Two Blind Mice: Sight, Insight, and Narrative Authority in Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Authors

  • Jayme E Collins University of Victoria

Abstract

In this essay, I explore Doyle's narrative techniques, arguing that he focalizes the plot through three distinct narrative perspectives--Watson, Holmes' client, and Holmes himself--to embody three different modes of seeing.  I argue that Holmes gains narrative authority through his omniscience, and, as he is the only character who is truly able to 'see,' he is the only one with the power to enact and propel the narrative.

References

Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. 1993. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.

Felman, Shoshana. “Education and Crisis, or the Vicissitudes of Teaching.” Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. Ed Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub. New York: Routledge, 1992. 1-56. Print.

Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Trans. Robert Hurley. 1972. New York: Vintage—Random House, 1990. Print.

Krasner, James. “Watson Falls Asleep: Narrative Frustration and Sherlock Holmes.” English Literature in Transition, 1880-1920 40.4 (1997): 424-436. Web. November 27 2012.

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Published

2013-09-20

Issue

Vol. 3 (2013)

Section

Articles

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