AQA GCSE English Literature 19th Century Novel The Sign of Four Grade 9 Key Points & Analysis
AQA GCSE English Literature 19th Century Novel - The Sign of Four Chapter 1
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Sherlock Holmes
The novel’s protagonist, a genius detective who hates the “dull routine of existence” and
loves to be challenged. Sherlock takes a cold and unemotional approach to his work.
Sherlock Holmes is the only ‘unofficial consulting detective’ in the world.
He uses deduction and observation of small details to solve crimes.
He can be quite arrogant, boasting about his skills and knowledge, and has a low opinion
of most police detectives.
He takes drugs to escape boredom when he doesn’t have a case.
He says he will never marry because emotions interfere with the reason he uses to solve
cases.
Sherlock Holmes’ Characteristics
Holmes is a work addict:
“Innumerable punch marks”.
“I abhor the dull routine of existence”.
“Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram”.
Holmes is demanding and controlling:
“Now run down-stairs, loose the dog, and look out for Blondin”
“Let me know the moment you have news. Is that all clear?”
“Well, you are master of the situation.”
Holmes is unemotional and insensitive:
“Pray accept my apologies, viewing the matter as an abstract problem, I had forgotten
how personal and painful a thing it might be to you.”
“Mere factor in a problem”.
“You really are an automaton-a calculating machine!”
Holmes is extraordinarily knowledgeable:
“I was able to refer him to two parallel cases, the one at Riga in 1857, and the other at
St. Louis in 1871, which have suggested to him the true solution.”
“Rochester Row. Now Vincent Square. Now we come out on the Vauxhall Bridge Road.”
Holmes is arrogant:
“I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection… I examine the data, as an expert,
and pronounce a specialist’s opinion.”
“I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion’s quiet and didactic
(instructive) manner.”
Holmes is methodical, pragmatic and observant:
“Framework is solid. No hinges at the side. Let us open it. No water-pipe near. Roof quite
out of reach. Yet a man has mounted by the window.”
“Measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin nose only a few inches from the
planks, and his beady eyes gleaming and deep-set like those of a bird. So swift, silent,
and furtive were his movements, like those of a trained blood-hound picking out a scent”.
, Dr John Watson
The novel’s narrator, an ex-army surgeon and Sherlock Holmes’s close friend colleague. He
sees Holmes’s powers of observation from a close perspective.
He lives at Baker Street with Sherlock Holmes and helps him with his cases.
He was a surgeon in the army where he suffered a bullet wound in his leg.
Watson is emotionally intelligent than Holmes and is more sensitive to the feelings of
other people.
He falls in love with Mary Morstan but is worried that is she receives the treasure, she
will be too rick to marry an ordinary man like him.
When the treasure is lost, he propose to her to marry.
John Watson’s Characteristics
Watson is romantic:
“You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect
as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.”
“What an attractive woman! The soft light of a shaded lamp fell upon her as she leaned
back in the basket chair, playing over her sweet, grave face.”
Watson is ‘ordinary’:
“They appear to be much as other footmarks.”
Watson takes some pleasure in the possibility of Holmes’ defeat:
“I handed him over the watch with some slight feeling of amusement in my heart, for the
test was, as I thought, an impossible one, and I intended it as a lesson against the
somewhat dogmatic tone which he occasionally assumed.”
“I often thought a small vanity underlay his quiet and didactic manner.”
Watson is caring, compassionate and sensitive:
“My conscience swelled nightly within me.”
“This is unworthy of you, Holmes”.
“I could have struck the man across the face, so hot was I”.
Watson is loyal and principled:
“While there was a chance of recovering it I was ready to devote my life to the one
object. True, if I found it would probably put her forever beyond my reach. Yet it would
be a petty and selfish love which would be influenced by such a thought as that.”
“You have done all of the work, I get a wife out of this business, Jones gets the credit,
pray what remains for you?”
Watson has a fear of social inequality:
“What was I, an army surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking account, that I
should dare to think of such things?”
“She was weak and helpless, shaken in mind and nerve. It was to take her at a
disadvantage to obtrude love upon her at such a time.”
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