Chapters 1 and 2 — The Sign of Four — AQA GCSE English Literature 8702
AQA GCSE English Literature · 8702
Chapters 1 and 2
The plot, part by part
What you need to know
Holmes's cocaine and boredom, his demonstration of observation and deduction with Watson's watch, and Mary Morstan's case:
her father's disappearance, the yearly pearls and the letter that calls her a wronged woman.
Key quotations: 'a seven-per-cent. solution', 'rebels at stagnation', 'I abhor the dull routine of existence', 'Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science', 'You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism', 'I never guess. It is a shocking habit', 'This is unworthy of you, Holmes', 'Was ever such a dreary, dismal, unprofitable world?', 'You are a wronged woman, and shall have justice', 'What a very attractive woman!', 'You really are an automaton—a calculating machine', 'an army surgeon with a weak leg and a weaker banking account'.
Structure: the novel opens on Holmes's habits and method before the client arrives, so the reader learns how he thinks before the mystery begins.
Context: cocaine as a legal drug in the 1880s, and Watson's objections as a doctor.
