The Pleasure of Viewing Irene Adler

Irene Adler

Irene Adler is one of the few ‘criminals’ against whom Sherlock Holmes is unable to exact some sort of punishment. She is an intellectual match for Holmes, even causing the man to hold off “[making] merry over the cleverness of women” after he is bested by her (19). However, this supposed female equal to Holmes only has one line in her own words in the entire story of A Scandal in Bohemia – “Surely. Bring him into the sitting-room. There is a comfortable sofa. This way, please!” (15). These are the only words Adler utters in her own voice: otherwise Holmes retells her words and the reader is given a mere sense of her voice in the letter she leaves for Holmes.

Adler’s character is conveyed through the opinions of the men who come into contact with her. Holmes file on Adler reveals her American birth and operatic career (7). The King tells the detective pair that “she has the face of the most beautiful of women and the mind of the most resolute of men” (8). Holmes decides while following Alder that “she is the daintiest thin under a bonnet on this planet” and “she was a lovely woman, with a face that a man might die for” (10 – 11). Watson remarks on “her superb figure” as she watches the crowd tends to the injured Father Holmes, and calls her a “beautiful creature” (15). Adler is revealed to the reader piece by beautiful piece through the eyes of men; she is an object of which they discuss its merits, usually with the King wishing that she was of a higher birth because she would “have made an admirable queen” (19).

This Holmes adventure is an example of the male gaze at work. Laura Mulvey discusses the male gaze in her piece “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” showing that the camera takes on the role of a man looking at a woman. This is why sex scenes usually focus heavily on the females face because that is what the male audience wants to see. It is a moment of scopophilia, or gaining pleasure in looking – basically a peeping Tom situation (Mulvey 835).  This scenario is repeated in Doyle’s work – all three men name Adler as an extremely beautiful creature and they are all after a photograph of her with the King.

The photo, however, complicates this narrative. A picture is something that can also be looked at and allow the viewer to gain pleasure from it. But this photograph, this potential source of scopophilia, is possessed by a woman, which means it must be wrong. Adler having the picture of her and the King opens the doors for a female to gaze at an image of a man for her own gain, and her only crime is threatening to let another woman look at said picture. The King claims that she is black mailing him to ruin his reputation and marriage, but Adler never has the chance to divulge her motives – who says she wasn’t trying to save another woman from an unhappy union to a man who she knows has done wrong? Adler has a set of man’s clothes, her “walking-clothes,” that she uses in order to be able to move about freely, and this guise is even convincing enough to fool Holmes as she passes him at his apartment, which shows that she understands the limited power women have over their own lives –– so why would she not be willing to help a woman who was being forced to marry a man without knowing his true character? (18)

The men see the photograph as a weapon that would hinder the proper social order: the King marrying a worthy princess to continue the royal bloodlines in Europe, but Adler views it as a weapon to safeguard herself “from any steps which [the King] might take in the future” (19). In this case, she is able to retain her weapon of protection, and in its hiding place she leaves another “which [the King] might care to possess” – this “photograph was of Irene Adler herself in an evening dress” (18 – 19). In this sense, Adler gets the last laugh because she willingly gives the men an attractive picture of herself in the midst of foiling Holmes’ plan. She is proving that she is not an unwilling object being viewed, but a person worthy of merit, even if she does fulfill the stereotypical marriage plot in the end, maintaining the original status quo.

3 thoughts on “The Pleasure of Viewing Irene Adler”

  1. Your analysis of Irene Adler’s lack of voice throughout the novel is extremely telling of the time period in which it is written in, and the lack of expression that women commonly experienced. It’s interesting that Doyle chose this female character to essentially beat Holmes at his own game, yet not allow her to tell the story herself, but rather, from the perspective of Holmes. Although it was a nice change to see a woman as a main character who challenges Holmes and his seemingly easy and cool demeanor, it’s a little frustrating to not get a complete sense of the story because of her lack of narration. The fact that you point out Adler’s possession of the photograph as being inherently wrong (for she is a woman and she cannot possibly obtain this sort of important information) adds more depth to this argument that goes against feminism and exemplifies the male-dominated world during the turn of the century.

  2. I think this analysis is interesting in relation to the BBC’s portrayal of Irene. BBC Irene is certainly not averse to being viewed. She chooses to meet Sherlock and John completely naked, knowing it will throw them off. She’s not only flaunting her looks though––her measurements are the code to her safe. Sherlock can’t solve the crime, get the pictures, save John, and so on without looking at her very, very closely. She uses the male gaze to control her enemies, just as Doyle’s Irene does.

  3. I love the way you close read the presence of the photograph throughout this Holmes story. Also the fact that the narration of the story gives the reader the male gaze perspective towards Irene Adler. I was thinking about the show Sherlock and I feel like it does a similar thing, I think you agree judging by the image you’ve chosen for the header. We often see Irene in sexual situations, dressed as a dominatrix and completely naked. Her sexual appeal is clearly something the show wants to the viewer to notice

Comments are closed.