Detail Oriented Detectives

In comparing the characters of Clarice Starling, Sherlock Holmes, and Sam Spade, one of the most obvious first choices of similarity would be their immense capacity to observe and note for later staggering amounts of the most fastidious details, the sort that would go unseen by others. In the Maltese Falcon, for example, Spade is visited by an unknown woman who comes to his office. 

She was tall and pliantly slender, without angularity anywhere. Her body was erect and high-breasted, her legs long, her hands and feet narrow. She wore two shades of blue that had been selected because of her eyes. The hair curling from under her blue hat was darkly red, her full lips more brightly red. White teeth glistened in the crescent her timid smile made.

This passage is rife with sexual overtones and it is clear that the only purpose for this passage seems to be to prove that Spade is a red-blooded, 100%, archetypal male. But it also has the more subtle quality of letting the reader know how his mind works. He doesn’t see a beautiful girl and decide that he likes her based on a general concept of prettiness. He catalogs every feature, just in case he’ll need to deeply examine later why or why not it exists, how they're opposites, or how it could be useful, or point to something more. This is the mind of Spade.

Sherlock Holmes and Sam Spade share this same capacity for absolutely riveting desire to ensure that attention is paid to even the minutest detail. No stone must go unturned, seems to be the motto in play. But while Spade seems only interested in women, alcohol, and justice; Sherlock seems only fascinated with the unraveling itself. With Spade, it is understood that he is simply a fastidious person with other interests that dominate his mind. With Sherlock, the fastidiousness seems to be the only mystery he can’t crack as he is constantly marveling and describing it to people. Take the following example from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure of the Speckled Band:

There is no mystery, my dear madam," said he, smiling. "The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver.

The simple fact that Sherlock actually counted the mud spatters and then used them to deduce a likely veritable scenario just so that he could tell the women, who didn’t ask or care for such an explanation, about her own journey is proof of this. Amusingly, the woman’s response was: “Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct” (the word “whatever” being the keyword in the sentence). Despite other people’s interest or lack thereof; to Sherlock, everything is boring and he only experiences joy from the mystery.

Another interesting thing about Sherlock is that he has a deep need for a companion. He does tend to be individualist and act in a cold or rugged manner, but this ruggedness is a façade because Sherlock’s need for connection is obvious when his relationship with Dr. Watson is thoroughly observed. Take this example where Sherlock is just wrapping up one of his famous whodunit explanations to Watson:

The sight of the safe, the saucer of milk, and the loop of whipcord were enough to finally dispel any doubts which may have remained. The metallic clang heard by Miss Stoner was obviously caused by her stepfather hastily closing the door of his safe upon its terrible occupant. Having once made up my mind, you know the steps which I took in order to put the matter to the proof. I heard the creature hiss as I have no doubt that you did also, and I instantly lit the light and attacked it.

Sherlock actually says that he is sharing this so that Watson will “know the steps which [he] took in order to put the matter to the proof.” It makes sense that this indicates either a desire for connection in order to feel necessary by operating as a sort of mental mentor or sensei for Watson or simply a desire to experience a closeness that also brings with it an understanding. Something that is impossible for Sherlock to find elsewhere.

What is interesting about the character of Clarice Starling is that she is so unlike Sherlock Holmes and Sam Spade. One would assume that there would be a tenacious drive for detail connecting the three, and though there is in a vague sense of verity to this assertion, the character of Clarice is at the same time a wholly different case. She is precise, but not driven for detail. She is exact in her observations but does not necessarily weave them into a web of deduction at every waking moment. She is half of something else—and so she must be considered in tandem with Dr. Lecter to ensure that she and their full scope is acknowledged. In a scene from Thomas Harris’ Silence of the Lambs, Clarice is interviewing Dr. Lecter to get a bead on the mind of a serial killer. Of course, she is actually doing nothing of the sort—Dr. Lecter is allowing her to participate with him in collaborative communication so long as it interests and pleases him, and so long as she follows his rules. In this example, it is Dr. Lecter who is playing the part of the constant weaver of deductive webbing. It is Dr. Lecter who is grilling Clarice for information in order to further fill out his image of things so that he can “solve the puzzle.” Clarice stands there baffled, answering questions and coming to Dr. Lecter’s same conclusions at a much slower pace while he waits “pleasantly” (if one could call it that) for her to catch up. He’s tolerating her stupidity and attempting to bring her along into his mental mindscape because he likes her and she makes things fun. Just as Sherlock Holmes cannot live without the blustering “Whot!? Whot!?” of Watson, so cannot Dr. Lecter be without his Clarice. But The Silence of the Lambs goes beyond this simplistic and much-imitated relationship. This Thomas Harris work is revolutionary work in many ways, but perhaps this two-dimentionalisation of the archetypal Watson character is one of its most stunning moments. Instead of the foil simply being the foil, we have the foil as the protagonist, and that is literarily delicious and opens so many more interesting options.

Though crime fiction (like Capote's In Cold Blood) is a precise and specific experience with governing rules, the examples and ideas considered today show that it is also an evolving reflection of the world itself. Sherlock Holmes is the earliest of the detectives examined. He is consumed with only deduction. There is no depth or other aspects to him unless it is read very much between the lines. When we reach Sam Spade however, it is instantly clear that his interests are not the crime and the mystery—they are the things that keep getting interrupted by these two. And once we reach Clarice there is a blending of classic-style detective that is taken and spread equally over a monstrous aggressor and a shaking lamb-like victim. Also, we see feminism and classism discussions bringing themselves to the forefront as if it's merely an after effect, but these are giant changes that are keeping pace with the rate the world.