Femininity in Sherlock Holmes Tales

Femininity in Sherlock Holmes Tales

Arthur Conan Doyle's two stories Scandal in Bohemia and the Adventure of the Yellow Face are very interesting in their treatment of the female protagonists, as they reflect the condition and the image of the woman at the end of the nineteenth century. First of all, the writings of Conan Doyle are especially of interest for the feminist critique because of their famous central character, the crime detective Sherlock Holmes. Holmes impersonates the almost flawless, masculine type of reason, to which all emotions are "abhorrent"(Holmes 2002, p.70). During the Victorian Age, the patriarchal view of women was at its highest: the women were either seen as angelic and fragile creatures, dominated by their impulses and emotions, or as villains. As their perfect contraries, men were the reasoning geniuses, the intellectuals who rarely indulged in any type of foolish emotions. This is precisely the view that Holmes has of Irene Adler in Scandal in Bohemia. The story is all the more interesting for feminist critique as it recounts of one of the 'failures' of Sherlock Holmes' reasoning power: he is outwitted and moreover, he is out witted by a woman. The plot of the story revolves, as many of the stories of Doyle do, around a compromising object: a photograph of Irene and the king of Bohemia, and Irene's threat that she would reveal the photograph, and therefore reveal their secret adventure as well, precisely on the day of the king's wedding ceremony. Holmes is of course employed by the king to find the letter. Helped by Watson, the detective tries to trick Irene into showing him herself the place where the photograph was hidden, but she discovers the trap and runs off with her new husband, leaving another photograph, of herself alone, behind. The opinion that Holmes has of Irene after she manages to trick him is very telling for our understanding of the patriarchal view of the woman: she is seen as the woman, as Holmes repeatedly emphasizes, that is an exceptional creature for her sex, much above the other women: "To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex."(Holmes 2002, p. 70)

As the king of Bohemia posits, Irene is seen by the male characters as some sort of hermaphrodite being, whose beautiful body seems incongruent with her sharp wit: "She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men."(Doyle, 2002 p. 76) it must be noted therefore, that the seeming praise that the story brings to women is not actually favoring. The superiority of Irene is acknowledged by comparing her to a man; as Jeanne Cortiel notices, she is not actually the perfect woman, since what is most praised in her is her male-like reasoning: "The woman is thus both the perfect woman and not a woman at all. Miss Irene Adler's mind does not conform to her body-yet she can become a positive protagonist precisely because of her body."(Cortiel 1999 p.110)

Therefore, it is plain that the Victorian society saw woman as the opposite of reason and intellect. The 'sample' that Holmes gives us of the way in which he thinks women always act is very suggestive:

When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most. It is a perfectly overpowering impulse, and I have more than once taken advantage of it... A married woman grabs at her baby; an unmarried one reaches for her jewel-box. (Doyle 2002 p.78)

Irene's reaction to the false alarm of fire seems to uphold Holmes view, but eventually she tricks him when she realizes her own mistake and discovers his disguise. As she emphasizes in her note to Holmes, she is used to male disguise, as an actress: "Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives." Irene's remark is very important: she has learned to play men roles, and is apt to beat them with their own weapons, just as Holmes tried to do with her. Also, the way in which she actually uses the photograph, as a protection for her own marriage proves her strength of character, and, most of all, her ability to dissimulate and to reach her goals, that is an almost detective ability, which pairs that of Holmes.