Meta: The Mystery of Irene Adler

This is a piece of meta I wrote some time ago when Sherlock's A Scandal in Belgravia first aired on television. I happened upon it when browsing through my old LiveJournal pages, and – having brushed it up a little – saw no reason not to post it here as well. It's basically a contrast/compare between Arthur Conan Doyle's original characterization of Irene Adler, and subsequent takes on the character – particularly as she appears in Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat's Sherlock, played by Lara Pulver.

As it happens there is a huge amount of misinformation surrounding the character of Irene Adler. By this point, some are probably aware that she was never a love interest, but perhaps littler known is that she only appeared in one short story, never really interacted with Holmes, and was happily married to another man by the end of the tale.

So let's unpack what we know about The Woman:

Occupation:

In Doyle’s short story A Scandal in Bohemia, Sherlock Holmes is hired to retrieve a photograph of Irene Adler and the King of Bohemia (details of what the photograph depicts remains unspecified) so that the latter’s impending marriage won’t be compromised by scandal. According to Sherlock’s index, Irene Adler is a native of New Jersey, an adventuress, and an ex-opera singer.

The dictionary definition of an “adventuress” can refer to one of two things:

1. a woman who schemes to win social position, wealth, etc., by unscrupulous or questionable means.

2. a woman who is an adventurer.

It’s safe to say that Doyle is referring to the first definition, which was also used as a euphemism for a courtesan. By the standards of her time, Irene Adler is very far from the Victorian “angel of the house” ideal. That she had a career of her own, is considered an “adventuress”, and is very heavily implied to have been the King of Bohemia’s lover, all means that she would not have had a spotless reputation. Yet neither would she be socially ostracized. Living the life of an upper-class woman, she acts and is treated as a lady – let’s just say that there might be a bit of gossip about her over tea and crumpets.

In this sense, I have no real problems Moffat’s take on the character as a dominatrix. Like an adventuress in the 19^th century, a contemporary dominatrix may raise a few eyebrows, but neither occupation translates into a sex worker. Each Irene “toes the line” as it were, between a veneer of respectability and a vague sense of impropriety.

Personality:

Here’s where it gets interesting. Irene Adler is described several times throughout Doyle’s short-story, but nearly everything we learn about her is provided to the reader by second-hand accounts (technically third-hand accounts if we take into consideration the fact that Watson is narrating the whole thing). As such, there’s very little that we can be certain of, and at times there are conflicting accounts as to her character.

One thing we do know is that Irene Adler is very beautiful. When Sherlock Holmes begins investigating her, he speaks to a number of ostlers in the neighbourhood who tell him: “She has turned all the men’s heads down in that part. She is the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet.” Later Sherlock confirms this himself, for on seeing her, he says: “she was a lovely woman with a face a man might die for.”

But most of our information on Irene comes from Sherlock’s client, King Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, the King of Bohemia. He tells us that: “She has a soul of steel. She has the face of the most beautiful of women and the mind of the most resolute of men.”

But the interesting thing about King Wilhelm is that he is not a reliable witness. In fact, neither Sherlock nor Watson like him very much. When he first appears Watson describes him thus: “his dress was rich with a richness which would, in England, be looked upon as akin to bad taste” and “with a thick hanging lip, and a long straight chin suggestive of resolution pushed to the length of obstinacy.” Not very flattering terms, and throughout the story his conduct is haughty, dramatic, arrogant and (one can’t help but suspect) prone to exaggeration. His reactions to the ongoing investigation into Irene's activities tell us much about him, which in turn shape our understanding of Irene.

When Sherlock shares with Wilhelm the news that Irene has married another man, King Wilhelm’s reaction is to cry: “But she could not love him!” before he lapses “into a moody silence.” Most telling of all, by the end of the story his opinion on Irene has done a complete three-sixty, and he gushes about her: “What a woman – oh, what a woman! Did I not tell you how quick and resolute she was? Would she not have made an admirable queen?” Quite a turnaround from his initial account of her as a conniving mastermind. Now he sounds more like a disappointed lover.  

As for Watson, he only spots her once (whilst he’s helping a disguised Sherlock infiltrate her house) and has this to say: “I had never felt more heartily ashamed of myself in my life than when I saw the beautiful creature against whom I was conspiring, or the grace and kindliness with which she waited upon the injured man.” It’s hard to believe that this description is ascribed to the same character that was earlier pronounced as having: “a soul of steel.”

The truth is, Doyle gives us very little definitive information about Irene Adler’s character. We learn virtually nothing about what she’s like beyond the impression that she makes upon others. This is no doubt why the depictions of her character in various adaptations can be so radically different from each other.

Since we learn so little about her, it's impossible to label Lara Pulver (or Rachel McAdams or Gayle Hunnicutt, or any other number of actresses) as the "definitive" Irene Adler. She could be played in a number of ways (from an amoral gold-digger to a sweet and lovely Victorian lady with a slightly shady past) and all of them would be ostensibly supported by the text. We simply don’t know for sure. 

Yet what we see of her conduct and actions within Doyle’s story (that is, what she actually does, not what is inferred by others) is completely faultless. This isn’t the case for Moffat’s Irene, leading us to...

Motivation:

If you were to ask a casual reader what they knew about Irene’s storyline in A Scandal in Bohemia, I bet they would say: “she has a photograph of herself with a king and wants to blackmail him with it.”

WRONG!

It’s so wrong that it bears putting into bold text, because I think this may well be the biggest misconception surrounding Irene Alder. She never intended to use the compromising photograph for blackmailing purposes.

In fact, the subject of blackmail only comes up once throughout the course of the story. When Sherlock first hears about the existence of the photograph from Wilhelm, he immediately deduces that blackmail is involved. Wilhelm denies this, stating instead that she intends to send the photograph to the King of Scandinavia and his daughter Clotilde, Wilhelm’s bride-to-be. According to him: “Rather than I should marry another woman, there are no lengths to which she would not go...she has said she would send it on the day when the betrothal was publicly proclaimed.”

Irene is not a blackmailer, she’s a woman scorned. She doesn’t want anything except to prevent Wilhelm from marrying another woman. At least, according to Wilhelm. As we’ve seen, his word can hardly be taken as gospel. Not only is there a chance that Irene only said this to scare him, or that it’s all just a figment of his own overworked imagination, but Irene herself gives a very different reason for keeping the photograph in her possession, writing in her farewell letter: “I keep it only to safeguard myself, and preserve a weapon which will secure me from any steps which he might take in the future.”

So there is a good chance that she never intended to send the photograph to the King of Scandinavia at all, and on reading this bit of the letter, Wilhelm states that he no longer fears this outcome, for: “I know that her word is inviolate.” This is crediting her with a great deal of integrity and honour, something he wasn’t prepared to do during his first meeting with Sherlock, in which he paints her as a cunning and jealous woman. Yet due to his own high-strung emotions and prior history with Irene, it's safe to say he’s hardly a trustworthy judge of her character.

And this of course is the crucial difference between Doyle and Moffat’s Irene. Doyle’s Irene is a woman with integrity and high morals, so much so that the man she (supposedly) threatened to persecute has his fears assuaged by her simple promise that she will never share the photograph. She never had any interest whatsoever in blackmail; not even Wilhelm thought so. There's a pretty good chance she never even intended to ruin his marriage prospects with it.

Moffat’s Irene on the other hand, is ALL about blackmail. Though she initially resembles Book!Irene by claiming that the things on her camera-phone are for "protection", it’s heavily implied that she took the photographs of the royal family member in the first place to use them in a fun (by her standards at least) power play.

 Later we discover that her plans went even deeper than this – that she contacted Moriarty in his capacity as a consulting criminal in order to enhance her plans and manipulate Sherlock over the course several months into cracking a code that destroys a Ministry of Defence ploy to fool a terrorist cell’s attempt to bomb a plane.

She’s become a self-serving villain who has to lose to Sherlock in order for justice to be done.

In short, Doyle’s Irene wants to be left alone. Moffat’s Irene has a list of demands that renders Mycroft speechless. Doyle’s Irene keeps a compromising photograph as protection against a former lover. Moffat’s Irene is out for power and money. Big difference.

Relationship with Sherlock:

Here’s the biggest disparity between Doyle and Moffat’s Irene – so big in fact, that it’s almost funny.

As it happens, plenty of other adaptations of Sherlock Holmes have portrayed Irene as a love interest, though to what extent depends on the adaptation. The irony of this can barely be measured when one looks at the original source material, which begins with this observation by Watson:

“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.”

In total, Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes interact three times during the course of A Scandal in Bohemia. The first two times Sherlock was in disguise; first as a groom and then as a clergyman. Irene doesn’t recognise him. The third time Irene is dressed as a man. Sherlock doesn’t recognise her. They never have an open conversation. There is no dating, no banter, no confrontation. And certainly no romantic interest on either side.

In fact, Irene is in love with another man entirely. Though Wilhelm is clearly still rather hung-up on her, Irene marries a lawyer called Godfrey Norton during the course of the story (at which Sherlock is an unwitting witness, quite unbeknownst to either Irene or her new husband!) In her goodbye letter, Irene tells Sherlock to inform Wilhelm that: “I love and am loved by a much better man than he. The king may do what he will without hindrance from one who he has cruelly wronged.”

Clearly she’s been embroiled in a rather tempestuous love affair, one that we never learn much about beyond this simple sentence and Wilhelm’s ever-changing demeanour (on hearing this he bemoans: “Is it not a pity that she was not on my level?” to which Sherlock rather snarkily replies: “From what I have seen of the lady she seems indeed to be on a very different level to your Majesty.”)

So to talk about Sherlock and Irene’s relationship in Doyle’s story is to only point out that there isn’t one. She isn’t his love interest, she is his match, and the inability of subsequent adaptations to comprehend this simple fact speaks volumes about how writers perceive female characters. The idea that she doesn't exist as a love interest and that she outwits the male protagonist at his own game is clearly something that exists quite beyond their ken.

Sherlock honours Irene intelligence by requesting her photograph as a reminder of her triumph (choosing it over the emerald ring that Wilhelm offers). Thematically there is a nice contrast between the ex-adventuress of renowned beauty and allure, and the entirely asexual detective who scorns romantic love. They make wonderful foils for each other – or at least they would have, had there been any sort of meaningful interaction between the two of them. As it stands, Doyle’s Irene leaves England for a new life with her new husband, and remains completely oblivious to the impact she made on Sherlock Holmes.

Moffat’s portrayal of Sherlock and Irene’s relationship is almost the exact inverse of Doyle’s. In his script Irene is a lesbian, and so technically shouldn’t desire men anyway (arguments concerning sexual fluidity aside). Yet as it turns out, Irene is physically attracted to Sherlock in a way that goes beyond her manipulation of him, a deduction Sherlock makes when he takes her pulse and notices her pupil dilation. Her invitational euphemism for him to “have dinner” with her seems to have been sincere, and ultimately Sherlock cracks the password to her camera-phone by realizing that the missing digits are SHER. When typed in, the passcode spells out: “I am Sherlocked”.

Everything Irene did in Doyle’s story was to protect herself from her ex-lover and secure her future with her new husband. She just wanted to be left alone.

The Irene in Moffat's script is a criminal mastermind (though not quite as ingenious as Moriarty, of course) whose plan is undermined by her irrepressible attraction to Sherlock (despite being a lesbian).

The Battle of Wits:

What Irene Adler is best known for is the distinction she holds as one of the few people (and the only woman) to outwit Sherlock Holmes, to which she’s given the moniker “The Woman.” As Watson puts it:

"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."

This in itself is vaguely sexist (that is, Irene being called “the Woman” as though she’s the only one worth emphasizing) though very in keeping with the mentality of Sherlock Holmes. And yet... how exactly did Irene Adler outwit Sherlock? When you really examine the events of the story, it’s not hugely impressive.

There’s no doubt that Doyle’s Irene is an intelligent woman. Wilhelm states that her house has been ransacked, her luggage diverted and her person waylaid, only for the photograph to remain hidden. Sherlock Holmes manages to enter her home in disguise and successfully trick her into showing him where the photograph is hidden (by way of a fake fire alarm), and it’s not until after he leaves that she remembers being pre-warned about the famous detective.

To confirm his identity Irene trails him back to Baker Street dressed as a man, and calls out: “goodnight Mr Sherlock Holmes.” Realizing the potential danger she’s in, she and her husband promptly leaves the country with a letter left in the secret catchment as a last mocking gesture. It’s a neat, elegant plan... though a rather underwhelming one. One could just as easily say that it wasn’t so much that Irene outwitted Sherlock, as it was that Sherlock underestimated her.

Moffat’s Irene on the other hand, is definitely able to get the drop on Sherlock a few times. Unlike Doyle’s Irene, she is perfectly aware that the injured clergyman is Sherlock, and she beats his Sherlock Scan by appearing in front of him completely naked. Throughout the course of the story she plays him like the proverbial violin: trusting that he’ll figure out the combination to her safe, stealing his phone and making her ringtone a suggestive groan, successfully faking her own death (though how and where she got a dead body in her exact size is a mystery), knowing that the camera-phone he gives her is a fake (and so entering the wrong password), and goading him into showing off so he'll crack the government cypher and so give her the leverage she needs to blackmail Mycroft.

And yet... we all saw how it ended. Sherlock guesses the password to her camera-phone, thus rendering it worthless. What’s more, the password was based on her secret attraction to him, strengthening Sherlock’s belief that emotions are a weakness (especially in a woman, or so it's clearly implied).

The last we see of Irene, she’s on her knees awaiting execution, only to be rescued at the last moment by Sherlock himself. Is this another example of Irene getting “the right people on my side?” Or is it a case of the classic hero rescuing the damsel in distress trope? I'm not going to argue the point, but I think it’s fair to say this:

Doyle’s Irene lost the battle but won the war; Moffat’s Irene won the battle but lost the war.

Conclusion:

The funny thing is that there's no real mystery to A Scandal in Bohemia or A Scandal in Belgravia besides Irene Adler herself. No one really knows what to make of her: not the characters in the story, not the readers, and certainly not anyone who adapts her for their own purposes.

Though I enjoyed watching Lara Pulver in this role, I recommend reading Doyle’s original short story in order to draw your own conclusions as to who this woman really was. Alternatively, if you want to see a faithful portrayal of her character, try the Jeremy Brett series. Gayle Hunnicutt makes for a very elegant and spirited Irene, and there is some lovely expansion on Doyle’s story regarding some added scenes (such as what Irene ultimately does with the photograph).

Ultimately, the character of Irene has undergone so many revisions and adaptations that her original characterization has been somewhat lost, and with that in mind I’ll leave you with the final paragraph of Doyle's story:

"And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman’s wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of The Woman."