Week 4 Discussion Forum

When talking about something related to Sherlock Holmes, the very first character
comes out will be Dr. Watson. Watson is incidental of Holmes. Like the grass
decorates the flower, or the cloud embellishes the blue sky, it is not possible to
understand Holmes without Watsons narration. Through Watsons words, detailed
and vivid stories in Victorian era show up one after another.

It is Watson who becomes Holmes partner. In other words, no one can be except
for him. Watson used to be a military surgeon, who is strong-willed and can work
under harsh conditions. He is slightly lame, but in The Sign of Four, he can trudge
with Holmes for over six miles at midnight(Doyle 47). He lost his bearing in the
carriage, but always follows the Holmes no matter where he goes(Doyle 15).
Watson is in the middle class, which just what Holmes need. An unequal social-
class person would either becomes Holmes servant or becomes Holmes employer,
and it is not possible for a worker or a crown prince to become his partner. Watson
is a doctor. This profession keeps a delicate balance between his action and Holmes
work: He can use the professional knowledge and help Holmes a lot when solving
the cases. But he can never in charge of Holmes decision. If Watson is a police
inspector like Mr. Athelney Jones, he will ruin not only the cases but also the
whole story. In this condition, Watson is like the chosen one. And no one can do a
better job than he can.

Watson was born and raised in the Victorian era. And that leads to the Victorians
thought engraved in his mind. Every simple thought or attitude from Watson
represents the general middle-class idea at that time. In Watsons mind, Holmes is a
perfect gentleman: he qualifies every terms a gentleman need to satisfy. Sherlock
Holmes is polite, humorous, extremely smart, has work to support himself, dresses
properly, and shows respect to women. Watson himself is also a kind gentleman.
Holmes is the heroic character at that time, and that was expressed in Watsons
admiration: "Not at all, I answered, earnestly. It is of the greatest interest to me,
especially since I have had the opportunity of observing your practical application
of it(Doyle 4). Holmes is just the model of a gentleman. And Watson follows
Holmes step, tried his best to pursue Holmes, as always.
Week 5 Discussion Forum
When the same story is expressed in different forms, the story may have distinct
internal. In Doyles novel The Final Problem, Watson hears a series of adventurous
stories from Holmes mouth, that how Holmes escaped several assaults from
Professor Moriarty, from saving himself from a horse van to fighting with a rough
with a bludgeon. The stories are all vivid, and readers can directly imagine the
scene in their mind. When the similar scene is depicted in the episode, The Great
Game, the director chose to build a more detailed Sherlock Holmes: Holmes
solves the puzzles set by Moriarty and saves a terrified womans life in the field. In
the episode, Holmes does everything and solves every case in front of audiences.
This difference between the novel and episode mostly related to the differently
expressed forms. Restricted by the first person narrative, Doyles novel can hardly
describe anything unrelated to the narrator, Watson. It is a kind of ironic that the
novels are called Sherlock Holmes series: Holmes has to work with Watson to
show his intelligence, chat with Watson to express his identity, and live with
Watson to reveal his character. In the novel, Homles does not exist if there is no
Watson, and he is incompetent if his work is not seen by Watson or heard by
Watson. However, in Sherlock, Holmes can finally be shown as an independent
identity. Because of the freer forms of expression, Holmes character is more
detailed and authentic now. From Holmes facial expression and behavior, the
audience would likely accept that Sherlock Holmes is a real person, but not a
fictional character.
At the end of The Final Problem, Holmes left a letter to Watson, telling him how
he fights the villain Moriarty and what he did at the end of his life, leaving Watson
and us infinite imagination the fought on the cliff near the waterfall. It in deed is a
great ending of the story, but some of us may still want to recover the truth. Also,
the atmosphere in the story is somewhat flat, because the story is a letter written by
Watson, where he has to hide his griefs toward Holmes. In my opinion, these flaws
are a disadvantage of the forms of the novel. It is hard to express a spectacular
scene in written form. On the contrary, in the end scene of The Great Game, it is
much easier to show the confrontation between Holmes and Moriarty in front of
the audience. The difference in expression forms determines the distinct focus in
two creations, and also makes the reason of the uniqueness of the great works with
the same theme.