It’s not a pleasant thought, John, but I have this terrible feeling from time to time that we might all just be human.

—Sherlock Holmes, “The Lying Detective” Sherlock Season Four (2017)

Though the analysis in this thesis outlines a particular process by which Sherlock Holmes has evolved since he was first put before the public eye in 1887, it is by no means definitive. The adaptations discussed in each chapter have all been popular in the long line of Sherlock Holmes iterations, but they are certainly not alone. Eille Norwood, like William Gillette, played the detective in silent films in the 1920s, and Basil Rathbone starred in several films in the 1940s and 50s.

The BBC recorded the entire Holmes canon as radio dramas in the 1980s and 90s, and numerous novels have been penned using the detective, such as The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Michael & Mollie Hardwick, 1970), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (Nicholas Meyer, 1974), or The Final Solution (Michael Chabon, 2004). Even this year, in January 2017, as I was writing this thesis, the BBC released Season Four of Sherlock, in which three startling episodes shocked viewers (myself included), and provided a fascinating turn in the evolution of Sherlock Holmes.

While Chapter Two explored Freud’s theory of Tendency Wit in the previous three seasons of Sherlock, this most recent season makes a move like CBS’s Elementary in Chapter Three. In Elementary, we come to understand two facts: first, that when the character of Sherlock Holmes is developed emotionally, his ability to be deliberately funny is developed as well; and second, Sherlock Holmes has become post-analytical, meaning that the writers and producers create with previous analyses in mind. The writers now intentionally place references within the show, with deliberation and for a knowing audience.

The first two episodes of Sherlock Season Four illustrate these developments. In the first episode, titled “The Six Thatchers,” Sherlock not only forges a closer bond with John Watson, but he also becomes close to John’s wife, Mary, who is much the same as Sherlock: clever, calculating, and willing to make difficult decisions. The three of them regularly tease and make jokes at one another’s expense. For instance, when John and Mary bring their newborn home, and Mrs. Hudson asks about the girl’s name, John answers, “Catherine.” Mary makes a face and says, “Uh, ya, we’ve gone off that.” “Have we?” John asks. “Ya,” Mary replies. Sherlock, never taking his eyes off his phone, says, “Well, you know what I think.” Both Watsons answer in unison (Mary smiling), “It’s not a girl’s name!” When the camera returns to Sherlock, he is smiling as well, amused with himself (Moffat, “The Six Thatchers”). His ability to be humorous has expanded since he has become part of the Watson family, emotionally and functionally as well. In an interview about Season Four, Writer Stephen Moffat said, “…his [Sherlock’s] emotions, his connections to other human beings, the wisdom he has gained from his connections…make him stronger” (”Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat reveal where Sherlock could go in series 5”). The strength he gains from his relationships with the Watson family causes him to be a more fully developed man, therefore allowing him to be intentionally funny in moments he would not have been before.

Sherlock is even made godfather to John and Mary’s daughter, Rosie. Sherlock’s relationship with the child gives Moffat and Executive Producer Mark Gatiss the perfect post-analytical opportunity to knowingly drop in a Freudian scenario: the Fort-Da, from Freud’s Beyond the Pleasure Principle. Freud’s theory came from his observation of his toddler-age grandson, who played a regular game of tossing something away, then bringing it back again. Freud theorized that the repetition of sending something away and bringing it back again was a method of mastering a painful experience by reproducing it; in the case of a toddler, this might be a kind of therapy for the “loss” of their mother, who returns after being away from her child for a time (Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle). In the case of Sherlock and Rosie, Sherlock is baffled by the game the toddler plays: “As ever, Watson, you see but you do not observe. To you, the world remains an impenetrable mystery, whereas to me it is an open book. Hard logic versus romantic whimsy. That is your choice. You fail to connect actions to their consequences. Now, for the last time,” Sherlock lectures, bending down to pick up the toy the baby has thrown away,

“If you want to keep the rattle, do not throw the rattle” (Moffat, “The Six Thatchers”). He hands the rattle back to Rosie, who is perched in her father’s chair in the Baker Street study (see Figure 7). She coos at him before throwing the rattle again, hitting him in the face before the toy drops back to the floor. Sherlock looks irritated, but for the audience, who is familiar with this game that babies play, the Freudian scenario is not lost. We understand the futile repetition of the baby tossing the toy away, and even see the parallel in Sherlock himself, who has so often repeated the same asinine behavior of tossing things away, only to attempt bringing them back to himself again. Now, when the shot pans out to show John and Mary sleeping on the sofa while Sherlock plays Fort-Da with the baby, it is clear to the viewer that Sherlock has become a part of the Watson’s domestic/family life, both emotionally and in practice. Considering that Sherlock was an isolated loner when John first met him at the beginning of the series, Sherlock’s position as part of the Watson family is surprising. Sherlock’s willingness alone to babysit Rosie while her parents sleep demonstrates great change and growth in the detective’s sociability.

By the end of the episode, Sherlock is forced to face his inadequacies, arrogance, and emotions in a very real and visceral way. He, Mary, and John solve the case at hand, but when they do, Sherlock’s goading of the perpetrator, an elderly and unassuming secretary named Vivian Norbury, results in Mary taking a bullet intended for Sherlock. Mary dies in John’s arms, leaving both men completely and utterly bereft, and John so angry at Sherlock that he vows never to see or speak with him again. Sherlock shows a rare moment of vulnerability at the episode’s end, when he asks Mrs. Hudson, “If you ever think I’m becoming a bit...full of myself, cocky or overconfident, will you just say the word ‘Norbury’ to me? Would you?” She repeats, “Norbury?” He says, “Just that. I’d be very grateful” (Moffat, “The Six Thatchers”). Given that Mary was killed saving Sherlock from a woman named Norbury, we can safely assume that Sherlock wants to be reminded of the mistake he made in underestimating and prodding a dangerous suspect who then killed someone he loved. This is emotional growth in the detective, moving him towards the kind of post-analytical interpretation we found in Jonny Lee Miller’s portrayal of Holmes in Elementary.

Sherlock’s emotional journey continues in the second episode, called “The Lying Detective.” John and Sherlock are estranged, as John tries to deal with the loss of his wife and his guilt over an indiscretion involving texting another woman. Sherlock, on the other hand, appears to have fallen back into his drug habit with such force that he is literally killing himself. With great reluctance, John goes to Sherlock’s rescue, which was the plan all along because Mary left Sherlock instructions to find a way to get John to help him. She warned that if he did not, John would ruin himself with grief and anger. At the end of the episode, John and Sherlock sit once more in Baker Street together. John is waiting for another to come sit with Sherlock, everyone “taking it in turns” to keep Sherlock off “the sweeties.” Sherlock assures John he can last twenty minutes alone, and John says he wants to go home to Rosie. Sherlock appears genuinely sorry for his lack of thought for John’s daughter when he says, “Yes, of course, Rosie…Sorry, I wasn’t thinking of Rosie.” When Sherlock asks John if he is okay, John says he will never be okay, but that Sherlock “didn’t kill Mary.” He continues, “Mary died saving your life. It’s her choice. No one made her do it, no one could ever make her do anything. But the point is, you didn’t kill her.” Sherlock responds, saying, “In saving my life she conferred a value on it. It is a currency I do not know how to spend.” John says, “It is what it is” (Moffat, “The Lying Detective”).

As the conversation progresses, John admits to Sherlock that he cheated on Mary, proving that he was never the man that she thought he was, nor is he the man that Sherlock thinks he is. John breaks down in tears, prompting Sherlock to stand and hug his friend. Just before the men go to leave, Sherlock says, “It not a pleasant thought, John, but I have this terrible feeling from time to time that we might all just be human.” Sherlock’s ownership of his own emotions and humanity in this scene exemplifies the turn the series makes in Season Four. In fact, immediately following this moment, Sherlock goes back into the study, rummaging through a drawer. John asks what he is doing, and when Sherlock stands to go, he is wearing the iconic deerstalker hat he hates so much in previous episodes of the show. Chuckling, John says, “Seriously?” Sherlock replies, “I’m Sherlock Holmes. I wear the damn hat” (Moffat, “The Lying Detective). This moment of levity after such turmoil is a perfect example of Sherlock’s emotional growth allowing him to bond with John through purposeful humor. This is such a significant change from the Sherlock that was introduced in Season One, who said, in “A Study in Pink” that “I’m a high-functioning sociopath” (Moffat).[i] However, Sherlock’s behavior no longer matches what might be expected of a sociopath. Much like in Elementary, Sherlock is now using humor to connect with people and advertise his sociability.

The latest season of Sherlock is, I am confident, just the most recent step in the evolution of Sherlock Holmes. Consider Sir Ian McKellen’s recent film Mr. Holmes (2015), featuring an aged and diminishing detective trying to keep a grasp on his mind, which is based on Mitch Cullin’s novel A Slight Trick of the Mind (2006); or Laurie R. King’s first Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes novel, The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (1994), in which Holmes finds a new partner in retirement; or A Study in Charlotte (2016), a wonderfully clever young adult novel by Sherlockian scholar Brittany Cavallaro, who tells the tale of Charlotte Holmes and Jamie Watson, the great-great-great grandchildren of Holmes and Watson (who were real in the world of the novel, and Conan Doyle served as Watson’s “literary agent”). These recent reinventions take their place as part of the detective’s enduring legacy and popularity in the public mind, which shows no sign of fading away.

This thesis outlines just a small sampling of current and popular Sherlock Holmes iterations, and one small facet within them: humor. My research yielded various potential critical paths, such as exploring issues of gender or shifting cultural perspectives from the Victorian to modern times in Holmes adaptations. Writing about all these topics would have proven far too much ground to cover in one thesis, but it leaves me with a distinct sense of possibility for the future of this academic line of inquiry. Not only did Holmes capture the imaginations of Conan Doyle’s contemporary readers, but Holmes has continued to do so through time, the canonical work, and all the many adaptations since the original stories. Therefore, I step forward from this project with great enthusiasm for what the future of Sherlock Holmes might involve. To quote the great detective, it seems to me that “the game is afoot!” (Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of Abbey Grange” 1009).

[i] In Sherlock’s first episode, “A Study in Pink,” (2010) Sherlock is called a “psychopath” by one of Scotland Yard’s crime scene analysts, to which he quickly replies, “I’m not a psychopath, Anderson, I’m a high functioning sociopath. Do your research” (Moffat). As defined in the Oxford Dictionary, a sociopath is “A person with a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience” (“Sociopath”). Sherlock’s ownership of his sociopathy (indicating awareness of his lack of empathy and avoidance of connecting with others) at the start of the series allows viewers to see just how dramatic a progression he makes from Season One (2010) to Season Four (2017). “Sociopath.” Def. 1. English Oxford Living Dictionary. 2017. Print.

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Bergson, Henri. “Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic.” From Project Gutenberg. Project Gutenberg, 26 July 2009. Web. 30 Sept. 2016.

Blake, Peter. “You Do It Yourself.” Elementary. CBS. New York, New York, 6 Dec. 2012.Television.

Blathwayt, Raymond. “A Talk with Dr. Conan Doyle.” Bookman May 1892: 50-51./www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/. Web. 4 Jan. 2017.

Brill, A. A. “Freud’s Theory of Wit.” Journal of Abnormal Psychology 6.4 (1911): 279-316. Print.

Brinkerhoff, Corinne, and Liz Friedman. “A Giant Gun, Filled with Drugs.” Elementary. CBS. New York, New York, 7 Feb. 2013. Television.

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Culler, Jonathan. “Textual Self-Consciousness and the Textual Unconscious.” Style, vol. 18, no. 3, 1984, pp. 369–376.

Davies, David Stuart, and Barry Forshaw, eds. The Sherlock Holmes Book: Big Ideas Simply Explained. 1st ed. New York: DK Penguin Random House, 2015. Print.

Doherty, Robert, and Craig Sweeny. “Step Nine.” Elementary. CBS. New York, New York, 26 Sept. 2013. Television.

Doyle, A. Conan. “Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.” Strand magazine: an illustrated monthly (1891): 61-75. ProQuest. Web. 12 Nov. 2016.

——. “The Adventure of Abbey Grange.” Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Vol. I. Ed. Loren D. Estleman. New York: Bantam, 2003. 1009-1033. Print.

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——. “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez.” Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Vol. I. Ed. Loren D. Estleman. New York: Bantam, 2003. 964-987 Print.

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—Sherlock Holmes, “Solve for X,” Elementary Season Two (2013)

CBS’s police procedural Elementary first aired in 2012 to mixed reviews. Some critics were appalled by the new show and actor Jonny Lee Miller’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes: “Elementary’s lead might be called Sherlock, but he is no Sherlock Holmes” (Nicholson). Others, like the lead actor of the BBC’s Sherlock, Benedict Cumberbatch, replied: “I don’t know, we’ll see. I think there’s room for us both to coexist” (Shaw).1

Still more were entranced by the new take on the old stories, such as reviewer Zach Handlen, who wrote: “There’s a wholly unexpected, and entirely welcome, vitality to Elementary at its best, a sense of new ground being uncovered rather than old ground being re-trod—and while it’s not perfect, it does more than simply justify its existence” (Handlen). The accusation that the show somehow bastardizes Conan Doyle’s original stories too much, though, fails to account for the possibility that Elementary has something new to offer. Handlen begins his review by saying that “Surely another take on the iconic character from creator Robert Doherty [Elementary’s writer/producer] would be a disappointing, pale copy by comparison. He’d even turned Watson into a woman. The absolute nerve” (Handlen). But the “nerve” of changing Watson from male to female is significant and does important work in the progression of Sherlock Holmes adaptations. The Sherlock Holmes of CBS’s Elementary is what I will term “post-analytical.” Through previous adaptations and analysis, as well as the plot device of drug rehabilitation, Elementary’s Holmes has become self-analytical and self-aware. Therefore, he can embody Henri Bergson’s deliberate wit, a feat Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes, as well as Guy Ritchie’s and the BBC’s Holmes, have not yet accomplished. Sherlock Holmes himself purposefully creates humor.

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A Post-Analytical Position

To begin the conversation about Elementary, it is critical that we position this Sherlock Holmes adaptation within the spectrum of recent adaptations based on the classic British canon. In Chapter Two of this thesis, we discussed Guy Ritchie’s 2009 film Sherlock Holmes and the BBC’s TV series Sherlock (2010-), examining the function of humor within these two adaptations. Through close reading of the text, it is clear that these post-Freudian iterations foreground the presence of the textual unconscious, which allows for the performance of Freud’s Tendency Wit. The Tendency Wit is enacted as a way of releasing that which is repressed in the textual unconscious, ultimately demanding a response from the audience, which in the case of Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock, is laughter. An examination of Elementary reveals the show to be post-analytical, meaning that it has consciously moved past the previous analysis of earlier adaptations into new critical territory. If the textual unconscious and Tendency Wit create humor within Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock, the next question must be: what constructs humor within Elementary?

As mentioned previously, the TV show has made several significant changes within the adaptation. Perhaps most immediately notable is the change from Dr. John Watson to Dr. Joan Watson, played by actress Lucy Liu (see Figure 6). This dramatically shifts the relationship between Holmes and Watson. In the two previous adaptations, the relationship between the men is often characterized as a “bromance.”³ That dynamic provides a rich source of the textual unconscious, therefore providing many opportunities for the enactment of Freud’s Tendency Wit. In Elementary, that particular source dries up, because the relationship dynamic between a male Holmes and a female Watson normalizes much of the tension between them.

Unlike the “bromance,” which leads to repetitive jokes regarding the men’s potential sexual relationship, there is nothing much to be repressed in the relationship between Miller’s Sherlock and Liu’s Watson. For instance, in the first episode of Elementary’s Season Two, Watson and Holmes travel from New York (where the show is usually set) to London, where they encounter Holmes’s older brother, Mycroft. The humor produced in the wake of this meeting does not make use of Tendency Wit, because there is nothing repressed for it to draw upon. Rather, when Watson tells Holmes that Mycroft wants to take her to dinner, Holmes positions himself as the maker of a joke by replying, “He intends to bed you.” Watson scoffs at this assertion, and Holmes states, “You are attracted to Mycroft.” Watson says, “Um, no. I’m not.” But Holmes, undeterred, continues, “Hm, it makes a certain amount of sense. It’s classic transference. You wouldn’t be sleeping with him. Psychologically speaking, you’d be sleeping with me.” When Watson does not acknowledge him, he says, “Oh, you’ve surely thought about it. You can’t go to bed with me. We’re business partners and you’re my former sober companion. But you can sleep with a cheap knockoff version of me, and that is Mycroft” (Doherty, “Step Nine”). Watson ignores Holmes’s theory completely, instead moving the conversation back to the case at hand.

Watson’s unwillingness to acknowledge Holmes’s theory causes the audience to laugh, because Holmes’s accusation that Watson wants to sleep with Mycroft because she has a subconscious desire to sleep with Holmes is absurd. Watson’s non-response seems to tell the audience that she finds his predictable theory boring and unworthy of response. In all the previous episodes, there has been a complete lack of sexual tension between the pair. Unlike previous adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, in which the potential sexual tension of the bromance forms a place for Tendency Wit to be expressed, the humor in Elementary comes from a place beyond that, where Sherlock Holmes himself has become capable of creating and engaging with humor.

A Self-Analyzed Sherlock Holmes

The Sherlock Holmes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original stories has before been called a “human calculating machine with no personality or emotions” (Davies 22). In fact, Conan Doyle once said of his character that “Sherlock is utterly inhuman, no heart, but with beautifully logical intellect” (Blathwayt 50). While such observations about the detective have been utilized in adaptations, Elementary’s Holmes is most certainly not a “machine” or “utterly inhuman” with “no heart.” In fact, Elementary stars a detective that is quite the opposite of these descriptions. Rather than a cold, calculating, and seemingly impervious intellectual, the first episode of Elementary introduces viewers to a tattooed and recently released-from-rehab version of Sherlock Holmes, who is newly sober from his heroin addiction.

In Conan Doyle’s original stories, Holmes is a habitual drug user, but he treats the habit with arrogant confidence. In the novel, The Sign of Four (1890), Watson has a disgruntled conversation with Holmes about the drug habit: “Which is it today…morphine or cocaine?” Holmes’s reaction is blasé: “He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. ‘It is cocaine…a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it?’” Watson refuses outright, saying “No, indeed…My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it.” Holmes smiles at Watson and says, “Perhaps you are right, Watson…I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment” (Conan Doyle 123-124). This attitude towards drug use is flippant and arrogant on the part of Holmes, who treats drugs as though they have no potential to hurt him.2 Watson, on the other hand, has returned from his military service in Afghanistan, where he was injured both physically and emotionally: “…for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster…There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery” (Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet 3). With medical training, combat experience and injury, Watson is clearly concerned about the effects drug use might have on a person’s health.

Likewise, Guy Ritchie’s Holmes treats drug use as recreational, meant to enhance his intellectual abilities. In the film, Watson finds Holmes holed up in an attic room, dirty and manic, chasing houseflies into a glass jar and playing music on his violin to make them fly in particular patterns. After picking up a glass vial and smelling the contents, Watson says indignantly, “You do know what you’re drinking is meant for eye surgery?” (Ritchie). Like Conan Doyle’s Holmes, Ritchie’s version also treats drugs as something he can use and control to enhance his mind or alleviate boredom. The BBC’s Sherlock treats Sherlock’s drug use with a little more concern, though Sherlock’s ultimate proclamation is “I’m not an addict, I’m a user. I alleviate boredom and occasionally heighten my thought process” (Moffat, “The Abominable Bride”). While both John and Mycroft protest, it does little to change Sherlock’s attitude towards his drug use. In the end, Sherlock continues as he always has, leaving John and Mycroft to worry about the toll the drugs will take on him.

By contrast, Elementary’s Sherlock Holmes steps onto the screen with an acknowledged drug habit: he has just finished rehab in New York, where he stopped taking drugs and confronted his problem with heroin. In the storyline of the show, Holmes used to take heroin “recreationally,” but after experiencing a trauma (the death of his lover, Irene Adler), his heroin habit became a problem, rather than a pastime. Ashley D. Polasek writes about Elementary’s Holmes in her article, “Surveying the Post-Millennial Sherlock Holmes: A Case for the Great Detective as a Man of Our Times”: “This is a Sherlock who has self-destructed due to an addictive mania for puzzle-solving; his self-destruction proved to him that he has emotions and he must engage with them” (391). While Holmes is learning to pay heed to his emotions, he is accompanied by Dr. Joan Watson, who is hired to act as Holmes’s “sober companion,” or, in the detective’s initial perspective, a highly paid babysitter. Holmes and Watson live together in a Brownstone in New York, and Watson (a former surgeon) is vigilant about keeping Holmes on the straight-and-narrow. As the show progresses, Holmes and Watson attend regular rehab meetings, clearly modeled after Narcotics or Alcoholics Anonymous. Though Holmes resists Watson’s initial overtures attempting to discuss or aid in his recovery, there are various moments in the first season during which Holmes is self-reflective in the process of his own sobriety.

During Season One, in an episode called “A Giant Gun Filled with Drugs,” Holmes is confronted by his former drug dealer, Rhys, who comes to him seeking Holmes’s help because Rhys’s daughter has been kidnapped. At one point in the episode, Rhys offers Holmes a packet of white powder, telling him to take it because it makes him a better detective; it fuels the “creative part” of what he does. Holmes takes the packet in hand, looks at it, and then flings himself across room into Rhys, knocking the man back into a chair. “Why would you do that?!” shouts Holmes. Rhys replies, “You’ve needed it the last two days!” Holmes, enraged, hollers, “I assure you, I have not!” When Rhys tells Holmes that he needs to take the drugs to “get himself right” Holmes looks stricken, and removes himself from the situation, away from the drugs and his former drug dealer (Brinkerhoff). Rather than seeing the drugs as any part of his creative process, Holmes acknowledges them as detrimental, and removes himself from any further temptation to use them. In fact, later in that same episode, Holmes tells Rhys to “never darken my doorway again,” because “a little more time with you [Rhys] is a dangerous thing” (Brinkerhoff). This is critical in showing that Holmes has become a self-analytical version of himself. He is aware of his weakness as an addict and his limitations as a person. Holmes’s addiction recovery is a continual subplot throughout the series, and there are many moments during which Holmes is reflective about his recovery. It is also interesting to note that Holmes’s rejection of the drugs as part of his creative process invites the audience to be part of an ethical partnership with him. The viewer is rooting for Holmes to remain sober because it is what he “should” do, as well as rooting for Holmes to maintain sobriety because it is what Holmes wants as well.

In the Season One episode titled “Dead Man’s Switch,” Holmes confronts the one-year anniversary of his sobriety, an event that causes him turmoil. When Watson wants him to attend a group meeting so he can receive his one-year anniversary chip, Holmes is resistant, saying that he will not accept the chip. When Watson inquires as to why, Holmes flippantly replies, “It is absurd to measure sobriety in units of time. It is a state of being. One is either in it or out of it. In my case, I am in it. Permanently. Amassing a collection of cheap plastic chips seems infantile.” Later in the episode, Holmes’s sponsor, Alfredo, confronts Holmes about receiving his chip, and Holmes says that he cannot accept his chip because “…it does not commemorate a period of success but rather, the end of a period of great failure. I failed when I abused drugs and I would really rather not be reminded of that fact.” As the episode continues, Holmes finally confides in Watson his real reason for avoiding the meeting during which he will accept his one-year chip: “I cannot accept my one-year chip on my one-year anniversary because it’s not my anniversary.” Watson understands that Holmes means that he relapsed. Holmes goes on to admit that he relapsed right after entering rehab, which makes his one-year anniversary the day after when everyone thinks it is. Watson kindly points out that this fact is the difference of one day, and it does not “change what you did in the 364 that followed.” But Holmes is insistent that this day matters: “I decided to stop using drugs, yes. I decided, me. And then 24 hours later…” His voice cracks and he collects himself to continue, “It sounds like a mere detail, but I am a man of details, and it matters to me” (Silber). It is critical to see the way that this episode shows Holmes as aware and reflective about his habit. He is not the same as previous adaptations have made him out to be: drugs are an addiction to overcome, rather than a pleasure to indulge in. This alters Holmes from the distant and cold man of previous adaptations to a feeling, social, and socially-aware man who is mindful of those around him.

All of this leads us to another question: how is the construction of humor in Elementary impacted by Sherlock Holmes as a recovering addict? The answer lies in applied theoretical framework. In the previous two chapters of this thesis, we have examined the ways that wit functions in Sherlock Holmes. Wit is privileged as intellect in Conan Doyle’s stories, as well as the 1916 silent film or the 1985 television series. These iterations are not concerned with creating humor, nor do they contain the necessary conditions for producing humor. In the later adaptations, like Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes or the BBC’s Sherlock, humor is a product of Tendency Wit, which presents itself because writers and directors are aware of the textual unconscious, making use of humor or wit to expose it. In Elementary, with the repressed having been played out in previous iterations of Holmes, the directors pursue a more basic form of humor for an audience that now expects these stories to play a double game of intellect and humor. To the modern audience, Holmes is funny as well as brilliant. The Sherlock Holmes in Elementary possesses the skills and knowledge necessary to construct and respond to humor, qualities lacking in previous interpretations of the character.

Elementary and Bergson’s Theory of Wit

The structural theory of humor presented by French philosopher Henri Bergson in his work Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic is an excellent framework for understanding the comedy created in Elementary. Early in Laughter, Bergson states that “The first point to which attention should be called is that the comic does not exist outside the pale of what is strictly HUMAN” (4), meaning that laughter is something created and experienced specifically by humans. To experience laughter, Bergson says that

…the comic demands something like a momentary anesthesia of the heart. Its appeal is to intelligence, pure and simple. This intelligence, however, must always remain in touch with other intelligences…You would hardly appreciate the comic if you felt yourself isolated from others…To understand laughter, we must put it back into its function, which is society, and above all must we determine the utility of its function, which is a social one…Laughter must answer to certain requirements of life in common. It must have a SOCIAL signification. (4-5)

The link to the social is important for analyzing Elementary in the progression of Sherlock Holmes iterations, because Elementary has created a Sherlock Holmes who is, undoubtedly, a far more social creature than his predecessors. Earlier examples of Sherlock’s humanness in Elementary show how he has become aware of himself—his strengths and weaknesses—and therefore can connect with others. This social awareness allows Elementary’s Holmes to become humorous, leaving behind iterations in which humor is constructed around Holmes, rather than by him. This Holmes uses language with the intention of being funny, by making a joke at someone else’s expense, or trying to elicit a reaction from those around him.

In Louise Mathewson’s work “Bergson’s Theory of the Comic in the Light of English Comedy,” Mathewson illuminates Bergson’s theories by writing “Life, according to Bergson, is a continual change of aspect; and the comic begins where the spirit no longer enlivens matter. All forms of the ludicrous are due to the substitution of the rigidity and monotony of a machine for the pliancy and variability of an organism” (3). Essentially, humor is created when the fluidity and flexibility of life is interrupted by rigidity, and when a person is in possession of both cerebral and social intelligence, the conditions become correct for the formation/recognition of humor. Mathewson says “…laughter belongs to men in groups. We all know that it takes more than one to enjoy a joke. We must be in on the secret to enjoy the fun…The social significance of laughter is the central idea of Bergson’s investigation” (6). In this case, Elementary’s Holmes can engage as a deliberate wit because he possesses intellectual prowess as well as social intelligence and awareness. With this in place, Holmes can be witty, clever, and funny. In fact, this Holmes uses humor as an advertisement of sorts for not only his intelligence, but for his sociability as well. As Holmes is a recovering addict, sociability is a major concern for Elementary, and Holmes uses humor to connect socially.

There are several moments in which we can see Holmes attempting to be intentionally funny. In an episode titled “You Do It Yourself,” Holmes and Watson are called to a crime scene by New York Police Detective Marcus Bell, a detective with whom the pair frequently work. Holmes surveys his surroundings and proclaims, “He was killed elsewhere and then dumped here.” Bell, having reached the same conclusion, says, “Ya, tell me something I don’t know.” Holmes replies, “A pig’s orgasm lasts up to thirty minutes” (Blake). Holmes’s reply is contrived to elicit a reaction from Watson and Bell, as Bell’s question was rhetorical and related to the case at hand. As Bergson points out, laughter “must have a social signification” (4-5). Holmes’s attempt to get his colleagues to laugh is socially significant because he is attempting to bond with both Watson and Bell; in this instance, he does so with limited success.

Later in that same episode, Holmes becomes ill while trying to solve the case. Watson, whose job as a sober companion is to take care of Holmes, brings Holmes something hot to drink. When he takes a sip, Holmes says, “Ugh. What is that? I asked for coffee.” Watson sits down and says, “You asked for coffee but you got tea.” Holmes replies, “No. I am British. This is not tea.” Watson replies, “I found the ingredients to the same tea my mom used to make me when I was sick. The herbs in that tea have been scientifically proven to inhibit the movement of neutrophils, improve the function of protective cilia, and contribute to longer-lasting, more vasodilated erections.” Her tone conveys pride in helping Holmes with her expertise as a doctor, but Holmes raises an eyebrow and asks, skeptically, “By your mother?” With an exasperated breath, Watson says, “Just shut up and drink it” (Blake “You Do It Yourself”). Holmes makes the joke at the expense of his own nationality, the implication that he knows tea because it is so much a part of British life, and Holmes, of course, is British. He also leverages Watson’s care for humor, intimating inappropriateness between Watson’s mother making the tea for her when she was sick and the tea’s ability to stimulate “vasodilated erections.” Of course, the fact that Watson is a woman means that the potential for better erections means very little to her personally, so she could laugh at Holmes’s joke. But she does not laugh. Instead, she scoffs, a reaction she commonly has towards Holmes.

As the series continues, it often seems like Holmes’s attempts to connect through humor become more and more important, and the more Watson does not laugh, the harder he tries to make her laugh. In another episode, called “The Red Team,” Holmes comes across a tortoise named Clyde, who belongs to a murdered acquaintance. He picks up the tortoise and Watson asks, “Oh, are you taking Clyde?” Holmes replies, “He will starve if we leave him here.” Surprised, Watson says, “I didn’t know you liked tortoises.” Holmes, without turning around, quips, “I love them. They make an absolutely delicious soup stock” (King). Watson heaves a sigh and rolls her eyes at this statement, while Holmes gets the tortoise ready to take home. It is unclear to both Watson and the audience as to whether Holmes intends to make the tortoise into soup, but the comment is clearly directed at eliciting a reaction—perhaps exasperation, perhaps laughter—from his partner. But in the final scenes of the episode, a conversation between the pair reveals Holmes’s desire to relate meaningfully with Watson. Holmes is sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of soup. Watson comes into the kitchen and asks, “Are you eating soup?” Holmes, morose and thoughtful because of the conclusion of a case, replies, “I was hungry.” She says, “Please tell me you didn’t cook Clyde.” Holmes lifts Clyde onto the table from his lap. “The soup is split pea.” Looking at the tortoise, he continues in a measured tone, “These are magnificent creatures. Clyde will likely outlive both of us. You didn’t really think I would eat him, did you?” Watson, busy doing dishes, says, “I don’t know. I guess it’s hard to know what you are going to do” (King “The Red Team”). When he says nothing, she senses that something is bothering him, and inquires further, but he says nothing more. In this exchange, the audience becomes aware of the social significance of the humor Holmes is engaging in. His quip about eating Clyde was a jest, one which Watson did not find humor in. Holmes’s comment “you didn’t really think I would eat him, did you?” shows that he is troubled by the fact that Watson might have taken him seriously about eating Clyde. He wants her to get the joke so they can connect as friends and partners.

Eventually, they forge that bond, when Watson begins to “get” Holmes’s jokes. During the same episode that Holmes confronts his one-year anniversary, they discuss a potential suspect, a man named Abraham Zelner, whom they have deduced is code-named “Henry the 8^th .” Holmes says to Watson, “Henry the 8^th, as I’m sure you’re aware, was the fattest monarch in British history.” Watson replies, “So you think Zelner was his accomplice, and that Milverton gave him that code name because he was heavy-set?” With a deadpan expression and ironic tone, Holmes states, “Hmm, Orson Welles was heavy-set. Abraham Zelner could pull small moons out of orbit” (Silber “Dead’s Man’s Switch”). Instead of scoffing or eye-rolling or ignoring, this time Watson laughs. She gets the joke that Holmes makes at the expense of the suspect, Zelner, whom they both know is morbidly obese, even though Watson spoke in gentler terms by using the words “heavy-set.” Her ability to understand the joke shows the audience that Holmes has finally connected with Watson through humor. She recognizes his ability to be funny, which establishes their community with one another.

These examples show the way that Sherlock Holmes can engage socially through humor with the people around him, most specifically with Dr. Watson. Rather than focusing single-mindedly on the case at hand, with a mind like a “machine,” Holmes can recognize and create humor, and he even exhibits a desire to establish community. At first, his attempts at being funny are rebuffed by those around him; they do not “get” the joke he is making, such as his quip about a pig’s orgasm, or the tea not being tea, because he is British. When Watson is concerned that Holmes might use Clyde the tortoise for soup stock, it becomes apparent that he wants Watson to get the joke; when she does not, he is bothered by the fact that she would think him capable of hurting the creature. Finally, when Watson laughs at Holmes’s joke about their suspect “pulling small moons out of orbit,” their relationship is secured because they are finally able to relate with one another through humor.

Conclusion

In the long line of Sherlock Holmes adaptations, Elementary has interpreted the Conan Doyle canon with originality and creativity. As Jeremy Brett said in a 1991 TV Times Interview, “The definitive Sherlock Holmes is really in everyone’s head. No actor can fit into that category because every reader has his own ideal” (Davies 333). Jonny Lee Miller’s portrayal of the famous detective, along with Lucy Liu’s portrayal of Dr. Watson, create a post-analytical adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. This allows the character himself to move past some of the earlier interpretations into a space where Holmes can create humor, as a version of Bergson’s deliberate wit.

Sherlock: “Mrs. Hudson took my skull.”

John: “So I’m basically filling in for your skull?”

Sherlock: “Relax, you’re doing fine.”

—John and Sherlock, “A Study in Pink,” Sherlock Season One (2010)

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In 1893, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did the unthinkable: he killed his hero, Sherlock Holmes, by sending him over the edge of Reichenbach Falls with his nemesis, James Moriarty. The reading public was outraged and devastated by Holmes’s death; so much so that the staff at The Strand, the magazine that published the stories, called it “the dreadful event” (Armstrong). “[More] than twenty thousand Strand readers cancelled their subscriptions immediately, and young men and women appeared on the streets in, respectively, black arm bands and veils” (Estleman xvi).1

Now, fast forward more than a century to 2017, and Sherlock Holmes, whom Conan Doyle resurrected in 1903 due to popular demand, is still drawing this same kind of fandom. Holmes’s long lasting fame has provided current pop culture with several successful adaptations of the classic stories, including Guy Ritchie’s 2009 film Sherlock Holmes and the BBC TV Series Sherlock (2010). While these two adaptations take very different perspectives on interpreting Holmes’s character, they are bound by a common thread: they are witty to the point of causing laughter. Both adaptations privilege wit as cleverness, ingenuity, and intelligence, but they also privilege wit as humor.

This is a significant difference between Conan Doyle’s original stories, the earliest adaptations, and the modern adaptations; the former lack the kind of wit that moves the reader or viewer to laugh. Holmes is always clever; he is the most intelligent person in the room, but he is not funny. This begs the questions: how has Sherlock Holmes made such a transformation? How can adaptations of Conan Doyle’s stories make the leap from wit as intelligence or mental acuity to include wit that makes audiences laugh out loud? This chapter will outline the “turns” that facilitated such a transformation. My argument is this: the textual unconscious and textual self-conscious constitute the bridge that wit crosses in its journey from the original Sherlock Holmes stories to the current laugh-out-loud pop culture adaptations of the classic British canon.

The Textual Unconscious, Subtext, and Textual Self-Conscious

To start this discussion, it is imperative that we have a clear understanding of the textual unconscious. In Jonathan Culler’s article “Textual Self-Consciousness and the Textual Unconscious,” he poses two questions: first, “…what would it mean to speak of the literary unconscious as the unconscious of a literary work?” and second, “can a text have an unconscious and how would it manifest itself?” (369-370). Culler’s answer to these questions is yes, a text can possess an unconscious, and he suggests that a text’s unconscious is “what is at work in the analyst’s transferential relation to the text” (371). In other words, a critic might attempt to analyze texts from an outside prospective, but when they approach a text, they come with the assumption that “the nature of a text is to command a reading and that it will at least hint at its own reading” (372). This means that critics approach texts believing that there is something intrinsic to the text itself that can be identified and flushed out. That, coupled with the critic’s own beliefs or feelings, helps to create the textual unconscious.

Culler’s application of the textual unconscious stems from his analysis of scholar Frederic Jameson’s work The Political Unconscious (1981). Says Culler:

Jameson’s claim that the literary text has an unconscious, and that this unconscious is a political narrative, seems to be based on the notion of the unconscious as a hidden or repressed reality that is brought to light only when the analyst interprets the text in the light of the proper code or body of expert knowledge. (370)

While Jameson’s analysis of the textual unconscious is framed within a conversation about political discourse, the theory applies to the study of literature. When we approach texts with the intent of interpreting them, either in the form of written literary analysis or perhaps a film adaptation, we assume that there are “hidden or repressed” realities, and as we look for them, our own knowledge influences how such realities are then interpreted.

A scene in Guy Ritchie’s movie Sherlock Holmes (2009) clearly illustrates the textual unconscious as recognized/produced by the director/reader. Early in the film, Holmes is visited by Irene Adler. Her existence in the original Holmes canon was simple: she appeared in one story, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” in which she interacts briefly with and outwits Holmes, leaving him with just a photograph of herself and the memory of her prowess as an adversary. In Ritchie’s rendition, there is a clear implication that Holmes and Adler are old adversaries, and now Adler has returned. Holmes states Adler must be “between husbands.” Adler replies that her husband was “boring and jealous, and he snored,” and immediately follows up with the statement “I’m Irene Adler again” (Ritchie). When the meeting between the two is completed, Adler reaches for the daguerreotype photograph of herself that Holmes tipped over at the start of the scene, tips it upright again and says to Holmes, “You remember The Grand? They gave me our old room” (Ritchie). This introduces a romantic subtext through implying that Irene Adler is single and has a romantic history with Holmes as well.

Next, the first meeting between Sherlock and Irene Adler in the BBC’s Sherlock builds from this engagement with the textual unconscious. In “A Scandal in Belgravia,” Adler waltzes past any pretense by entering the room wearing nothing but a pair of high heels. All of Sherlock’s previous build-up preparing to meet this great adversary evaporates as he stares, unable to deduce anything about her. Even the show’s screen text—which often gives information about characters and scenes from Sherlock’s deductive perspective—shows nothing but three question marks around Adler. Rather than Sherlock making his usual brilliant and careful deductions, he is rendered mute by her obvious show of sexuality (Moffat, “A Scandal in Belgravia”). The implication is that Sherlock is stymied by the sexual nature of the encounter, and perhaps, by his own desire. These two scenes in Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock clearly presume and exemplify the textual unconscious. And the textual unconscious provides grounding for each show to produce humor.

Now that we have a clear understanding of the textual unconscious, it is equally important that we are clear on Culler’s concept of the textual self-conscious. The textual self-conscious, as Culler explains, appears at moments in which the text is self-referential and is recognized as such. “One way to think about this,” he explains, “is to note that self-referentiality is the product of a critical reading: these moments emerge, are identified, when the critic who is reading a text expects to find that the text is already about a reading of the text” (372). What this means in the case of a film or television adaptation is this: the text (which in this case is the film or show) is read by the critic (the viewer), who is expecting the text (the film or show) to be about the reading of text that the former critic (the writer/creator) has engaged in. When this happens, the text presents moments of self-referentiality.

A scene from the episode of Sherlock called “The Abominable Bride” provides an example of the textual self-conscious. To provide some context for this episode, it is important to note that while the show is set in modern day London, “The Abominable Bride” takes place in Victorian London, sometime in the late 1800s (see Figure 4). Rather than being a modern sleuth with a cell phone, here Sherlock is taken back to his roots in Conan Doyle’s time. Likewise, John Watson leaves behind his blog, and now writes short stories published in The Strand magazine. This abrupt change in setting is a mystery to the viewer at the start of the episode, but it hardly matters: the characters are, in many ways, the same in the Victorian period as they are in the modern. This set of circumstances, however, is ripe for recognizing the textual self-conscious. Take this example: at the start of the episode, Inspector Lestrade arrives at Baker Street, stating that he’s just “dropped by,” though his words and mannerisms communicate that something is clearly bothering him. John pours the Inspector a drink, and Lestrade gulps it gratefully between telling John, Mary, and Sherlock that he just wants to wish them the “compliments of the season. Merry Christmas.” John, Mary, and Sherlock all repeat the greeting back to Lestrade, and then Sherlock says, “Thank God that’s over. Now, Inspector, what strange happening compels you to my door but embarrasses you to relate?” Lestrade says, “Who said anything happened?” He drains the glass in his hand as Sherlock replies, “You did, by every means short of actual speech.” It is at this point that John speaks up and says, “Holmes? You have misdiagnosed.” Sherlock, smiling, says to John, “Then correct me, Doctor.” John takes the glass from Lestrade, tips it upside down to illustrate that it is now completely empty and says, “He didn’t want a drink. He needed one. He’s not embarrassed. He’s afraid.” Sherlock smiles and says, “My Boswell2 is learning.” He shares a smile with John’s wife, Mary, who is standing at the mantle and Sherlock continues, “They do grow up so fast” (Moffat, “The Abominable Bride”). This final line is an excellent example of the textual self-conscious at work.

Sherlock’s statement as well as his shared smile with Mary relates to the TV show’s previous critical interpretations of John Watson, Mary Morstan, and Sherlock Holmes. First, John is something of an apprentice to Sherlock when the men first begin living and working together at the start of the series. While John is a trained soldier and doctor, he is not a criminologist, so he learns the trade from Sherlock while working. The “Boswell” comment is self-conscious in several respects: first, it references the original Holmes stories, in which Watson is called Holmes’s “Boswell.” Second, the comment indicates that Sherlock is aware of John’s growing skills and abilities. Third, the line “they do grow up so fast,” when coupled with a knowing smile to John’s wife Mary, is self-referential to one of the TV show’s earlier storylines, which casts Mary Morstan as a very skilled and capable American assassin. In many ways, Mary and Sherlock are alike: both are John’s chosen partners, and both are more capable of dealing dispassionately with difficult and dangerous situations than John.

What does the presence of the textual unconscious and textual self-conscious mean for Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes or the BBC’s Sherlock, and how does it relate to the evolution of humorous wit? As the stories have been interpreted into film and TV adaptations, the writing itself has been probed for “hidden” realities, and the knowledge, background, and beliefs of the critics probing then create the correct conditions for the textual unconscious and self-conscious. The original stories and early adaptations, discussed in Chapter One of this thesis, do not possess an awareness of the textual unconscious or self-conscious, and notably they are not humorous. Indeed, I will contend that they therefore lack the means necessary to generate humor. It is, in fact, the textual unconscious and the textual self-conscious that allow for the evolution of wit into humor over time within iterations of Sherlock Holmes. I will argue that when adaptations of Sherlock Holmes engage with the textual unconscious or self-conscious, the conditions are made right for wit to produce humor, which demands a response from the audience. In this case, the response is laughter.

Freud, the Theory of Tendency Wit, and Double-Meaning with Allusion

If the textual unconscious and self-conscious form the right conditions to produce humor, we must next examine the creation of that humor itself. Sigmund Freud’s theory of Tendency Wit, which is humor that functions as a release for the repressed, provides an excellent framework. It is imperative that we understand what Freud means by “the repressed” and how his definition links to the textual unconscious. In Freud’s psychoanalytical theory, the repressed are those emotions, feelings, and thoughts which are held back or restrained in some way; the unconscious in humans is the part of the mind that affects a person’s behavior but is not accessible via the conscious mind (Freud, “General Psychological Theory” 116). In the case of the textual unconscious, the term refers to themes or ideas in the text that exist and affect the text without the text’s awareness. The unconscious is the place where the repressed resides. According to Freud, that which is repressed will inevitably find outlets, and this is where the repressed and the unconscious connect with Sherlock Holmes. Of course, this is not to say that no repressed material exists in Conan Doyle’s original work; there are instances when the repressed is just that: repressed. However, the recognition and admission of the repressed allows for the unconscious to be exposed, providing opportunities for the repressed to be expressed as wit. Much of the humor in both Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes and the BBC’s Sherlock is Tendency Wit, which acts as a valve for what has been repressed in the textual unconscious.

In the introduction to this thesis we reviewed what Tendency Wit is and how it functions; however, it is worth repeating here at the beginning of the discussion regarding how humor is crafted in these iterations of Sherlock Holmes. Tendency Wit typically engages three players: one, the person who utters the joke; two, the person who is the object or the “butt” of the joke; and three, the person “in whom the joke’s aim of producing pleasure is fulfilled” (Freud, The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious 91). That pleasure, in this case, is laughter. In The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious, Freud identifies Tendency Wit as a particular kind of wit that is especially humorous: “An un-tendentious joke scarcely ever achieves those sudden outbursts of laughter that make tendentious jokes so irresistible. As the technique can be the same in both, we may find the suspicion stirring that a tendentious joke has sources of pleasure at its disposal—by virtue of its tendency—to which innocuous jokes have no access” (Freud 91). The ability to provoke laughter is a skill of Tendency Wit because of the “sources of pleasure” it can access: the unconscious or the repressed. Tendency Wit is dependent upon that which is repressed, for it functions specifically to release the tension that is built up by repression. Oftentimes, Tendency Wit comes from material that we might otherwise never address, such as sexual tension or other taboo subjects. Freud goes on to say that “we would not be capable of laughing at the coarse obscenity, we would be ashamed, or it would appear disgusting to us; we can only laugh when the joke comes to our help” (Freud 97). Tendency Wit is a way of dealing with things that might normally embarrass or shame us; when they surface in the form of a joke and are made to be laughed at, we can face them without shame or recrimination.

To begin, consider an example from Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes (2009). In the film, Watson and Holmes both participate in Tendency Wit at the other’s expense. After Holmes’s first interaction with Irene Adler in the film, Holmes and Watson have a conversation in which Watson is the maker of the joke. Watson says, “…Why is the only woman you’ve ever cared about a world class criminal? Are you a masochist?” Holmes, calmly, responds, “Allow me to explain.” Watson replies, “Allow me—she’s the only adversary who ever outsmarted you. Twice. Made a proper idiot out of you…what’s she after anyway?” Holmes says, “It doesn’t matter.” Watson makes a list to answer his own question: “An alibi? A beard? A human canoe—she can sit on your back and paddle you up the Thames” (Ritchie). Holmes is the butt of Watson’s joke here. He is an “idiot” because his romantic feelings for Adler allow him to be manipulated by her, illustrated by Watson’s “human canoe” example, which is hyperbole. She, of course, does not want a human canoe, but she does perhaps want to make Holmes do something for her that might be as ridiculous and inconvenient as the exaggerated example. We, as an audience, laugh at this because it makes Holmes, a serious investigator who ought to be above the manipulations of a criminal like Adler, the butt of the joke.

Another example of Tendency Wit in Sherlock Holmes casts Holmes as the maker of the joke. As Holmes and Watson are investigating their case, Watson has been attempting to break himself away from Holmes to spend time with his fiancé, Mary Morstan, as well as purchase a ring for her. When Watson goes with Holmes to a rough part of town, they walk by a Gypsy woman, who calls out “Reckon your future, sir?” to Watson. Both men decline, but she follows and tells Watson, “You need to hear what I have to tell you.” Holmes puts her off, but she replies, “Even if it’s to do with Mary?” At this, they stop and Watson asks, “What of Mary?” He allows the Gypsy woman to inspect his palm. She says, “M for Mary, for marriage. Oh, you will be married.” Watson prompts her to continue and she goes on, “I see patterned tablecloths…and, oh, china figurines…and, oh, lace doilies!” Holmes then says, “Hmmm….doilies.” This is the moment when Watson realizes that the Gypsy woman and Holmes are in cahoots with one another, and he demands, “Holmes. Does your depravity know no bounds?” Holmes says no as the Gypsy woman continues, “Oh, she turns to fat…and, oh, she has a beard, and…” Holmes asks, “What of the warts?” The Gypsy woman cries, “She’s covered in warts!” Frustrated, Watson yells, “Enough, enough!” But Holmes is undaunted and hollers, “Are they extensive?” Watson again, “Please, enough!” At which point, Holmes says calmly, “It’s the most apt prediction Flora has made in years” (Ritchie). Here, Holmes is the maker of the joke, having colluded with the Gypsy woman, Flora, to trick Watson, who is the butt of the joke. The pleasure of the joke is fulfilled in the audience, who laughs both at the absurdity of the situation, as well as the way Watson was taken in (for a moment) by the idea that the Gypsy woman might have something truthful to share. For Holmes, the joke itself is a release of his feelings about Watson moving out of their rooms, getting married, and ceasing his involvement in Holmes’s casework. Both previous examples in Sherlock Holmes provide a coherent picture of the structure of Tendency Wit, even though neither fully engages in the tendency to release the repressed. In each, the players are exposed in their roles: the maker (Watson, Holmes), the butt (Holmes, Watson), and the hearer of the joke (the audience, Flora).

The BBC’s Sherlock, however, provides an excellent example of complete Tendency Wit, in which all three players are present, and the joke functions to release the repressed. In the episode “A Scandal in Belgravia,” Sherlock asks John to “punch me in the face” (see Figure 5). When John appears confused by the request, Sherlock repeats himself, asking “Didn’t you hear me?” John replies, “I always hear ‘punch me in the face’ when you’re speaking, but it’s usually subtext” (Moffat). Sherlock, unaware that John has verbally slighted him, appears uncomprehending, then abruptly punches John in the face, a move meant to incite his initial request. Subsequently, the men brawl, which Sherlock seems to think goes a little further than his request intended, and for John, seems to be more than a little satisfying. This instance is a clear example of Tendency Wit. The humor bubbles out of John’s commonly repressed frustration with Sherlock, who is often insufferably rude. It also demonstrates the three parties necessary in Tendency Wit: John is the maker of the joke, Sherlock is the butt of the joke, and we, the audience, are the hearers of the joke, who fulfill the Tendency Wit through laughing, which is a manifestation of our pleasure in it. As viewers, we are aware that Sherlock is often rude and inconsiderate; John, on the other hand, is typically patient and obliging. When John makes Sherlock the butt of the joke, the audience’s laughter comes out of satisfaction in the release of John’s oft-repressed frustration.

Throughout the TV series Sherlock, John’s frustrations are not alone in being aired through Tendency Wit. Questions regarding John and Sherlock’s relationship surface regularly, because many people who encounter the pair assume the men are homosexual. As it comes up again and again, it becomes an on-going joke surfacing repeatedly in the form of Tendency Wit. In the very first episode of the series, called “A Study in Pink,” the proprietor of a café makes the first inquiry of many regarding the men’s sexuality by assuming John is Sherlock’s date. During the episode “A Scandal in Belgravia,” Irene Adler causes John great frustration because he perceives her to be toying with Sherlock. Adler claims to flirt “at” Sherlock, but “he never replies.” John says, “Sherlock always replies. To everything. He’s Mister Punchline. He will outlive God trying to have the last word.” Adler wants to know if that makes her special, and John says “maybe.” With an arched brow, Adler asks John if he is jealous, to which he replies flatly, “We’re not a couple.” Adler retorts, “Yes, you are.” Exasperated, John says, “If anyone out there still cares, I’m not actually gay” (Moffat, “A Scandal in Belgravia”). Even Sherlock and John’s intrepid landlady, Mrs. Hudson, is not immune to becoming a wit maker at the expense of her tenants’ relationship. After Sherlock supposedly dies in “The Empty Hearse,” John returns to visit Mrs. Hudson, and when he announces his good news: “I’ve met someone…we’re getting married.” Mrs. Hudson replies, “So soon after Sherlock…what’s his name?” John, exasperated, says, “It’s a woman.” Mrs. Hudson exclaims, “A woman?!” and John replies doggedly, “Yes, of course, it’s a woman…Mrs. Hudson, how many times do I have to tell you? Sherlock was not my boyfriend.” Mrs. Hudson leaves the conversation behind by telling him that “live and let live” is her motto (Moffat, “The Empty Hearse”). Despite repeated claims of heterosexuality and now a heterosexual marriage on the horizon, the mistaken interpretation that the men are gay lingers. This leads to a perfect example of Tendency Wit: in “The Empty Hearse,” Sherlock returns from the dead after having faked his own death. In the two years that have passed, John has grieved, moved on, met Mary Morstan, and grown a mustache. When Sherlock reappears and announces that he and Mary both hate the mustache, John is appalled. In a later scene, John and Mary are at home in the morning, and John lathers his face up for a shave. With a grin, Mary asks, “What are you doing?” John attempts nonchalance and replies, “Having a wash.” Mary giggles and says, “You’re shaving it off.” John sighs, “You hate it.” Mary replies, “Sherlock hates it.” John, annoyed, says, “Apparently, everyone hates it!” Mary, still grinning, says, “God, it’s six months of bristly kisses for me and then His Nibs (Holmes) turns up…” John emphatically states, “I do not shave for Sherlock Holmes.” With sarcasm, Mary says, “Oh, you should put that on a t-shirt” (Moffat, “The Empty Hearse”). This Tendency Wit plays on the misunderstood relationship between Sherlock and John, and packs extra humor because the wit maker is John’s own fiancé, Mary. John is situated as the butt of the joke, and the audience experiences pleasure through laughing because they are aware of the on-going joke that plays on the repressed issue of homosexuality.

Now that we have covered the theory of Tendency Wit and its use of the textual unconscious, the next step is the analysis of the textual self-conscious through Freud’s lens to see how it also creates humor. In The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious, Freud also discusses the conditions of jokes that possess “double meaning with allusion” (Freud 31). Double meaning with allusion explains the laughter born from moments of the textual self-consciousness. Freud explains this using the following example:

Two Jews meet in the neighborhood of the bath-house. ‘So have you taken a bath already?’ asks the one. ‘How come?’ asks the other in reply, ‘is there one missing?’…what about the technique of this joke? Obviously it lies in the use of the word ‘take’ in two senses. For the one speaker, ‘taken’ is a faded auxiliary; for the other, a verb with unattenuated meaning. (Freud 38)

The humor in this example is produced through two outlets: the first, as Freud himself explains, is the double meaning of the word ‘take,’ which is interpreted by the two players differently; the second is the word on which the emphasis is placed. Freud goes on to say “If we replace ‘taken a bath’ by the simpler equivalent ‘bathed’, there is no joke. The reply no longer fits. So again, the joke is attached to the expression ‘taken a bath’…The joke does not lie in the question, but in the reply (Freud 38-39). Freud’s point here is that the humor is in the double meaning and reading of the phrase, and in the case of Sherlock Holmes, this joke technique is made possible by the presence of the textual self-conscious.3

To make clear how the textual self-conscious and double meaning with allusion function in relation to Sherlock Holmes, consider an example from the aforementioned BBC Sherlock episode, “The Abominable Bride.” Early in the episode, John and Sherlock return to their flat at 221b Baker Street to discover a client waiting for them in the sitting room. It is a woman, dressed in black and heavily-veiled. Sherlock examines her and says,

You have an impish sense of humor which currently you’re deploying to ease a degree of personal anguish. You have recently married a man of a seemingly kindly disposition who has now abandoned you for an unsavory companion of dubious morals. You have come to this agency as a last resort in the hope that reconciliation may still be possible. (Moffat)

John is made incredulous by Sherlock’s deduction, but then flabbergasted when Sherlock unveils the woman, revealing John’s own wife, Mary Morstan. When John questions why she is there, Mary replies, “Because I could think of no other way to see my husband, Husband.” To answer Mary’s accusation, John assures her that “It was an affair of international intrigue” that took him away from her suddenly. Mary retorts, “It was a murdered country squire.” Undaunted, John says, “Nevertheless, matters were pressing.” Mary shifts her tone and answers, “I don’t mind you going, my darling. I mind you leaving me behind!” John is again incredulous as he asks, “But what could you do?!” Scoffing, Mary says, “Oh, what do you do except wandering around, taking notes, looking surprised?” (Moffat). Mary’s final line is a moment when the text becomes self-referential, in two layers: first, her line refers to the John Watson of the original texts, who has been critiqued harshly by some critics as nothing more than a dim-witted narrative vehicle. In Loren D. Estleman’s introduction to Bantam Press’ Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, he writes that Watson “has suffered mightily at the hands of scholars and the public since the 1887 appearance of A Study in Scarlet in Beeton’s Christmas Annual, calumniated on the one hand as a tangle-footed incompetent and on the other as a boozy Bluebeard, to say nothing of sundry slanderous impostures his admirers have had to endure” (vii). Previous critical readings of Conan Doyle’s stories have rendered Watson as a character who does not “seem to be doing anything” (viii), so Mary’s line shows self-awareness and reference to these former readings of the text’s source material. The second layer is the way in which the line references Mary’s own storyline in show, which casts her as a woman capable of the same, if not more, than John himself. And finally, her emphasis on the word “you” in her accusation towards John (“What do you do?”) causes laughter because it alludes to the previously mentioned critical readings of John Watson.

Humor blossoms in these two adaptations of Sherlock Holmes because of the way the textual unconscious and self-conscious open the door for humorous wit. Engagement with each allows Freud’s Tendency Wit to be enacted, therefore creating the right conditions for the characters and scenarios to be funny. Not only that, but other of Freud’s theories may provide for further analysis of humor in later Sherlock episodes. For now, the wit expressed in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes and the BBC’s Sherlock no longer privilege wit just as an intellectual skill (though it is certainly still a function of intellect), but also as a skill for humor.

Conclusion

The journey from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original Sherlock Holmes stories to our modern pop culture adaptations has been one of transmutation. A reviewer of the BBC’s Sherlock wrote: “Flagrantly unfaithful to the original in some respects, Sherlock is wonderfully loyal to it in every way that matters” (Sutcliffe). While some of the elements of that which is “flagrantly unfaithful to the original” may be due to interpretations of the textual unconscious or self-conscious, there is no doubt that humor produced by Tendency Wit allows the Sherlock Holmes we know today to be as alluring as Conan Doyle’s Holmes was to readers in 1893.

It was the most preposterous position in which I ever found myself in my life, and it was the thought of it that started me laughing just now.

—Sherlock Holmes, “A Scandal in Bohemia,” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1891)

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Since the introduction of Sherlock Holmes in 1887, the detective has remained the most “famous figure in all of crime fiction” (Davies 12). Holmes has entertained people through Conan Doyle’s stories and novels, on stage, in print, or on screen; famous actors such as William Gillette, Jeremy Brett, Robert Downey Jr., Benedict Cumberbatch, and Jonny Lee Miller all have played the detective in different iterations with differing interpretations.

In current pop culture, three major Sherlock Holmes franchises are in play: Guy Ritchie’s films, starring Downey Jr.; the BBC TV drama Sherlock, featuring Cumberbatch; and CBS’s police procedural Elementary, headlined by Miller. All three of these have introduced a Sherlock Holmes who is not only witty and clever, but also, in one way or another, humorous. While Conan Doyle’s Holmes is a clever and serious detective whose cerebral wit outstrips all those around him, these later adaptations feature a Holmes who is intelligent and able to engage socially with humor. This shift has taken place over many years and many iterations, but it has undoubtedly served to transform the character of Sherlock Holmes, which will be discussed at length in Chapters Two and Three of this thesis. However, to understand such an evolution, we must begin by considering how wit and humor are presented within the literary canon of Sherlock Holmes, as well as in some of the early and traditional adaptations.

Witty, But Not Funny

In Jack Lynch’s A Guide to Eighteenth-Century English Vocabulary, Lynch calls wit “one of the most loaded words of the Eighteenth century,” and defines it in terms of “mental faculties” and “imagination” (21). Over time, humor has become entwined with definitions of wit. As the Oxford English Dictionary has it, wit is “that quality of speech or writing which consists in the apt association of thought and expression, calculated to surprise and delight by its unexpectedness…later always with reference to the utterance of brilliant or sparkling things in an amusing way” ("wit, n.”). Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle began writing Sherlock Holmes stories in the Nineteenth-century, the doctor came out of an Eighteenth-century tradition from which stem two competing lines of wit: one as knowing, intelligence, and cleverness; another as wit that is clever, surprising, and acknowledged through humor. While Eighteenth-century writers often used wit to humorous effect—Alexander Pope’s satirical wit in “The Rape of the Lock” (1712) comes to mind—Conan Doyle’s work in the Sherlock Holmes canon centered around the use of wit as knowledge, skill, and intelligence. The original stories privilege clever and skillful wit, demonstrated by quick intellect. Holmes is typically several steps ahead of everyone around him, waiting for them either to catch up or to act as an audience to the moment Holmes reveals his solution. There is little to no humor involved.

Sherlock Holmes’s introduction to the world in A Study in Scarlet prominently features Holmes’s quick-witted intelligence. Dr. John Watson, the narrator of the story, is introduced to Sherlock Holmes through Stamford, a mutual acquaintance, because both Holmes and Watson need a roommate to afford new lodgings in the city. Watson recounts the scene the first time he and Holmes met: “‘How are you?’ he said cordially, gripping my hand with a strength for which I should hardly have given him credit. ‘You have been in Afghanistan, I perceive.’” Shocked, Watson responds, “How on earth did you know that?” (7). Holmes, preoccupied with the experiment he is conducting, dismisses Watson’s question, leaving Watson to wonder how Holmes could possibly know about his military service in the Middle East. Conan Doyle has thus illustrated the ability that makes Holmes extraordinary, though at this point, both Watson and the reader are questioning how Holmes could have “perceived” such a fact.

Conan Doyle gives us the answer later in the novel. When Watson reads an article about the science of deduction, he is incredulous toward the claim that “an observant man might learn by an accurate and systematic examination of all that came in his way” (16). Holmes, revealed to be the author of the article, states that deduction from tiny details is “extremely practical,” and he depends upon it for his living because he is a “consulting detective” (17). When Watson is still skeptical of Holmes’s claims about deduction, Holmes brings up the moment they first met: “You appeared to be surprised when I told you, on our first meeting, that you had come from Afghanistan.” Watson replies, “You were told, no doubt.” Holmes disagrees, saying, “Nothing of the sort. I knew you came from Afghanistan.” He goes on to explain his deductive reasoning in detail:

From long habit the train of thoughts ran so swiftly through my mind that I arrived at the conclusion without being conscious of intermediate steps. There were such steps, however. The train of reasoning ran, ‘Here is a gentleman of a medical type, but with the air of a military man. Clearly an army doctor, then. He has just come from the tropics, for his face is dark, and that is not the natural tint of his skin, for his wrists are fair. He has undergone hardship and sickness, as his haggard face says clearly. His left arm has been injured. He holds it in a stiff and unnatural manner. Where in the tropics could an English army doctor have seen much hardship and got his arm wounded? Clearly in Afghanistan.’ The whole train of thought did not occupy a second. I then remarked that you came from Afghanistan, and you were astonished. (18)

The revelation of Holmes’s method for divining the knowledge “surprise[s]…by its unexpectedness,” illustrating the detective’s extreme mental prowess to both Watson and the reader. Holmes says that the whole “train of thoughts” went through his head so fast that he normally would not have stopped to consider them. It is for the benefit of Holmes’s audience that he slows and explains the steps of his quick wit. Once he explains, there seems to be no mystery to his deductions. While we consider Holmes’s wit, it is critical to note here that glittering though it may be, it does not proceed from “quick-wittedness” to humor, because his witty deductions do nothing to bring the audience to laughter. Rather than saying something “with reference to the utterance of brilliant or sparkling things in an amusing way,” Holmes amazes his audience by explaining how such tiny details could lead him to the conclusion that Watson was a soldier in Afghanistan. Holmes’s wit, while impressive, simply does not provoke anyone to laugh. There is no clever turn of phrase or technique of wit aimed at causing humor. That will change in later iterations of Sherlock Holmes; Chapters Two and Three of this thesis will explore later adaptations and interpretations which construct wit meant to cause laughter.

The Laughing Detective

While Conan Doyle’s fiction is not focused on humor, the inescapable fact is that Holmes laughs and “chuckles” regularly throughout the canonical stories and novels. This habit, however, rarely extends to anyone else around him. He is often laughing at something that he is aware of, but that Watson (the narrator) and the reader are not. In the story “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Watson says that he is sitting in Baker Street when Holmes enters, disguised as a “drunken-looking groom, ill-kempt” (249). Holmes disappears into the bedroom to change clothes, reappears, and “putting his hands into his pockets, he stretched out his legs in front of the fire and laughed heartily for some minutes. ‘Well, really,’ he cried, and he choked and laughed again until he was obliged to lie back, limp and helpless, in the chair” (249). The reader and Dr. Watson alike are wondering what Holmes finds so funny, because nothing of note has happened. Holmes goes on to explain to Watson the reason for his laughter as the result of his investigation’s extraordinary incidents. But even at the point that Holmes reveals the cause of his humor—“It was the most preposterous position in which I ever found myself in my life, and it was the thought of it that started me laughing just now” (252)—neither the reader nor Dr. Watson is moved to laughter. Essentially, it was a “you-had-to-be-there” moment; if one did not witness the event, one cannot appreciate its humor.

As the stories go on, Holmes makes a habit of laughing when no one else is laughing. In “The Boscombe Valley Mystery,” Holmes and Watson travel to the countryside to investigate the death of a man who has allegedly been murdered by his hot-tempered son. After hearing all the evidence, Watson says, “I could hardly imagine a more damning case” (309). Holmes comments on the tricky nature of circumstantial evidence, and Watson says, “I am afraid that the facts are so obvious that you will find little credit to be gained out of this case.” At this, Holmes begins to laugh, and says,

There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. Besides, we may chance to hit upon some other obvious facts which may have been by no means obvious to Mr. Lestrade. You know me too well to think that I am boasting when I say that I shall either confirm or destroy his theory by means which he is quite incapable of employing, or even of understanding. To take the first example to hand, I very clearly perceive that in your bedroom the window is upon the right-hand side, and yet I question whether Mr. Lestrade would have noted even so self-evident a thing as that. (310)

Watson protests, “How on earth—” Holmes cuts him off and says, “…I know you well. I know the military neatness which characterizes you. You shave every morning, and in this season you shave by sunlight; but since your shaving is less and less complete as we get farther back on the left side…it is surely very clear that side is less illuminated than the other” (310). In this case, Holmes is laughing again, but the humor he finds in Watson’s declaration of “obvious” facts is not shared with either Watson or the reader. Holmes’s intelligence is clear in his explanation of Watson’s bedroom layout and shaving habits, but this wit is that which privileges “imagination” and “mental faculties” (Lynch 21), rather than “the utterance of brilliant or sparkling things in an amusing way” ("wit, n.”). Again, Holmes is witty, but he is not funny.

Throughout the stories, there is a gathering sense that Holmes enjoys his own cleverness, and therefore laughs often because his intelligence outstrips those around him. While he is laughing, the reader (as well as Watson or any number of Scotland Yard detectives) is typically trying to figure out what Holmes knows already, and is therefore an outsider to Holmes’s “joke.” In fact, no one is “in on the joke” with Holmes at all, which is the reason he laughs when no one else understands the cause. During the opening of “The Red-Headed League,” a Mr. Jabez Wilson comes to Baker Street to consult Holmes and Watson about his admittance to an unusual organization of the same name as the story. Wilson shows them an advert in the paper for the League, and after reading it, Watson exclaims, “What on earth does this mean?” In reaction to this, “Holmes chuckled and wriggled in his chair, as was his habit when in high spirits. ‘It is a little bit off the beaten track, isn’t it?’” (266). Watson notes here that Holmes’s laughter is a “habit” resulting from “high spirits.” Again, the detective is laughing alone because he is the wittiest man in the room, but his wit does not translate to humor for anyone else.

After Jabez Wilson has completed his entire story, Watson says, “Sherlock Holmes and I surveyed this curt announcement and the rueful face behind it, until the comical side of the affair so completely overtopped every other consideration that we both burst out into a roar of laughter” (273). In this case, Watson is privy to the knowledge that makes Holmes laugh, having sat and listened to Wilson’s entire story along with Holmes. But given that they laugh at what they perceive to be humorous in the tale Wilson has told of the “Red-Headed League,” there is still no construction of wit that invites the reader to laugh with them. In this sense, the detective is still laughing alone, even though Watson is “in on the joke” here because he witnesses the situational irony playing out before them.

This brings us to the importance of Watson’s presence when considering laughter and Sherlock Holmes. In the introduction to Bantam Classic’s Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories, Loren D. Estleman says, “Literature has never produced a relationship more symbiotic nor a warmer and more timeless friendship” (xviii). That symbiosis extends to laughter in the Holmes canon. Still, I would suggest, the laughter is limited. Without Watson, Holmes would hardly have reason to laugh at all. A common source of Holmes’s laughter is his own wit and intellect, but for it to be fully realized or appreciated, it must be heard by someone else. Otherwise, what fulfillment would the laughter have? Holmes’s regular chuckles do one of two things: either they provoke the doctor to ask Holmes what is funny, thereby giving Holmes an opportunity to show off his cleverness; or they satisfy the detective’s own ego, as he is laughing at the expense of those around him, who are unaware of his reasons for being amused. Watson is most often Holmes’s audience for big reveals of the detective’s cleverness; without Watson, there would be no reason for Holmes to expound upon his deductions. Not only that, but Watson’s “endearing ability to appear less astute than the reader, rendering himself more approachable than the aloof and awesome Holmes, without sacrificing respect for his native intelligence” provides the reader with a way to relate to Holmes (Estleman xiii). The partnership between the two men provides a line along which one can track how wit and humor function as each adaptation interprets the pair. In Conan Doyle’s stories, Watson provides Holmes with a captive audience for his wittiness; in fact, the doctor clearly marks the margin of humor. As time goes on and Holmes and Watson are altered slightly in each iteration, wit and humor begin to change as well, and such expansions will be explored in subsequent chapters. However, the first iteration of Sherlock Holmes takes him from the page to the stage, and then quickly to film, where one discovers a detective who remains brilliant, but humorless.

The “First” Sherlock Holmes

Holmes took time to become witty, a process that began in Conan Doyle’s stories and progressed as the canon began to be adapted for different narrative dynamics. In 1899, an ongoing project for putting Holmes on stage finally came to fruition. Conan Doyle had been attempting to write a stage play for some time, but it was not realized until he relinquished control of his character to American actor William Gillette (1853-1937). Many American and British critics had been calling for Gillette to play Holmes (see Figure 2) because of “his height, his figure, his wit, his air of reserved force, and composure in dangerous situations” (Byrne 3).

Gillette wrote a script for “the play—the plot of which was drawn largely from ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ [1891] and ‘The Final Problem,’ [1893]” and the production opened in New York City (Davies 329). Gillette’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes was an instant hit with the public when it opened in November of 1899, and Gillette played Holmes on and off for the remainder of his career. Gillette worked with Conan Doyle to develop the play’s script, with the author’s one provision that Gillette should not have the detective fall in love. Gillette insisted on developing a romance for Holmes, and Conan Doyle famously conceded to the actor, writing, “You may marry him, murder him, or do whatever you like with him” (Davies 328). Thus, with Conan Doyle’s permission, Gillette adapted the stage play for a silent film in 1916.1 Gillette’s interpretation of the character constitutes the first adaptation of the detective to be captured on film. And it is with Gillette that we begin tracking Holmes’s progress toward witty humor.

Gillette interprets his Holmes as purely intellectual. While Conan Doyle’s detective might not have caused others to laugh, his penchant for laughing at his own cleverness was still a prominent feature in the stories. Gillette’s character, on the other hand, is stripped of any such nature in Sherlock Holmes (1916). His focus throughout the silent film is intellect. In the opening moments of the movie, Holmes appears on screen in sepia tones, sitting amongst a chemistry set, diligently working on an experiment. He is serious, interested in scientific knowledge and principles. Holmes is contracted by a Royalist agent to recover some missing letters, written by the Crown Prince to his deceased mistress. The letters are now in the possession of the deceased mistress’ sister, Alice Faulkner,2 who has been put under house arrest by the ne’er-do-well couple, James and Marge Larrabee. The Larrabees are after the letters for their own profit, and it is up to Holmes to recover the letters and save Alice from the Larrabees. Unlike the stories, Gillette’s Holmes is not accompanied by Dr. Watson as he searches for Alice and the letters. Rather than being involved in the case, Holmes leaves Watson at 221b Baker Street with a pile of books to read.

Indeed, Gillette’s choice to limit Watson’s involvement seems to cripple Holmes’s ability to be anything but intellectual in his pursuits. In the stories, Holmes laughs often because he is in possession of knowledge that no one else has, but without Watson’s presence, the fact that he possesses knowledge that no one else does hardly matters. Now, without Watson, Holmes does not have an audience for which he can stage a big reveal of his deductive powers and no structure of friendship within which to showcase his wit. When left alone, Gillette’s Holmes is rendered humorless, even if he is the romantic hero who saves Miss Faulkner and then falls in love with her. Not once throughout the film does Holmes ever laugh to himself or with Watson; he is serious and intent throughout his attempts to gain purchase of the letters, and even more so later in the film, when he is faced with his nemesis, James Moriarty.

Ultimately, Gillette’s choice to make Holmes a romantic hero who works largely without the aid of his “Boswell,”3 Watson, strips Holmes of all humor, either on his own or with anyone else. The result is a detective that is unique to Gillette’s portrayal, and perhaps not the most authentic to Conan Doyle’s original character.

The Portrait of Sherlock Holmes

Almost seventy years later, Granada Television took on the challenge of adapting the Holmes canon for a TV series, and they insisted on the “intention . . . to create a truly authentic Holmes” (Davies 334), whom British actor Jeremy Brett was enlisted to play. Though Brett was not the first actor after William Gillette to play Sherlock Holmes, his performance is notable to this thesis because of how Brett chose to portray Holmes, particularly in contrast to the 1916 silent film. In Penguin Random House’s The Sherlock Holmes Book, the chapter “Sherlock on Stage and Screen” notes that “As Michael Cox, the series’ producer, observed, Brett ‘had the voice, the actor’s intelligence, the presence, the physique, the ability to jump over furniture, be convincing in a disguise, handle the horses, and whatever else may be required.’ For millions of fans around the world, Brett was Holmes”4 (Davies 334). To this day, Brett’s image of the detective, wearing a tweed suit and deerstalker hat, is iconic in the history of the Holmes canon.

However, unlike William Gillette’s interpretation, in which Dr. Watson is a near-formality rather than an integral character, Brett’s Holmes would be lost without Watson, played by David Burke (see Figure 3). In an interview for The Armchair Detective in 1985, Brett spoke about the portrayal of Holmes and Watson’s relationship: “I think that Holmes would be dead—I mean, just pretending that they were real people—if Watson weren’t there. If Watson suddenly decided to go and live, let’s say, in Madagascar, Holmes would be dead inside of six weeks. And that’s what we chose to play” (Herbert 345). With the interpretation of the men’s relationship focused on their dependence upon one another, the dynamic in the show changes. Here, the presence of Watson once again allows for laughter. The audience finds Brett’s Holmes laughing in the same way a reader finds Conan Doyle’s detective laughing.

In the first episode, an adaptation of “A Scandal in Bohemia,” Watson returns to Baker Street after some time away and finds Holmes barricaded in his study, refusing dinner from landlady Mrs. Hudson. The writers borrow from the novel The Sign of Four while introducing Holmes and Watson to viewers. Watson spots a syringe and case in a half-open drawer and when he asks Holmes, “My dear Holmes. What is it tonight? Morphine? Or cocaine?” Holmes replies, “Well. I can strongly recommend a seven-per-cent solution of cocaine.” Watson refuses to try it, and they converse about Holmes’s career as the “world’s only unofficial consulting detective.” Holmes says, “I take no credit in my cases. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my particular powers, is my highest reward.” Holmes begins to laugh, clearly quite humored. He instructs Watson to close the drawer that contains the cocaine and says, “You have made the wrong diagnosis, Doctor. I have my stimulant here” (Hawksworth, “A Scandal in Bohemia”). Holmes holds a letter out to Watson, intimating that it is the letter, rather than any drug, which has affected his mood. As to the laugher, both Watson and the viewer are unaffected by it. Holmes may be entertained by his own cleverness, but his own enjoyment of it does not extend further than himself, because he is not structuring his wit in a relatable or humorous way.

Again, as in the original story, the viewer and Watson find Brett’s Holmes laughing alone in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1985) episode that adapts “The Red-Headed League.” When Watson interrupts Holmes’s meeting with Jabez Wilson, Holmes invites the doctor in, asking him to read an advertisement in the newspaper aloud. Watson does as he is asked, and when finished, he inquires of Holmes, “Is this serious?” Holmes emits a seemingly maniacal bark of laughter, then drops back to his typical serious demeanor and says, “It is a little off the beaten track, eh, Watson?” (Hawksworth, “The Red-Headed League”). There seems to be no cause for laughter, because nothing humorous has transpired in Watson’s reading of the advert. Yet Holmes is laughing again, presumably at something he knows his audience (Watson, Wilson, and the viewer) is not aware of. Wilson explains about his job with “The Red-Headed League,” which comprised of copying down entries from the encyclopedia each day. Wilson notes “the work was interesting” and the audience sees Holmes and Watson smothering laughter at the absurdity of such preposterous job. Wilson says that he did the work for eight weeks, until “suddenly…the whole business came to an end.” Wilson says he arrived at the office to find a white cardboard placard tacked to the door, informing him that “The Red-Headed League is Dissolved.” At the completion of the story, Watson and Holmes burst into raucous laughter together. Wilson, quite put out at being laughed at, says, “I don’t see how there’s anything very funny about it! If all you can do is laugh at me, well, I can go elsewhere!” Holmes assures his client that he views the case with great seriousness and says, “I wouldn’t miss this case for the world! (Hawksworth, “The Red-Headed League”). From that point on, Holmes collects further necessary information from Wilson so he can go about investigating the case. Like the short story, no one aside from the detective and the doctor is fully aware of what has caused them such humor; even the audience is not quite sure what strikes the pair as so funny. Even so, Holmes is sharing a moment of laughter with Watson, who is “in on the joke” with him, each aware of the irony and absurdity in Wilson’s case.

Conclusion

The transformation of Sherlock Holmes has taken place over a long process of adaptation and interpretation since the original stories were first published. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s character began to take on a life of his own as readers embraced the fiction as biography, and that has lent itself to Holmes’s evolution. Whether it is the Holmes of Conan Doyle’s fiction, William Gillette’s humorless romantic, or Jeremy Brett’s quintessential portrayal, the detective has remained hugely popular. The following chapters will explore how the great detective’s wit, so thoroughly enjoyed by himself (and, at times, Watson) in Conan Doyle’s stories, begins to alter as progressing iterations are created. Specifically, wit and humor in each iteration seems to hinge upon the changing dynamic between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. It is the intention of this thesis to explicate the evolutionary process Holmes’s character undergoes, transforming him again and again, from adaptation to adaptation.

Sherlock Holmes might claim that his deductions are “simplicity itself,” but anyone familiar with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective would beg to differ; Dr. John Watson would surely not be the least of those who might disagree.

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In cases such as “The Adventure of the Golden Pince-Nez,” in which Holmes creates an accurate description of a suspect from looking at a pair of spectacles, there can be no question as to Holmes’s extraordinary cleverness. Nor can one deny that Holmes is fully aware of his own cleverness: “I see no more than you, but I have trained myself to notice what I see” (Conan Doyle, “The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier” 540). Holmes’s wit, however, has come into question in the years since he first graced the pages of A Study in Scarlet (1887). As Holmes has been adapted and re-adapted time and time again in books, films, and television series, his undeniable cleverness has perhaps become conflated with his wit; that is to say, his humor.

Though much scholarship has focused on Sherlock Holmes, little has been written about the function of wit and humor within the stories and subsequent adaptations. Sherlock Holmes’s wit and humor have evolved throughout adaptations. To be clear, wit can be defined as “the faculty of thinking and reasoning in general; mental capacity, understanding, intellect, reason” ("wit, n.”). This early definition fits nicely with Conan Doyle’s stories and some early film adaptations. In the 18^th Century, wit was privileged as a virtue, and certainly celebrated as both knowledge and humor. Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal” (1729) is quite funny, employing piercing satire to make a social statement. While Conan Doyle’s detective was born out of such a tradition of wit, his writing seems more in keeping with wit as knowledge, which takes its roots in the definition of wisdom.1 Jack Lynch’s A Guide to Eighteenth-Century English Vocabulary defines wit as “one of the most loaded words of the Eighteenth century,” and refers to “mental faculties” and “imagination” (21). But if wit once primarily signified intellect and cleverness, perhaps since the Eighteenth century the focus has shifted to “quickness of intellect…talent for saying brilliant or sparkling things, especially in an amusing way” ("wit, n." OED Online). I suggest, however, that over time and adaptations, the manner in which Sherlock Holmes’s wit is represented has evolved. Though Conan Doyle’s detective may have commanded tremendous intellect through his wit, the modern Sherlock Holmes displays his intellect through sparkling and amusing wit, evoking laughter from his audience. While Holmes may have begun as the cleverest of all men, ensconced in Baker Street in Victorian England, he has since evolved into one of the funniest as he solves crimes in modern day London or even New York City.

The goal of this thesis is to answer this question: by what mechanisms has Sherlock Holmes become funny in the span of one hundred and thirty years and through the various adaptations since the first publication of A Study in Scarlet?

To begin to address the question of mechanics, I must first lay out a sampling of texts and adaptations, alongside a progression of theoretical approaches to the study of comedy. These theories help us to understand the way the texts advances both Holmes and his humor. There was no shortage of television and film adaptations to choose from for this analysis; indeed, Sherlock Holmes is a beloved literary character.2 There are five major incarnations that this thesis will discuss in addition to the Holmes canon itself: the 1916 William Gillette silent film Sherlock Holmes; the 1984 Granada Television The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, starring Jeremy Brett; Guy Ritchie’s 2009 blockbuster film Sherlock Holmes, with Robert Downy, Jr; the BBC TV series Sherlock, featuring Benedict Cumberbatch; and CBS’s police procedural series Elementary, starring Jonny Lee Miller. In addition to these adaptations, we will also explore several theorists, notably Frederic Jameson, Jonathan Culler, Sigmund Freud, and Henri Bergson. Through examining each text, as well as the applicable theory, we can track the evolution of wit into humor as it traces along a very important dynamic: the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. In each iteration, as the relationship between the pair changes, so does the capacity for wit and humor. This analysis has resulted in three chapters in which I outline by what means Sherlock Holmes has become funny.

In Chapter One, I establish the origin of Sherlock Holmes’s evolution from witty to funny, which began in Victorian London at 221b Baker Street. When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced Sherlock Holmes to the world in A Study in Scarlet in 1887 (see Figure 1), it was impossible not to notice Holmes’s scintillating intellect; he immediately perceives Watson’s military service overseas without anything more than a glance at the doctor. As the stories go on, Holmes is often laughing, but he does so alone. His wit is significant, but it does not translate to others. Though Watson is sometimes included in the joke, he is on the margin. He might have occasion to understand what Holmes is laughing about, but Watson is often just a witness to the moment of situational irony that amuses Holmes. The detective’s wit itself is not constructed to make Watson laugh. When William Gillette adapted Conan Doyle’s fiction for his 1916 silent film, Watson was no longer the margin for Holmes’s humor; Watson has almost no function at all. For most of the film, he is nowhere to be found. With no one to appreciate his wit or witness his humor, Gillette’s Holmes becomes entirely humorless, unlike his literary predecessor. Later, when Jeremy Brett rendered Sherlock Holmes for Granada Television, the careful attention to creating a portrayal accurate to Conan Doyle’s stories restored Watson to Holmes. It is the reunited pair that permits Holmes to return to laughing and demonstrating his wit.

In Chapter Two, I will argue that most recently awareness of what political scientist Frederic Jameson calls “textual unconscious” in a text allows Holmes and Watson to engage in a completely different type of humor compared to earlier adaptations. Jameson’s theory of the textual unconscious, discussed in his book The Political Unconscious (1981), posits that texts possess their own unconscious, which is discovered through “sedimented layers of previous interpretations” (9). Jonathan Culler expands on Jameson’s theory in his work “Textual Self-Consciousness and the Textual Unconscious,” applying the theory specifically to the analysis of literature. Culler states that texts possess an unconscious which reveals itself as the critic analyzes the text for his or her own reading (372). When applied to Sherlock Holmes, we see that as the stories and adaptations are read and recreated, small changes over time shift the way audiences experience the texts. Awareness of the textual unconscious opens the door for that which may have been repressed to emerge; therefore, new adaptations can begin to engage with subtexts.

At this point, I will work with Sigmund Freud’s theory of Tendency Wit to analyze the humor in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes (2009) and the BBC’s Sherlock (2010-). Both adaptations are aware of multiple subtexts, and those subtexts reveal the unconscious or things repressed. Such an environment is ripe for creation of Tendency Wit, which produces a Sherlock Holmes that regularly provokes the audience to laughter. Freud discussed the relationship between wit and intellect extensively in his work The Joke and Its Relation to the Unconscious (1916). He divides wit into differing categories, with the technique of wit, such as puns or word-wit, classified as low level, requiring little intellect to perform (Freud). Critic A.A. Brill expresses Freud’s theory of Tendency Wit in this way: “Puns belong to the lowest form of wit. They can be formed with very little effort. A mere similarity between two words is enough to recall the relationship between the two meanings” (Brill 285). Tendency Wit, on the other hand, is of a higher order, requiring something more than the intellectual ability to recognize or engage in word play. Wit that acts with tendency functions to release that which has been repressed: “But all renunciation is very difficult for the human psyche, and so we find that tendentious jokes [tendency wit] provide a means of reversing [the process of] renunciation and of regaining what was lost” (Freud 96). For wit with a tendency to be enacted, it requires three players: one, the maker of the joke; two, the object or butt of the joke; and three, the person “in whom the joke’s intention of producing pleasure is fulfilled” (Freud 95). Tendency Wit employs intellect as an operation between the maker and the hearer of the joke. Intellect is required in both the former and the latter so that they are capable of either making or “getting” the joke. Laughter is the marker that the joke’s tendency has been registered and its therapeutic function enacted through the act of laughing.

Chapter Three will examine one final iteration of Sherlock Holmes: CBS’s police procedural TV show Elementary. This series, perhaps the least “true” to the original stories, still manages to capture the essence of Sherlock Holmes as he navigates New York City, consulting for the NYPD with Dr. Joan Watson by his side. Elementary, I will argue, is what we might call a “post-analytical” iteration of Sherlock Holmes, meaning this: Holmes adaptations have gone through much analysis that was self-aware. For instance, the writers and producers of Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock (2010) were aware of the repressed and unconscious, and so knowingly approached their adaptations with that in mind. However, in calling Elementary post-analytical, I mean that the show has moved past those earlier critical analyses to do something new. Changing Watson into a woman removes the tension of the “bromance.”3 between the pair. Further, casting Holmes not as a self-assured “recreational” user of drugs, but as a recovering addict, allows him to become far more self-analytical and self-aware. It is here that we see deliberate wit deployed, as determined by French philosopher Henri Bergson. His work in Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic (1900) provides an excellent framework for understanding comedy with Elementary. Bergson contends that laughter is a human function, and it demands to be understood in the context of social significance (4-5). With Elementary’s Sherlock Holmes constructed as a man who has submitted to drug rehabilitation, he is a far more social version of the detective than ever before. Once Holmes can connect socially, he is able to create and engage with humor that evokes laughter.

To many critics who have come before me, such as William S. Baring-Gould or Raymond Chandler, the story of Sherlock Holmes is the story of a remarkable man suffused with an incredible gift for cleverness. So much so, in fact, that there seems to be a blurring of the lines between Holmes as fictional and Holmes as a real, living person. That interpretation, however, focuses on the character as a man concerned with using his cleverness and wit to the purpose of solving crimes or searching for truth. Though scholars such as Baring-Gould have meticulously researched and written about Holmes,4 a discussion specific to the evolution of Holmes’s wit through various reconceptions seems not yet to have taken place. Pursuing the relationship between Holmes and Watson as it has evolved over time points to the change in Holmes’s wittiness in different adaptations. My own contribution to the scholarly conversation aims at supplementing the discussion both of Holmes’s wit and of his relationship with Watson as each has developed through adaptations from the original stories to modern pop culture.

In 2014, I was a full time English teacher, finishing my library media certification, and struggling to get pregnant. I enjoyed my job, just three years into teaching, and really liked the library media program that would allow me to move into a part-time teacher, part-time librarian role. The pregnancy situation, however, was making me sad and restless. I wanted to have a baby, but that seemed terribly out of reach at this point.

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A friend from my time at the University of Wyoming reached out with information about the English Department’s relatively new Distance Learning Master’s program, encouraging me to apply.

“I thought of you when they asked us to share this!” he wrote. “I think you would love this program.”

I read the program overview and application, my excitement growing. Here was a program built for working professionals like me—rather than an online program, it was geared for distance learners. For three years, the cohort would study together: an intensive week in Laramie each summer and one course per semester, meeting every Thursday night at the local extension office for class. In three years, the cohort would write their thesis and earn their degree.

Jon and I went to lunch after church on Sunday, and I pitched the idea to him. As he often does, he listened carefully and replied calmly, “That sounds like you’d love it.”

I hedged, worried about the fact that I was still working on my library certification and wouldn’t finish it until I was a month into this new program. “And besides, I may not even be accepted into the MA cohort.”

At this, he smiled. “You’ll get accepted. I think you should apply.”

I did apply and an acceptance letter came a few months later, which was exciting.

The idea of earning a higher degree had always appealed to me, but since we lived in rural Wyoming, with no University close by, I had assumed it would be something I’d have to pursue much later in life. The distance program, however, opened up the opportunity, and in the next three years, I would find that it gave me so much more than just a degree.

The nature of distance learning was a funny dichotomy; we were very close-knit, despite being spread all across the state. The cohort members would move through the program together, at the same pace, and finish our degrees at the same time. With no classes offered to us other than the ones defined by the program of study, we were always together. For three summers, we met in Laramie for a week, where we studied, read, and discussed together. We ate dinners and drank beers and schemed on our papers and talked about our jobs and families.

When we returned to our towns, we emailed and spoke over tele-conference equipment in small extension program rooms at the local community colleges every Thursday from 7pm to 10pm. We studied Shakespeare, King Arthur, humor, nostalgia, rhetorical analysis, and American Literature, all the while hunting for a thesis topic and advisor to take us through the final step of earning a Masters in English.

Like most of my cohort members, I happened upon my thesis topic, which is what most of our instructors had indicated would likely happen. It felt a bit like a “the wand chooses the wizard moment,” to be honest. I wrote a conference paper for a course about humor in literature, and my professor wrote me a note on it indicating that A. she thought this could be a topic worth pursuing in my thesis, and B. if I was interested in doing so, she would be a good advisor for me.

What would evolve from that was my ultimate thesis, in which I would delve into Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s canon of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, pairing that with numerous adaptations of the beloved character and a theory of humor.

The writing was some of the most intense I’ve ever completed, and it’s a body of work of which I’m very proud. Though I’d read only a little Sherlock Holmes before my thesis, I quickly became a fully committed Sherlockian, both by necessity and by choice.

Writing about Sherlock and Watson felt much like getting to know two quirky friends, and I’m forever grateful that this topic chose me. It wasn’t one I had envisioned when I started the program, but it quickly stole my heart. In the years since it’s inception, Conan Doyle’s writing has taken on a bit of an esoteric quality, but one of the best parts (to me) about Sherlock is the fact that it was written as popular literature in its time. Meant to be consumed as entertainment, it’s filled with compelling story telling and characters that come to life. In fact, Sherlock Holmes was so real to readers that when Conan Doyle killed him off (rather spitefully, in fact, as he didn’t want to write the stories any longer), the “fandom” of the early 1900s was devastated: they wore black arm bands in the street as though mourning a real, flesh and blood man. The pressure from this was so great that Conan Doyle ultimately resurrected the detective.1 Both the cannon of Holmes stories and the life of the author are so interesting that it makes for compelling reading and study.

So it’s with great pleasure that I’m sharing it here, on my Substack, which is the first opportunity I’ve really had to do so since writing, submitting, and publishing Beyond Baker Street: The Evolution of Wit in Sherlock Holmes in 2017 after defending it to my thesis committee.

Precis for Beyond Baker Street: The Evolution of Wit in Sherlock Holmes

Modern audiences, film makers, and producers appear to see Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson as comedic figures. While Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s canonical literature may be funny, there seems to be a significant difference between the humor of the canon and the humor of more current adaptations. Throughout this thesis, I explore the evolution of wit in Sherlock Holmes by examining various adaptations, beginning with the original stories and ending with the most current pop culture production (BBC Sherlock, Season 4, 2017).2 Ultimately, I argue that there has been an evolution of humor and wit through several iterations of the stories. By excavating the textual unconscious, today’s directors have arrived at a Sherlock Holmes who, unlike his early predecessors, is deliberately funny. The argument that follows addresses the question: by what mechanisms has Sherlock Holmes become funny in the one hundred and thirty years since he was first created?

I’ve released Beyond Baker Street in the same format it was written in: five chapters, including an introduction and conclusion. And because I can, I’ll be including some behind the scenes information and tidbits along the way.

You can find each of the chapters here:

Thank you for being here a subscriber to The Rewrite, and for believing in my work. I’ll never be able to express how much that means to me.