Discuss the way Conan Doyle presents the characters of Sherlock and Watson in the passage. The short story, ‘The Red-Headed League’ by Conan Doyle follows the adventures of detective, Sherlock Holmes in the perspective of his partner Jon Watson, who documents the cases Sherlock takes on, as they solve the mysterious disappearance of a group of red-headed men calling themselves The Red-Headed League. In the passage Sherlock is presented as quite a peculiar and emotionally abnormal character, while the character of Watson is presented as a very loyal friend. Sherlock is portrayed as a character with some very unique tendencies and a very complicated personality. An example from the passage is the two contrasting ways he is described. Sherlock …show more content…
While talking about Sherlock’s hobbies, Watson says “as I knew well, he was never so truly formidable as when, for days on end, he had been lounging in his arm-chair amid his improvisations and his black-letter editions.”. The fact that Watson knows Sherlock’s trends so well and pays such close attention to what he does, displays how close Sherlock and Watson are, and that they spend a lot of time together. The reader is given the idea that Sherlock is not close to many people, so Watson spending so much time with Sherlock and being able to recognise that he has two moods presents Watson’s importance in Sherlock’s life as a close friend. This point is only emphasised by the not so polite actions of Sherlock at the start of the short story, “Holmes pulled me abruptly into the room”, and the arrogance that is a part of Holmes’s character throughout the story. Although Sherlock is quite obviously the opposite of Watson who is polite and respectful, as shown through “With an apology for my intrusion, I was about to withdraw” which was distinctly different to Sherlock’s behaviour at the start of the story, Watson remains loyal to Holmes. Even though Watson often feels “oppressed with a sense of my own stupidity in my dealings with Sherlock Holmes.” He not only remains a friend to Sherlock, but many times trusts him in dangerous situations. In the passage Sherlock tells Watson “there may be some