A Scandal in Bohemia

“A Scandal in Bohemia” depicts one of Holmes’s few failures as an amateur sleuth. The story shows Holmes outwitted by his female adversary Irene Adler and unable to complete his mission—retrieve a photograph for the King of Bohemia. Watson begins the short story with a description of Adler and how Holmes deeply admires her. In fact, Holmes regards her as the only woman of note: “And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the woman” (75). Watson’s description of Adler serves to highlight the dynamic relationship between Holmes and Adler as well as to foreshadow the role Adler will play in besting Holmes. Adler is a beautiful, intelligent, and artful woman. She is so extraordinary that the King of Bohemia imparts that she would be a formidable queen, if only she were of higher social status. Adler’s consistent ability to outwit men, and Holmes in particular, develops the theme of The Subversion of Victorian England Gender Stereotypes. Clever Adler, like Holmes, uses disguise to transverse social and class spheres. False identity and disguise is a key motif that also supports the theme of Dismantling 19th-Century Social Norms, a practice that both Holmes and his “adventuress” adversary partake in.

Doyle uses Watson, the first-person narrator, to directly characterize Holmes. Watson introduces the case by customarily emphasizing Holmes’s supreme analytical abilities. Further, he compares Holmes to a microscope: Holmes is an “observing machine” and his mind a “sensitive instrument” (61). Watson regards Holmes as almost superhuman and is in awe of Holmes’s genius talent for inductive and deductive reasoning. However, Watson is well aware of and observes Holmes’s less favorable personality traits as well. He describes Holmes as unencumbered by human emotion and shares that Holmes relies on “cocaine and ambition” (61) to fuel his workdays. Watson emphasizes that Holmes abhors emotions, drawing readers to examine the dichotomy between logic and emotion. What makes Adler an adversary worthy of admiration is her ability to affect Holmes on an emotional level. In addition to the honorary title of “the woman” that Holmes bestows upon her, he keeps her photograph as a remembrance of her uniquely profound influence on him. The photographs of Adler symbolize her power. She uses the first photograph to threaten and potentially punish and the second photograph as a reward. In both cases, she wields control through images of her likeness. The second photograph serves as a reminder to the King of their dalliance but more importantly as a reward for Holmes.

In “A Scandal in Bohemia,” there are two main conflicts: Sherlock Holmes versus Irene Adler and Holmes versus time. The King of Bohemia introduces both conflicts. He states that his upcoming marriage to the Princess of Scandinavia will be publicly announced in three days, which is when Adler threatens to release the photograph. The time constraint imposed upon Holmes’s case serves to build tension toward the story’s climax as well as to propel the narrative forward. The rising action of the story entails Holmes’s investigation and one of his favorite sleuthing strategies: disguise. Holmes employs two disguises to spy on Adler and locate where she keeps the photograph. He quite convincingly pretends to be a working-class stable worker and a Nonconformist clergyman. Both personas allow Holmes to traverse social spheres without detection. The former allows him to gather information from the men who work at Briony Lodge, while the latter affords him access to Adler’s quarters. The selection of these two drastically different personas demonstrates Holmes’s versatility and his wherewithal of the social norms and roles within London. In having a firm understanding of society’s boundaries, Holmes is able to manipulate social divisions. Adler also exhibits this understanding and is able to traverse not only class but gender spheres. However, Holmes underestimates Adler’s capabilities. Holmes confidently explains to Watson, “When a woman thinks that her house is on fire, her instinct is at once to rush to the thing which she values most” (72). Holmes believes he has figured out how to recuperate the photograph by thinking like Adler, a woman. Holmes’s confidence is ironic in that it is precisely at this moment that Adler becomes suspicious of the innocent clergyman. Adler disguises herself as a young man to freely navigate the London streets and confirm her suspicions about Holmes. Her clandestine countermove leads to the story’s climax, in which Holmes, Watson, and the King arrive at Briony Lodge only to discover that Adler has fled with the photograph.

Although Watson is the narrator, Doyle includes a letter from Adler to Holmes in the story’s falling action. In doing so, Doyle allows Adler’s voice to be heard. Doyle’s characterization of Adler as a confident, capable, and clever woman pushed the boundaries of the period’s gender stereotypes. Victorian ideals depicted women as passive, inferior, and entirely feminine. The men in the story revere Adler for both her stunning beauty and “feminine wiles.” To reconcile Adler’s superior qualities, the King compares Adler’s mind to “the mind of the most resolute of men” (66). The King, Adler’s former lover, underestimates Adler even more so than the other men in the story. Adler’s letter reveals a woman who is vulnerable, not vindictive, as the King maintains. She details her love for her new husband and vows to never use the compromising photograph unless she needs to protect herself from the King. In parting, she encloses a photograph of herself, which on the surface is considerably less valuable than the photograph of her with the King. In the story’s denouement, the Bohemian royal is elated by this development and offers to pay Holmes handsomely for the case’s resolution. Holmes, however, requests only Adler’s photograph as payment, which suggests that he has a deep affection for the woman who bested him.