Slavic R5B, sec.

4
Spring 2010

Murdering Your Sources

When, however, the sight of blood gives Holmes a motive for viewing the rest of the spectrum, his scrutiny is
unparalleled in its intensity. Holmes becomes the exemplary reader of the scene of the crime. In A Study in
Scarlet, faced with a corpse in an empty room in an abandoned house, he proceeds by first expanding the
definition of the text to be read. The police have looked at the body, its clothes, and its belongings, and have
given a glance around the room. Holmes begins his reading while still outside on the road, and includes the
front yard and steps and the hall. Then Holmes redefines what will be blank page and what writing, or, as he
calls it, data. As Watson puts it,
For twenty minutes or more he continued his researches, measuring with the most exact care the distance between
marks which were entirely invisible to me, and occasionally applying his tape to the walls in an equally
incomprehensible manner. (36)

What is a blank wall to others is covered with signifiers to Holmes and even as he examines them, they
remain invisible to Watson.
- Lydia Alix Fillingham, The Colorless Skein of Life: Threats to the Private Sphere in
Conan Doyles A Study in Scarlet. ELH 56.3 (1989): 668-9.

1. Are the following acceptable sentences for a paper? If not, why not and how could you fix it?
a. Students should approach texts as though they were Sherlock Holmes looking for clues at a crime scene.
b. Fillingham compares Holmes investigating a crime scene to someone reading a text. (668) His intense
scrutiny reveals clues, or signifiers, unseen to lesser readers like Watson.
c. The investigation normally proceeds from outside on the road, to the front yard and steps and the hall
before looking at the scene of the crime.
d. Fillingham focuses on how Holmes approaches the crime scene in A Study in Scarlet, beginning while
outside on the road (668) including the front yard and steps and the hall (668) moving to the empty
room (668) and finally measuring hidden clues on a blank wall (668).
e. Fillingham compares Holmess behavior at the scene of the crime to that of an exemplary reader
(668).
f. Sherlock Holmes, Fillingham suggests, is an exemplary reader of crime scenes because he redefines the
boundaries to include spaces others ignore. (668)
g. Although Holmes is always observant, it takes a crime scene to push him into high gear. (Fillingham
668)
h. Fillingham coins the term signifiers to describe the invisible details Holmes finds. (668)
i. In The Colorless Skein of Life: Threats to the Private Sphere in Conan Doyles A Study in Scarlet,
the Doyle scholar Lydia Alix Fillingham compares the crime scene to a blank page and the clues to
writing.
2. Continue the following paragraphs with Fillinghams argument, using a quote from the text if appropriate.
a. From a paper on Holmes interest in reading: Holmes only becomes an avid reader when approaching a
different kind of text: the crime scene.
b. From a paper on reading like a detective: If reading is a form of detection, Sherlock Holmes is the
model reader.
c. From a paper arguing that readers align themselves with Watsons viewpoint: Watson is thus our model
reader.