Irene Adler is a special woman

 

When it comes to the characters in Sherlock Holmes stories, what will people come up with? If you are not familiar with Sherlock Holmes, maybe you will say Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Dr. John Watson. If you have some knowledge of the story, maybe you will say Professor James Moriarty, the main enemy against Holmes, inspector Lestrade, the representative character in Scotland Yard(police), and someone will come up with a female character, Irene Adler.

Irene Adler, a female character in Sherlock Holmes series wrote by Arthur Conan Doyle, she only appeared once in A Scandal in Bohemia of The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, but why is the woman who only appeared once in one short story so famous?

Let me introduce the story of A Scandal in Bohemia briefly: a king of Bohemia told Holmes a story that he had a secret relationship with American opera singer Irene Adler. And the king was going to marry a princess, but he was worrying that when the conservative princess knew it, she would break the engagement. Irene had a photo indicating that she had a relationship with the king, the king was afraid that she would use it to threaten him, so he employed Holmes to take the photo back and was willing to pay a large amount of money. Holmes tried a lot of ways to get the photo, but no matter what he tried, he failed but he found the place that the photo was hidden. In the end, Holmes went to Irene’s home with Watson, planned to steal the photo, but there was a maid instead of Irene, she told Holmes Irene has leaved this country and gave Holmes the photo with a letter written for Holmes by Irene. The letter said Irene has seen through all the technique that Holmes made, and told him she was no longer need the photo because she was getting married.

Now we understand what Irene did in original, we understand why she is special, she defeated Holmes and changed Holmes’s point of view of female. There has some person that Holmes didn’t catch or let Holmes make mistakes, but when it comes to the only person that defeated Holmes in real meaning, there’s only the woman, Irene Adler.

As for the article I read, it is mainly about Irene in two famous adaptations of Holmes story, Holmes was respectively played by Robert Downey Jr and Benedict Cumberbatch, and Irene was respectively played by Rachel Anne McAdams and Lara Pulver, one is in 19 centuries and the other is in 21 centuries. Their Irene are both clever as the original, and both of them didn’t follow society’s expectations of women at the time, for example, the article mentioned the McAdams’ Irene abandoned her husband because “he was boring and jealous, and he snored”, in 19 centuries, people often expect that women need to take care of her families and doing housework, but Irene Adler won’t. As for Pulver’s Irene, she was created as a SM queen, and use women’s weapon to get what she wanted and place herself in a superior position. however, McAdams’ Irene was employed by Moriarty, it let things Irene did looked like Moriarty’s plan, not Irene’s wisdom she planned herself, and Moriarty killed her when he thought she was useless. Pulver’s Irene finally fell in love with Holmes, which made her fail.

In these two cases, sadly, they were both defeated by man. It let Irene looks not as brilliant as her in original, although it is 21 centuries now, there is still a little masculinity left in our society. I think this is why Irene Adler would be famous and popular in original Sherlock Holmes stories, the story was written in 19 centuries, an era that women didn’t be allowed to vote or have civil rights, even going to the college was a rare thing for them, but Irene use her own wisdom to defeat Holmes, not by Moriarty’s hand, not falling in love with Holmes. This is a commendable thing for a woman who live in 19 century and for a male writer to write such a female character.

Luckily, I was born in 21 centuries, women are respected and has many rights as much as men in many countries. But there are still some sexism actions hidden in the society, women still need to fight against it, not to mention women who live in the country that doesn’t give them rights and respect.

The article:https://www.google.com.tw/amp/s/screen-queens.com/2019/01/14/irene-adler-the-unconventional-woman/amp/