Chelsea Garcia

Writing 39B
Professor Haas
30 April 2014
Is Sherlocks Mind Strength or a Weakness?
Since Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes during the late Victorian Era, his
character has been seen as almost a super human, especially in terms of his amazing
genius; however , like most superheroes he also has a weakness. His mind is his greatest
asset, but also his greatest weakness. The reason Sherlock Holmes character was so
popularized at the time when Conan Doyle written novels is because Victorian Era was
full of crime and they were often never solved because the police were not well trained in
ways to find evidence other than seeing the crime in front of them. With that being said
they were at an all time high crime rate, thus a person like Holmes was a hero among the
common reader. He was the person who saved the day by solving the most unsolvable
crimes. As a result of Holmes becoming this super human being he was also given a
weakness. Since he is more intelligent he is often isolated from others and became prone
to addiction and drug use when unable to apply mind to something. Since Holmes
obtained these weaknesses literary scholars began to point out the sacrifice and
consequences of his intelligence, like, Binyon, Konnikova, Keep, and Farrell.
In the excerpt from Murder Will Out: The Detective Fiction, written by Binyon,
the focus is on the creation of Sherlock and the author Doyles who created him. The
article points out how every aspect of Holmes is well thought out and intentional. An
example of this is, It is obvious from the description of Holmes in the opening
chapters of A Study in Scarlet that Conan Doyle originally intended to make his hero
much more like Dupin--to create a pure detective who would be little more than
animated reason. (10) Holmes was originally supposed to be an ideal detective that
just has an intense approach with reason. He became more of a super hero to the
public because of his capabilities of detection and perceptions were beyond
anything that has been known at that time. Since he was so perfected in the art of
deduction, he needed to have some form of imperfection. This became the very thing
that gave him his strength, his brain. In an article Heroism, Culture, and Dread In
The Sign of the Four written by Kirby Farrell, states If sin is death, the obsessive
heroism of Holmes and Watsonthe compulsion to cure sin by exposing it
expresses the same wish for immortality(3 Farrell). This means that not only do
Holmes and Watson want to avoid their death, but the dont want to feel incomplete.
How this ties in with what Binyon stated is that Holmes is supposed to be this
character based off reason and needs a purpose. This leads to his issues of addiction
and in ability to connect with others.
As a consequence of Holmes intelligence he has a difficult time connecting to
those who are not as intelligent as him. This is because he does not understand how to
connect to someone who is inferior in thought. Holmes feels this way because people
who arent as intelligent as him cant understand the same concepts , nor can keep up
with his thoughts. His intellect helps to construct the idea that he is as a hero character
because his power is of the mind. This is because he does not just see but observes
meaning that he sees things a lot more thoroughly and can find deeper understandings
than those who are around him (2 Konnikova). And through the use of the power he is
able to stop murders and other criminals. An example of this is when he explains how
simple things are to him. It is simplicity itself, ...so absurdly simple that an explanation
is superfluous; and yet it may serve to define the limits of observation and of deduction.
(4 Doyle) Here he shows that he is a genius because ideas that we find and super
complex and difficult to understand, he finds are easy and basic. This is a common
occurrence with those who are considered geniuses. They can grasp so much information
that the simple knowledge that we know is too easy for them.
Another issue with his constant need to stimulate his brain is that he tends to have
an addiction problem. He often utilizes things like drugs, morphine or cocaine, or other
stimulates to help with his overwhelming brain (1 Doyle). This means that he need brain
stimulation. Thus, that his weakness is his need for brain stimulant, since he does it as a
form of a fix rather than the good of the people. The use of his brain is a rush that allows
him to release the tension of being too capable or allows him to be more capable. This
means he only solves crimes for his relief. It is almost as if it is a form of drug for him.
As Christopher Keep and Don Randall state in Addiction, Empire, and Narrative in
Arthur Conan Doyle's The Sign of the Four a way of fulfilling a desire that in turn
only creates further desire(219). This being that the more he allows his addiction
to occur and feed it the more of an addiction he will have. He cannot just sit around
without a cause of something making it excide. Thus, he has to do cases, or think
drastically, or find another form of stimulant. This in turn makes him almost have an
addiction to his cases. Each time he solves one he must find another just to continue
the extended use of his brain. This means his brain is also his weakness. He must use
it or he will have no use for self. An example of this is when he describes his own
mind, My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work,
give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my
own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor
the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen
my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the
world. (2 Doyle) This shows that he can never just lie still. He must stimulate it. Its
as if there is no choice for him in the matter. Thus, his own intellectual capabilities
are the force driving his need to solve and be the great mind, as he is known for.
The way that his addiction leads to his drug use is that in order to keep his
brain stimulated he intakes cocaine and morphine so that to his mind remains
focused. He likes the way that the drugs greaten his ability to think clearly and the
effect of seeing the cases even more closely then he would otherwise. The use of
drugs is like an amplifier of his already great ability. An example of this is when
Binyon describes Sherlock, He is another proud, alienated hero, superior to and
isolated from the rest of humanity; a sufferer from spleen and ennui, who alleviates
the deadly boredom of existence with injections of cocaine and morphine; an
aesthete, a music lover and amateur violinist who, during the intervals in the action,
will drag the philistine Watson to concert hall and opera house. (10) here we are
shown that Sherlock relies on the use of drugs to help him maintain the stimulation
of his brain. They also further distance him from others. Drugs are the tools that he
uses to keep himself on point, and able to function as he believes he needs to.
The way he serves as a symbol of how the people of the 1800s in the
Victorian Era relied on drugs to take care of their problem thus leading to the drug
problem of that time. The issue was that people felt that the way to fix all their
reoccurring problems was to medicate. As Keep Had stated, Just as the nation
struggles with a foreign conspiracy that has been belatedly released into its blood
stream by the events of 1857, so too Holmes is represented as dangerously
"occupied" by a drug with distinct orientalist overtones (208). They often resorted
to the use of cocaine and morphine based medications because the way they became
stimulated and thus they would feel some sort of relief. Holmes serves also as an
ionic character faced with the challenges of his society. Much like his fellow citizens he
was part of a hidden problem of self medicating; this in turn created a stronger need for a
fix. Pressing the hypodermic into his flesh, Holmes gives us our first scene of puncture,
one which serves to connect addiction to the policing of otherness that occurs through the
science of deduction (209). Here Holmes is self medicating for his skils of
deduction. Sherlock also medicates himself to avoid boredom and to gain a much
clearer head when approaching his cases of things in which he is trying to find
answers, just as many other medicating themselves for invalid reason. As a result of
this he is doing the very same actions as many of the people of the Victorian Era
medicating in order to feel better but not really addressing the key issue.
Sherlock is a great literary mind who has a super human ability to process
and understand information in such depth that he can resolve even the most
difficult of cases. This makes him almost a super hero, however every superhero has
a weakness. His is the same that gives him his un-human like quality, his own brain.
This is since he needs stimulation he can never allow it to rest and must always
stimulate it. Through the various literary texts the reader is shown how this is the
case and why it is. He is not only a mirror to his society, but a victim of the culture
set by it. He fell into the system of self medicating as many others had. However,
how his reasoning differed is because it was for science. His intelligence is both his
greatest asset and weakness. Its leads to both his addiction and isolation.



















Work Cited:
Binyon, T.J. "Murder Will Out": The Detective in Fiction. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1989. 9-12. Print.
Doyle, Arthur Conan, and Christopher Roden. The sign of the four. Oxford
[England: Oxford University Press, 1994. Print.
Farrell, Kirby. Heroism, Culture, and Dread In The Sign Of The Four.
Texas: Studies in the Novel. 1984. Print.
Keep, Christopher and Don Randall. Addiction, Empire, and Narrative in
Arthur ConanDoyles Sign of the Four. North Carolina: Duke University Press,
1999. Print.
Konnikova, Maria. Mastermind: how to think like Sherlock Holmes. New
York: Viking, 2013. Print.