Conan Doyle uses Watson very well to emphasis how smart Holmes is. In this chapter of the story in the Red headed league Watson cannot see anything special about the man standing in front of them, but Holmes has other ideas “Beyond the obvious facts that at some time he has done manual labor, that he takes snuff, that he is a freemason, that he has been in china and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, apart from that I can deduce nothing else.” This make the reader realize just how smart Holmes is in comparison to Watson. There is another example of how Watson is used to show how smart Holmes is in the story of the Engineers thumb. Watson is very highly recommended as a doctor “I thought I’d bring him round myself so he couldn’t slip away. There he is all safe and sound. I must go now doctor.” What this tells us is that Watson is a very smart man and is very highly regarded, so in theory if Holmes is smarter than Watson he must be a very smart man.
Another way that Watson is used very effectively is how Watson sets the scene and builds suspense. We see a good example of this in the red headed league. “I placed my revolver, cocked, upon the top of the wooden case behind which I crouched. Holmes shot the slide across the front of his lantern and left us in pitch darkness.” This quote is building up the atmosphere and also setting the scene at the same time. Watson can be used very effectively in this way, because Watson himself is scared it is very easy for him to mount up the tension.
Conan Doyle also uses Watson to ask Holmes questions. Watson asks Holmes lots of questions but Conan Doyle is very smart, because he never gives away enough evidence, so the reader still cannot solve the mysteries. Conan Doyle also puts rhetorical questions to good use; these are effective because they make the reader think. And if needs to he can send the reader down the wrong trail. “…Why should I go armed? Where are we going, what are we going to do?” this is an example of a rhetorical question. This very effective, because Holmes doesn’t answer, the reader thinks about what the answer could be, and most of the time the reader doesn’t get the answer correct.
In my opinion, the most effective way that Conan Doyle uses Watson, is when Watson is used as an audience to Holmes at the end of all of the stories. For example in the red headed league Holmes explains all of the strange antics that he has done “so far I had got when we went to visit the scene of action. I surprised you by beating upon the pavement with my stick. In doing this I was ascertaining whether the celler stretched out in front or behind.” This explains to the reader why he has done this strange thing. He also explains himself at the end of the Silver Blaze “…In examining his belongings I was fortunate enough to discover not only the method of the crime, but even the motives. As a man of the world, colonel, you know that men do not carry other people’s bills round in their pockets. We have most of us quite enough to do to settle are own. I at once concluded that Striker was leading a double life, and is keeping a second establishment.” Once again Holmes explains himself to Watson so its all clear now.
