Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s canon
of the mysteries and cases of Sherlock Holmes have become transcendent in our
culture in many ways. One obvious way
Holmes’s legacy lives on is in the detective fiction and crime drama genres of
the entertainment industry.
Characteristics
of the Genres
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Detective Fiction
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Crime Drama
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British
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American
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Whodunit? (this creates a puzzle for the audience to
try to solve while the detective in the narrative story is trying to solve
it)
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Why did the suspect/perpetrator do it?
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Upholds social order and considers law and morality
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Emphasizes criminality, transgressive behavior by
detectives, and is very fluid
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Attempts to distinguish between right and wrong (this
allows detectives to pass judgement)
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Focuses on the criminal and their mind with regards to
their personal background
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Example: Law and
Order
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Example:
Criminal Minds
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| Law & Order: SVU. Image retrieved from https://genius.com/Law-and-order-svu-opening-line-annotated |
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| Criminal Minds (Season 8). Image retrieved from https://www.dvdsreleasedates.com/movies/4693/ Criminal-Minds-TV-Series-2005-.html |
Check out the theme song to Law and
Order: SVU using this link: Law & Order Theme Song
Check out the theme song to Criminal Minds
using this link: Criminal Minds Theme Song
Although these genres had been around prior to Doyle’s
publishing of the canon, the character of Holmes still remains relevant in
today’s society. For this blog post, I’ve
decided to focus on one example of detective fiction and one example of crime
drama in examination of how their roots are descendant of the original Holmes
from the canon.
It is easier to connect the detective fiction genre as being
rooted to Holmes in that the canon is an example of detective fiction. As a result, many aspects of Holmes from the
canon are depicted in other more contemporary detective fiction examples. One such example is Law and Order: Special Victims Unit (SVU). Comparisons between this example and Holmes
in the canon are below:
Holmes from the
Canon
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Law &
Order: SVU
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Whodunit?
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Holmes focuses on using his deductive, observational
skills to determine who is at fault for the crime/mystery.
- Holmes considers every possible conclusion, no matter
how far-fetched, and reduces these possibilities throughout the short
stories/novels.
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Throughout the entirety of the episodes, the detectives
(Olivia Benson being the lead) are trying to solve a criminal case regarding
some type of sexual, domestic, child abuse/neglect/murder/kidnapping.
- Because the focus of the series is on how the justice
side of the law interacts with the police/detective/enforcement section of
the law, the investigative process feels like a puzzle
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Upholds social order
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Holmes was an upper middle class man.
- Even though Holmes does not have a job that is
considered respectable, he does hold very high moral standards as a result of
his class.
- He holds Victorian ideals very highly, specifically with
reference to his distrust of Victorian women and constant judgement of
individuals based on their respectability according to Victorian ideals.
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The morality of the detectives in the series, like Benson,
Stabler, etc., are focused on. The
hardship and intensity of the cases that the detectives are sent to solve is
something that weighs heavily on the audience’s heart. And, this series focuses on highlighting
special victims of crime and making the detectives look like heroes who are
upholding society’s ideals of disgust for perpetrators of these horrific
crimes.
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Considers law and morality
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Holmes does not always choose to get the detectives of
Scotland Yard involved in a case.
- In fact, there are a few examples in the canon where
this is the case. Probably the most
famous is “A Scandal in Bohemia” where Holmes feels like the situation of
finding the photograph of Irene Adler and the King of Bohemia is no longer
relevant now that Adler has gotten married to a lawyer and gained a lot of respectability.
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The lead detectives in this series are characterized as
having high moral respectability. For
example, many of the detectives in the series have come from backgrounds of
low-respectability, but have worked to achieve a greater respectability by
getting involved in police work and turning their lives around.
- For example, Detective Rollins used to be a drug addict
and a gambler, but she changed her ways and is now a primarily detective in
the New York Police Department’s Special Victims Unit.
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Attempts to distinguish
between right and wrong
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Since Holmes is private consulting detective, he is able
to make his own decisions based upon what is right and what is wrong.
- His morality is closely geared towards Victorian
values. As a result, most of the
suspects in the canon have characteristics of groups that were “other-ed”
(and seen as inferior/different) in Victorian society. Examples of these inferior groups are
anyone that is not white, British, and male.
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The major point of this series is to highlight the
horrific crimes in the SVU. The series
creates is able to cause the audience to have an emotional response to these
stories (of the episodes). As a result
of the sheer emotion elicited with the stories, the detectives are constantly
working to distinguish for themselves between what is right and wrong. And, this causes the audience to do the
same.
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Along with having roots in detective fiction,
some characteristics of Holmes in the canon are illustrated in crime
dramas. One notable more contemporary
example of this is Criminal Minds. Comparisons
between this example and Holmes in the canon are below:
Holmes from the
Canon
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Criminal Minds
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Why did the
suspect/perpetrator do it?
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Part of Holmes deductive capabilities is being able to
decipher exactly why the perpetrator committed the crime/mystery.
- For example, in the “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,”
Holmes determined that the father, who had spent time in India and allowed
Roma gypsies to be on his land, owned a snake from India that killed his
daughter in a locked room during the night.
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This series focuses primarily on the reasons for the
suspect/perpetrator (the unsub) to commit the crime. Usually, the suspect/perpetrator has a
personal background that elicits him/her to act in a certain way or be
triggered by a certain situation. The
detectives focus on deciphering through why the suspect/perpetrator committed
the crime in order to determine his/her behavior.
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Emphasizes criminality
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This is another example of Victorian values regarding inferiority
that is apparent in the canon. In many
cases/mysteries, the perpetrator is of some Indian, foreign, or other “different”
group background.
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Throughout the series, there is a focus on the unsub as
being “different” from the rest of society.
Usually, the unsub has a specific background that causes certain
criminal behaviors/decisions to arise following triggering incidents.
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Transgressive behavior by
detectives
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Holmes and Dr. Watson actually commit crimes while trying
to solve some mysteries/crimes.
- For example, in “The Adventure of Charles Augustus
Milverton,” Holmes and Watson illegally enter a house in order to help find
clues to solve the mystery (Part I,
41).
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While the detectives do attempt to be gentle to the unsub
as a result of their mindsets/mentalities upon arrest, it is common for
Morgan, Reed, Garcia and/or the other detectives to be involved in using
force or find confidential information when needed to stop the unsub.
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Focuses on the criminal and
their mind with regards to their personal background
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Holmes uses his deductive, observational skills to delete
particular possibilities/conclusions to the specific crime/mystery in order
to end up with the most plausible, and most correct, conclusion.
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The series is geared towards the Federal Bureau of
Investigation Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) and how this unit is able to find
the unsub committing heinous crimes through their behaviors as demonstrated
in their crimes.
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Holmes’s morality and deductive capabilities
regarding crime/mystery in the canon have become common aspects of other
detective fictions as well as of crime dramas.
Word count: 379 words (excluding the two tables comparing Holmes to Law & Order: SVU and Holmes to Criminal Minds)
Works cited
Doyle, Steven and Crowder, David
A. Part 1: Sherlock Holmes for Dummies. Wiley Publishing,
Inc., Indianapolis: 2010.
