I think this sums it up: "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." Arthur Conan Doyle, "A Scandal in Bohemia"
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TheAdlerian
9 years ago
Sherlock was supposed to be the idea of a genius at that time and a perfectionist. In psychology a perfectionist typically ends up mentally paralyzed. That's due to placing so many demands on themselves and life that everything is dissatisfying and not worth doing.
In the stories Sherlock has a brother who is smarter than he is and just spends his days sitting in a chair in a men's club because he's paralyzed mentally.
Sherlock doesn't really like women or relationships for this reason. He's not sexual because all of that would be too messy, boring, and would require calm that he doesn't really have.
He's too hyper and uncomfortable for a relationship and tends to fall into miserable periods of boredom when exciting stuff isn't happening. So, he could never deal with being a partner to a woman or a father.
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MtnMan13
8 years ago
In the stories Sherlock has a brother who is smarter than he is and just spends his days sitting in a chair in a men's club because he's paralyzed mentally.
I'm assuming you've never read the stories, because while Mycroft Holmes is depicted as a bit of a sloth, he was never "paralyzed mentally". In fact, he is shown to be Sherlock's intellectual superior but lacks his younger brother's ambition and thrill for the hunt. In the stories, he holds an unnamed position in the British government, although Sherlock says he is vital to its operation, and on occasion Mycroft
is the British government.
Here's an excerpt from "The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans":
"By the way, do you know what Mycroft is?"
I had some vague recollection of an explanation at the time of the Adventure of the Greek Interpreter.
"You told me that he had some small office under the British government."
Holmes chuckled.
"I did not know you quite so well in those days. One has to be discreet when one talks of high matters of state. You are right in thinking that he under the British government. You would also be right in a sense if you said that occasionally he IS the British government."
"My dear Holmes!"
"I thought I might surprise you. Mycroft draws four hundred and fifty pounds a year, remains a subordinate, has no ambitions of any kind, will receive neither honour nor title, but remains the most indispensable man in the country."
"But how?"
"Well, his position is unique. He has made it for himself. There has never been anything like it before, nor will be again. He has the tidiest and most orderly brain, with the greatest capacity for storing facts, of any man living. The same great powers which I have turned to the detection of crime he has used for this particular business. The conclusions of every department are passed to him, and he is the central exchange, the clearinghouse, which makes out the balance. All other men are specialists, but his specialism is omniscience. We will suppose that a minister needs information as to a point which involves the Navy, India, Canada and the bimetallic question; he could get his separate advices from various departments upon each, but only Mycroft can focus them all, and say offhand how each factor would affect the other. They began by using him as a short-cut, a convenience; now he has made himself an essential. In that great brain of his everything is pigeon-holed and can be handed out in an instant. Again and again his word has decided the national policy. He lives in it. He thinks of nothing else save when, as an intellectual exercise, he unbends if I call upon him and ask him to advise me on one of my little problems."
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