Liz Lu

Writing 39 B
Professor Haas
29
th
April 2014
John Watson, a Character Designed to be Less Intelligent
When we think about the great name Sherlock Holmes, nine times out of ten the next
name appears in our mind will be John Watson. These two names had been matched as a set of
collocation for a hundred year since the A Study in Scarlet first came out. But what factors
make Dr. Watson so important and unforgettable in a series of detective stories that basically
focus on his roommates career of fighting crimes? The answer is clear through the series: Conan
Doyle was intended to design John Watson as a relatively ignorant company of Sherlock (Who
does not seem to be foolish when sticks around Sherlock Holmes?) because as an ordinary
person working with Sherlock, he arouses the audiences interest toward Holmes and encourages
them to adopt his habit of mind as well. However, Watsons ignorance gives Conan Doyle the
opportunity to hide evidence that only observed by Holmes, and makes the stories more
absorbing by combining both serious and non-serious elements.
As a working class gentleman, John Watson originally presents the majority of audience
of Sherlock Holmes in the Victorian era Britain. In the late 19 Century, more and more middle
classes are affordable to read because of the Industry Revolution. However the urbanization
made London a breeding ground for crimes. Serial killers like Jack the Ripper caught publics
attention and created a large-scale panic. People started to be interested in detectives story than
ever. This phenomeno observed by scholar Leroy Panek. In his book An Introduction to the
Detective Story he said that before Conan Doyle the crime fiction often concentrated on rich
peoples lives. Being different from the old standard, Conan Doyle started to work with problems
from middle-classes. Therefore general public found themselves easily form empathy on John
Watson who represents the Victorian era audiences. However, the deeper reason that makes
Watson appeal to the readers universally even beyond the certain era, lies on Watsons generic
pattern of thinking. Most of audiences who read Sherlock Holmes are ordinary people, who
admire Sherlocks talent and look forward to solve puzzles with him. This desire of participation
makes every reader a Watson. It is how Conan Doyle invited his audience to form a bond with
Holmes and the series. In the book Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, Maria
Konnikova introduces two systems of thinking. One is fast, intuitive and passive like Watsons.
Another is slower, deliberative, more thoughtful and more logical like Sherlocks. As ordinary
people, we all capable of the second style of thinking, but because it is more cognitive costly and
more time-consuming we barely turn on the cool Sherlock mode to perceive things happening
around us. Therefore instead of a fool Watson is just a normal person like everyone else and the
eccentric person is actually Holmes. Confirmed by Leroy Panek, Holmes is an expert without
working at it and is able to snap out of lassitude into action also contributes to our estimation of
his genius.(93) However, it is how Conan Doyle keeps Holmes mysterious and evokes Watson
and the all the readers curious about him. Therefore people are so engaged to put themselves in
Watsons shoes to [observe] Holmes in action, [and] become better at observing [their] own
minds(20) as Konnikova said.
When reading Sherlocks stories we always hope that we could go beyond Watsons
analysis and see things that Sherlock had seen. However, Leroy Panek claims most of the
stories show not that Holmes reasons better, but that he observes better than anyone else.
Konnikova agrees with this point. She said what Sherlock persuades John to do through the
entire series is replacing mindlessness with mindfulness when making observations. She
also added that we are just like Watson, we may not even realize weve seen something that was
right before our eyes.(4) Therefore, as readers we unconsciously related us with Watson and
looking forward to improve our thinking habits while working on cases with Holmes. Konnikova
believe that we all have the ability to improve ourselves to think like Holmes, she encourages the
readers Holmes may be fictional, but Joseph Bell (the archetype of Sherlock Holmes) was very
real. So, too, was Conan Doyle. In the short story Scandal in Bohemia Watson confesses that
when he hear Holmes give out reasons, the thing always appears to [him] to be so ridiculously
simple that [he] could easily do it [himself]. And Holmes simply replies You see, but you do
not observe. The distinction is clear.
More than an audience of Sherlock Holmes adventure, John Watson is also important as
a narrator of the whole story. T.J. Binyon indicated the fact in his article Murder Will Out that
the weakest three series of Sherlock Holmes are stories that not narrated by Watson from a
second person perspective. Presenting a detective story through a non-detective eyes, is the
secret that how Conan Doyle make the Sherlock Holmes series stands out from the others. In her
book Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, Konnikova claimed that Conan Doyle
was intend to set Sherlock Holmes as a spokesperson for revolution of science. It is this
characteristic that makes Holmes criticizes everything through a scientific measurement. He
again and again, wants [Watsons] narratives to be didactic, stressing the intellectual
side.(Panek 86) However, no one would expect to read a lengthy description of 243 kinds of
cigarette ash in a detective novel. The series would not be so popular over one hundred and forty
years if Holmes were the primary narrator. Therefore, the cleverness of Doyle is that he makes
Watson decline to do what Sherlock has requests because he know the detective story can profit
from a combination of non-serious, comic, and playful with the serious, tragic, and human
implications of crime.(Panek, 94) It is the combination of Watsons entertaining spirit and
Holmes scientific attitude that makes the Sherlock Holmes series succeed. In the novel the Sign
of Four, this topic is addressed in chapter one, where Holmes and Watson debate on Watsons
narrative of the case A Study in Scarlet. Holmes said " I cannot congratulate you upon it.
Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and
unemotional manner. You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the
same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of
Euclid."(Doyle 159)
Suggested by Scholar George N. Dove, the structure of Sherlock Holmes detective
stories is that they constructed as mind exercises, inviting the readers to join the reasoning
process. However, the cleverness of Conan Doyle is that while encourage the audiences to solve
the problems, he only providing a fleshless version of the evidence, by letting Watson to narrate
the stories. Compared with Holmess skepticism and inquisitiveness toward the
world( Konnikova 17), Watson, who adopts the automatic and intuitive rout of thinking, is
prone to take things at their face value. However, the blanks of evidence that left by Watson are
actually structured gaps, which will ultimately support the development of detective stories.
Confirmed by Ronald Knox in his Article 10 Commandments of Detective Fiction, a stupid
friend of the great detective is an indispensible element for a successful detective story. It is
because Watson never conceals any thoughts that come into his mind that the readers are
exposed to his every trivial thought and are easily misled by them. The Scholar Leroy Panek
agrees with Ronald Knoxs confirmation of Watson. He said that the reason why Watsons
fragmentary pieces of the evidence are firm enough to hold the stories, is that Conan Doyle was
actually inviting readers to make the wrong guesses heightened the surprise at the end of the
story. (94) When the stories come to the end, Holmes would always surprised the audience by
the accurate inference process, like a magician explaining his magic tricks after a puzzling show.
We can see this from the chapter six of the novel when Watson some prints of a naked foot with
half the size of an ordinary mans. He immediately claims "a child has done the horrid thing."
(838) Since Holmes does not say any thing at this point to confute Watsons inference, audiences
automatically conform with the erroneous deduction. Therefore, when Holmes reveals the truth
at two chapters later, readers will be inevitably surprised.
































Work Cited

Panek, Leroy. An Introduction to the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1987. Print.
Conan Doyle, Arthur. The Sign of the Four. Seattle: Amazon Digital Services, 2013. Kindle
eBook. Online.
Konnikova, Maria. Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. New York: Viking, 2013.
Print.
Binyon, T.J. "Murder Will Out": The Detective in Fiction. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1989. Print.
Dove, George N. The Reader and the Detective Story. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State
University Popular Press, 1997. Print.
Knox, Ronald 10 Commandments of detective fiction Gotham Writers
http://www.writingclasses.com/InformationPages/index.php/PageID/303