Key Quote
“"Miss Morstan has done me the honour to accept me as a husband in prospective"”
Dr Watson · Chapter 12
Focus: “honour”
Watson's formal, awkward announcement of his engagement contrasts sharply with Holmes's cold indifference — revealing the divide between emotion and reason at the heart of the novel.
Technique 1 — FORMAL REGISTER / PASSIVE CONSTRUCTION
Watson's announcement uses absurdly formal register: 'done me the honour,' 'accept me AS a husband,' 'in prospective.' The formality performs Victorian social convention — marriage must be discussed in dignified, elevated language, never as personal desire. The passive construction is revealing: Watson does not say 'I proposed to Mary' but that SHE 'accepted me' — even in announcing their engagement, Watson grammatically subordinates himself, following the social convention that the woman's acceptance is the significant act.
The phrase 'in prospective' (meaning 'expected in the future') adds temporal distance — the marriage is not immediate but anticipated. This circumlocution (using many words where few would do) delays the emotional reality: Watson cannot simply say 'we're getting married' but must dress the fact in layers of formal language that distance him from his own feelings.
Key Words
RAD — PROGRESS
Watson progresses by choosing love and ordinary human connection over the extraordinary but emotionally isolated life Holmes offers. Watson's engagement represents a different kind of progress from Holmes's: not intellectual advancement but emotional fulfilment. Watson moves toward the domestic — marriage, partnership, ordinary happiness — while Holmes remains frozen in intellectual isolation.
Key Words
Technique 2 — FOIL — WATSON AS EMOTIONAL COUNTERPART
Watson functions as Holmes's foil — a character whose qualities contrast and illuminate the protagonist. Where Holmes is cold, Watson is warm; where Holmes values logic, Watson values love; where Holmes avoids attachment, Watson embraces it. Watson's engagement crystallises this contrast: the two men respond to the same stimulation (the case, Mary Morstan's presence) with opposite conclusions — Holmes sees data, Watson sees a woman he loves.
Holmes's response to Watson's announcement — his famous coldness — reveals the cost of pure rationality: Holmes cannot share Watson's joy because his emotional faculties have atrophied (wasted away through disuse). Watson's awkward formality, though socially conventional, contains genuine feeling; Holmes's brilliant analysis contains none. The passage asks: which man is actually impoverished?
Key Words
Context (AO3)
VICTORIAN MARRIAGE PROPOSALS
Victorian marriage conventions required elaborate formality: the man sought the father's permission, used formal language, and the woman 'accepted' — never 'agreed' or 'said yes.' Watson's stilted language reflects real Victorian practice, where genuine emotion was systematically disguised by social convention.
HOMOSOCIAL BONDS
Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's theory of homosociality — intense same-sex bonds structured around but distinct from romance — illuminates the Holmes-Watson relationship. Watson's engagement threatens to break the homosocial bond that structures their partnership, explaining Holmes's cold response.
Key Words
WOW — LOOKING-GLASS SELF (Cooley)
Charles Horton Cooley's theory of the looking-glass self — our self-concept is formed by how we imagine others perceive us — illuminates why Watson uses such formal language. Watson constructs his announcement not around how he feels but around how he imagines Holmes will perceive him. His formality is a performance for his audience: he anticipates Holmes's rational, clinical response and adjusts his language accordingly, burying his genuine emotion beneath social convention. Cooley would argue that Watson cannot simply express his joy because his self-concept in Holmes's presence is shaped by Holmes's values — logic, detachment, precision. In Holmes's 'looking glass,' emotional expression appears weak, and so Watson performs the self he imagines Holmes expects: formal, controlled, almost apologetic. The passage thus reveals how internalised social expectations distort authentic self-expression: Watson cannot be himself because he is too busy being who he thinks Holmes wants him to be.
Key Words