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A Scandal in Bohemia - a Sherlock Holmes Short Story
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Sherlock Holmes: A Scandal in Bohemia
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A Scandal in Bohemia (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
Discussion Questions
1) When Holmes comments “Wedlock suits you,” do you think he is being serious or sarcastic? Why?
2) Do you believe that Holmes is incapable of emotional responses like love and passion?
3) Why do you think Holmes doesn’t seem to take the case seriously at first? What changes his mind?
4) How is Watson’s marriage relevant to the story? Is it relevant at all?
5) Holmes calls Irene Adler "the woman" because she is unlike any other women he's met and she is able to outmatch him in intelligence and wit. Do you think this title is a compliment? What does his title for Adler say about Holmes general attitude towards other women? Do you think Holmes respected Irene Adler because she was smart, or because she outsmarted him? Would he hold the same respect for a man?
6) Why is Irene Adler’s intelligence depicted as “surprising?” How does this impact the story and the reader’s perception of her?
7) How is the theme of marriage and intimate relationships explored in the story?
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I actually have this story and the Redhead League in the volume I have, so I'll go ahead and read them.
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Some time ago I was lucky enough to purchase ‘Sherlock Holmes - The complete collection DVD,’ from a charity shop at a ridiculously low price. I have watched them all at least three times. My preferred way now is to read the story then watch the episode.https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0506445/...
Jeremy Brett is my favourite screen Sherlock but I can also vouch for the fact that the whole series of episodes are, in the most part, faithful to Conan Doyle’s writing.
In ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ Gayle Hunnicutt’ played a very impressive Irene Adler. Irene Adler was one of the very few of Holme’s adversaries to outwit him.
I was interested in the King’s two faced approach to Irene Adler. His first comments about her described her as an ‘adventuress’ and were spoken in scathing terms. Later on he said that if she had been of his class she would have made a fine queen for him. No wonder Holmes implied that he was much more impressed by Irene Adler than he was by the King.
Depending on the information in the story you chose to accept, Irene Adler was either English or American, so casting Marlene Dietrich in the role would have been a break with the canon, but yes, I can see her in the role. The story would probably have been doctored to give her more screen time.
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Hard to tell what Holmes is capable or incapable of. I suppose he could experience love one day, but I'm not sure what he'd do with it. He might prefer to let it pass by rather than marry and have a "distraction" from his mental activities.
He doesn't seem to have a great opinion of women in general, but to be fair, he doesn't respect many men either, including the king in the story.
I always thought Holmes actually fancied Violet Hunter from "The Copper Beeches." We'll see if that idea holds up when we get to that story.
This was never my favourite Holmes story, I think because of all the fuss about Irene Adler throughout the wider Holmes universe, and her appearing in so many of the dramatizations and the story itself is just... kind of lackluster?Reading as an adult, I couldn't buy the premise, that a royal marriage could be foiled because a thirty-year-old nobleman had had a mistress (not even that he had one now!). This just seems ridiculous Victorian moral posturing. And Irene Adler herself, whilst interesting conceptually, hardly exists as a character, and what we do see of her is again in silly language: she is an angel, she is beautiful, she loves and is loved by a better man, etc. etc. Usually I say the short story was the perfect format for Holmes's adventures, but I do think it's a pity we couldn't have had a novella to show Miss Adler to advantage.
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For those who want more of Irene Adler, there is a fun series in which she plays a detective, which begins with Good Night, Mr. Holmes. I remember enjoying the first few but then other reads came along...
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That does sound like fun. I'm going to add that to my ever-expanding TBR list.
The thing I like most about this story is that Holmes is defeated by a woman.
It was completely delightful to reread this again. So much has been made of Irene Adler that it’s easy to loose track of who she was in her original incarnation. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed many of the ways in which the character has been interpreted and embroidered upon. She and the drug use are probably the elements which have received the most reinterpretation over the years.
I also love this story for the quote: “I am lost without my Boswell.”
Renee wrote: "It was completely delightful to reread this again. So much has been made of Irene Adler that it’s easy to loose track of who she was in her original incarnation. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed many of t..."
I love that line too!
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Holmes is more human when he's interacting with Watson.
I enjoyed the story and I knew that Irene had gotten the better of him the minute I read that a young man addressed Holmes by his name.
And Holmes didn't mind being defeated in this case, since the outcome was successful for all concerned.
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Yes!
It was a good re-reading. I read it years ago, but I can't recall what I thought the first time I read it.I was surprised by how Holmes didn't consider that Irene would not suspect a false fire alarm when she was amid that scandal and was undeer scrutiny to discover where she hid the protograph.
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One of the ways Irene outwitted Holmes.
I would say even me would outwit him, and I'm not that brilliant
I think Holmes doesn't take her seriously as an opponent because she's a woman. Reading The Hound of the Baskervilles this week, it's clear that Holmes respects his opponent from the start and (for the most part) doesn't take unnecessary risks. His behaviour in this one is just silly.
A Scandal in Bohemia (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes)
Availability - The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1661
"A Scandal in Bohemia" is the first short story, and the third overall work, featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. It is the first of the 56 Holmes short stories written by Doyle and the first of 38 Sherlock Holmes works illustrated by Sidney Paget. The story is notable for introducing the character of Irene Adler, who is one of the most notable female characters in the Sherlock Holmes series, despite appearing in only one story. Doyle ranked "A Scandal in Bohemia" fifth in his list of his twelve favorite Holmes stories.
Publication History
"A Scandal in Bohemia" was first published on June 25, 1891 in the July issue of The Strand Magazine and was the first of the stories collected in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1892.
A Short Review of "A Scandal in Bohemia"
A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four had brought some critical and popular success for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle but it was the short stories that saw the general public clamouring for further Sherlock Holmes stories.
The short story is obviously shorter than the preceding two novels, but the length of "A Scandal in Bohemia" doesn’t equate to a lack of detail. Facts about Holmes and Watson had been established in the earlier stories, and so did not need to be reiterated, and there is no need for a long flashback to explain complex details about the case.
In addition to the storyline Conan Doyle manages to establish the importance of Sherlock Holmes, as it was now obvious that it wasn’t just the police who consulted him, but royal families also sought his advice. "A Scandal in Bohemia" also shows Holmes' ability to disguise himself and to break the law when his client’s problem requires it.
"A Scandal in Bohemia" is famous for featuring one of Holmes’ most famous adversaries, Irene Adler; although in the original canon, this is the only story in which she appears. The character of Irene Adler though of course is central to Sherlock Holmes, the 2009 Guy Ritchie film.
As with many of the Sherlock Holmes stories, "A Scandal in Bohemia" has been adapted for stage and screen, with one of the most faithful adaptations occurring in 1984, the first appearance of Jeremy Brett as Holmes, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The storyline of "A Scandal in Bohemia" is also reprised for the opening part of "A Scandal in Belgravia", the first episode in the second series of Sherlock.
Holmes' Relationship to Adler
Adler earns Holmes' unbounded admiration. When the King of Bohemia says, "Would she not have made an admirable queen? Is it not a pity she was not on my level?" Holmes replies that Adler is indeed on a much different level from the King, implying that she was superior to the King all along.
The beginning of "A Scandal in Bohemia" describes the high regard in which Holmes held Adler:
To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise but admirably balanced mind. He was, I take it, the most perfect reasoning and observing machine that the world has seen, but as a lover he would have placed himself in a false position. He never spoke of the softer passions, save with a gibe and a sneer. They were admirable things for the observer—excellent for drawing the veil from men's motives and actions. But for the trained reasoner to admit such intrusions into his own delicate and finely adjusted temperament was to introduce a distracting factor which might throw a doubt upon all his mental results. Grit in a sensitive instrument, or a crack in one of his own high-power lenses, would not be more disturbing than a strong emotion in a nature such as his. And yet there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.
This memory is kept alive by a photograph of Irene Adler, which had been deliberately left behind when she and her new husband took flight with the embarrassing photograph of her with the King. Holmes had then asked for and received this photo from the King, as payment for his work on the case. In "The Five Orange Pips" he comments to a client that he has been defeated on a mere handful of occasions and only once by a woman.
In derivative works, she is frequently used as a romantic interest for Holmes, a departure from Doyle's novels where he only admired her for her wit and cunning. In his Sherlock Holmes Handbook, Christopher Redmond notes "the Canon provides little basis for either sentimental or prurient speculation about a Holmes-Adler connection."