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Allusions
Chapter 4 — The Story of the Bald-Headed Man
Explanation and Analysis—The Backstories:
Doyle makes heavy use of flashback throughout The Sign of the Four in order to build out the world of the novel and give the full context for the events that happen. There are two main places that this occurs: in Chapter 4, "The Story of the Bald-headed Man," and Chapter 12, "The Strange Story of Jonathan Small." In both cases, the flashbacks serve as the backstory of the chapter's respective titular character.
In Chapter 4, Thaddeus Sholto—the "Bald-headed Man"—shares a flashback with Holmes, Watson, and Mary Morstan. The flashback explains the relationship between the Morstan and Sholto families and the reason why a vast treasure has been hidden in Pondicherry Lodge:
...I must prepare you by showing how we all stand to each other. In the first place, I must tell you that there are several points in the story of which I am myself ignorant. I can only lay the facts before you as far as I know them myself.
Sholto's flashback offers vital context for the mysterious pearls that Mary Morstan has been receiving and also explains how Captain Morstan disappeared. Of course, as the reader will soon learn, this is only part of the story: as Sholto recounts the story of his family's treasure and the adventures of his father, Major Sholto, and Captain Morstan, he neglects to mention that the Major Sholto betrayed Morstan to steal the treasure for himself.
The flashback in Chapter 6—the story of Jonathan Small, the wooden-legged man—fills in the gaps in Thaddeus Sholto's story. As Small begins:
If you want to hear my story, I have no wish to hold it back. What I say to you is God's truth, every word of it. Thank you , you can put the glass beside me here, and I'll put my lips to it if I am dry.
Small continues with his story, a story of colonial subjugation that reveals much about the racist attitudes that underlie the violent relationship between Britain and its colony in India and Small's problematic relationship with Tonga—and that also contains the real account of Small's discovery of the "Agra treasure," which the Sholto family has wrongfully claimed as their own.
Flashbacks like these are critical tools in a detective novel. As Doyle begins to piece the story of the treasure together for the reader, these sequences come as opportunities to fill in any gaps left by Holmes's deduction and confirm the full extent of the crime and intrigue behind the treasure's arrival in England. Although Holmes's keen detective work can deliver the reader to these characters, it is only their flashbacks that can reveal the actual mysteries of the Agra treasure and its blood-soaked legacy.
Related Themes:
Chapter 12 — The Strange Story of Jonathan Small
Explanation and Analysis—The Backstories:
Doyle makes heavy use of flashback throughout The Sign of the Four in order to build out the world of the novel and give the full context for the events that happen. There are two main places that this occurs: in Chapter 4, "The Story of the Bald-headed Man," and Chapter 12, "The Strange Story of Jonathan Small." In both cases, the flashbacks serve as the backstory of the chapter's respective titular character.
In Chapter 4, Thaddeus Sholto—the "Bald-headed Man"—shares a flashback with Holmes, Watson, and Mary Morstan. The flashback explains the relationship between the Morstan and Sholto families and the reason why a vast treasure has been hidden in Pondicherry Lodge:
...I must prepare you by showing how we all stand to each other. In the first place, I must tell you that there are several points in the story of which I am myself ignorant. I can only lay the facts before you as far as I know them myself.
Sholto's flashback offers vital context for the mysterious pearls that Mary Morstan has been receiving and also explains how Captain Morstan disappeared. Of course, as the reader will soon learn, this is only part of the story: as Sholto recounts the story of his family's treasure and the adventures of his father, Major Sholto, and Captain Morstan, he neglects to mention that the Major Sholto betrayed Morstan to steal the treasure for himself.
The flashback in Chapter 6—the story of Jonathan Small, the wooden-legged man—fills in the gaps in Thaddeus Sholto's story. As Small begins:
If you want to hear my story, I have no wish to hold it back. What I say to you is God's truth, every word of it. Thank you , you can put the glass beside me here, and I'll put my lips to it if I am dry.
Small continues with his story, a story of colonial subjugation that reveals much about the racist attitudes that underlie the violent relationship between Britain and its colony in India and Small's problematic relationship with Tonga—and that also contains the real account of Small's discovery of the "Agra treasure," which the Sholto family has wrongfully claimed as their own.
Flashbacks like these are critical tools in a detective novel. As Doyle begins to piece the story of the treasure together for the reader, these sequences come as opportunities to fill in any gaps left by Holmes's deduction and confirm the full extent of the crime and intrigue behind the treasure's arrival in England. Although Holmes's keen detective work can deliver the reader to these characters, it is only their flashbacks that can reveal the actual mysteries of the Agra treasure and its blood-soaked legacy.
Related Themes:
