a kind of tobacco powder), is a Freemason, has been in China, and has done a lot of writing recently. The usual stuff you get just from looking at someone, right?
Fancy another example? Get a load of this:
Quote
“Now, what did you gather from that woman’s appearance? Describe it.”
“Well, she had a slate-coloured, broad-brimmed straw hat, with a feather of a brickish red. Her jacket was black, with black beads sewn upon it, and a fringe of little black jet ornaments. Her dress was brown, rather darker than coffee colour, with a little purple plush at the neck and sleeves. Her gloves were greyish and were worn through at the right forefinger. Her boots I didn’t observe. She had small round, hanging gold earrings, and a general air of being fairly well-to-do in a vulgar, comfortable, easy-going way.”
Sherlock Holmes clapped his hands softly together and chuckled.
“’Pon my word, Watson, you are coming along wonderfully. You have really done very well indeed. It is true that you have missed everything of importance, but you have hit upon the method, and you have a quick eye for colour. Never trust to general impressions, my boy, but concentrate yourself upon details. My first glance is always at a woman’s sleeve. In a man it is perhaps better first to take the knee of the trouser. As you observe, this woman had plush upon her sleeves, which is a most useful material for showing traces. The double line a little above the wrist, where the typewritist presses against the table, was beautifully defined. The sewing-machine, of the hand type, leaves a similar mark, but only on the left arm, and on the side of it farthest from the thumb, instead of being right across the broadest part, as this was. I then glanced at her face, and, observing the dint of a pince-nez at either side of her nose, I ventured a remark upon short sight and typewriting, which seemed to surprise her.”
“It surprised me.”
“But, surely, it was obvious. I was then much surprised and interested on glancing down to observe that, though the boots which she was wearing were not unlike each other, they were really odd ones; the one having a slightly decorated toe-cap, and the other a plain one. One was buttoned only in the two lower buttons out of five, and the other at the first, third, and fifth. Now, when you see that a young lady, otherwise neatly dressed, has come away from home with odd boots, half-buttoned, it is no great deduction to say that she came away in a hurry.”
“And what else?” I asked, keenly interested, as I always was, by my friend’s incisive reasoning.
“I noted, in passing, that she had written a note before leaving home but after being fully dressed. You observed that her right glove was torn at the forefinger, but you did not apparently see that both glove and finger were stained with violet ink. She had written in a hurry and dipped her pen too deep. It must have been this morning, or the mark would not remain clear upon the finger. All this is amusing, though rather elementary, but I must go back to business, Watson.”
Analysis
Totes elementary, yes? Taken from “A Case of Identity,” this passage sees Holmes attempt to school Watson in his methods of deduction (elementary school—get it?). Watson gets a failing grade though, noticing that whatever has caught Holmes’s eye about the lady who’s just visited was invisible to himself. But Holmes states that it’s not a question of something being invisible, but of going unnoticed.
Holmes commends Watson for his little summary of the lady’s clothes and general appearance, since he used the sort of method that Holmes himself employs, and goes on to totally undercut that praise by adding that Watson has “missed everything of importance.” Bummer.
The thing is, it’s the details that count for Holmes: thumbnails, sleeves, bootlaces, and all that jazz. The sleeve, in particular, is the first thing that Holmes observes when assessing a female client—in this case traces of fabric and other signs indicate the regular use of a typewriter. He notes a couple face indentions that suggest the wearing of glasses and, hey presto, deduces that his latest client is both nearsighted and a typist. You’ve got to admit, this guy is good.
Oh wait, but Holmes isn’t finished yet: he also concludes that she was in a hurry that morning because of her odd, half-buttoned boots (call the fashion police), plus there’s ink on her glove and finger to indicate that she had written a note hastily. Holmes’ unmatched powers of observation enable him to add up these details to gain insight about the woman’s life and actions that very day. Holmes doesn’t boast about this, and—catchphrase alert—downplays the matter as “elementary” (or wait, is that boasting after all?).
So Holmes deciphers the deets to demonstrate that a sleeve isn’t just a sleeve, and a hat isn’t just a hat—as with anything, it’s about noticing the surface details but going beyond this to look for denotations or connotations. Okay, so we can’t all be Sherlock Holmes, but what Holmes shows is that, when it comes to signs, there’s more than meets the eye.