44 pages • 1 hour read
Arthur Conan DoyleThe Sign of the Four
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1890A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
British Imperialism and Its Impact
Content Warning: This section contains outdated and offensive language and racist stereotypes.
One of the major themes of the novel is the examination of British imperialism. Though British imperialism affected many countries throughout Asia, Africa, and the Americas, The Sign of Four focuses specifically on India, where the British Empire had been in power since the mid-1700s, primarily through the East India Company. The East India Company, often referred to simply as The Company, was a private enterprise and the merchant arm of the British Empire. It was also the controlling organization throughout much of India. Though it was not itself a part of the British government, it was paramount to the British economy and was therefore protected by the British Army.
The narrative does not portray the imperialist/colonialist actions of the British Empire firsthand, but imperialism nonetheless permeates the plot and setting. Small, Morstan, and Sholto, as British soldiers in India, are de facto agents of British imperialism tasked with subjugating the Indian population. Furthermore, Small’s story of murder and theft of a Rajah’s treasure takes place against the backdrop of the Indian Mutiny of 1857-58, which was fueled by Indian resentment of British colonialism, and was a violent though ultimately unsuccessful attempt to kick the British out of India (Klinger, Leslie S. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes Vol 3. Norton & Co, 2006. 349).
The theme is also reinforced by references to India, a repeated motif that appears from the second chapter onward, even before India’s relevance to the plot is fully revealed. These references include Thaddeus’s and the Sholto family’s many Indian (“Hindu”) servants, Morstan’s post as a British guard on the Andaman Islands (off the coast of India), the diagram Mary shows to Holmes, which is drawn on paper of “Indian manufacture,” as well as the Agra treasure itself.
The Agra treasure is, among other things, a symbol of India’s power and natural resources. The theft of the Agra treasure by British officers therefore symbolizes the theft the British Empire committed against the entire country and its culture. Small, who commits the theft, represents the strong-arm of British imperialism, while Sholto, who keeps the treasure for himself and becomes an extremely wealthy man when he returns to London, represents the way the British (both military and citizen) profit from this ransacking of India, with no regard for the people they have stolen from and subjugated (such as his Indian servants). British imperialism is the ultimate cause of all the deaths in the story, none of which would have happened if not for the unjust oppression of the Indian people by the British Army and the East India Company.
The Consequences of Wealth and Greed
The second major theme of the novel deals with the dangers of wealth and greed. The primary symbol of this theme is the Agra treasure, which represents immense wealth for those who possess it. However, this wealth comes at a high cost, and everyone who possesses the treasure meets with a tragic end.
The characters who best illustrate the dangers of wealth and greed are Small and Sholto. Small becomes so singularly focused on the promise of wealth, that he resorts to murder, escapes from prison, travels halfway across the world for revenge, and ultimately loses both the treasure and his freedom all over again. Sholto is likewise so overcome with greed that he betrays his friend Morstan as well as the rest of the “sign of four” thieves. He returns to London an enormously wealthy man, but is plagued by guilt for his actions and fear of losing the treasure. Even on his deathbed, when the treasure can do him no good, Sholto still finds himself unable to part with even a single piece to give to Mary, asking his sons to do it for him after he dies. His greed finally kills him; when he realizes Small has come to take the treasure, he is so afraid that he has a heart attack and dies. As Small summarizes upon his capture, the Agra treasure and the greed it inspires lead to nothing but fear, death, and imprisonment. Even so, he only parts with it when it becomes clear he is about to lose it. He would rather see the treasure lost forever than risk someone else benefiting from it. Knowing about the treasure’s “curse” doesn’t do anything to lessen his desire for it.
However, the story offers a counterpoint to these two characters in both Thaddeus and Mary. Unlike his father and twin brother, Thaddeus believes he has more than enough wealth already and is perfectly happy, insistent even, on giving Mary her fair share of the treasure. Thaddeus thus avoids the obsessive greed of others in his family, and therefore also avoids their violent fates. Likewise, Mary displays little concern for the treasure or the wealth it promises. Though she is only a governess who relies on her employer for home and financial support, the prospect of becoming the wealthiest heiress in England seems to hold little appeal to her. Every time the treasure is mentioned, she disregards it, showing far more concern for the fate of her father. When she and Watson discover that the treasure is lost, she is relieved rather than upset because it represented a barrier between them. As Watson summarizes, “whoever had lost a treasure, [they] knew that night that [they] had gained one” in each other (115). If Sholto and Small illustrate the dangers of greed, then Thaddeus and Mary illustrate the virtues of moderation. The former are punished, while the latter are rewarded.
Criminality, Monstrosity, and Fear of the Other
A third important theme is criminality, which in the novel is closely linked to monstrosity and fear of the other. Othering, in this context, refers to a process of labeling those outside the mainstream culture as being separate, lesser, and subordinate. For the white characters in this novel, the other is Indian. Even British citizens who have never visited India or encountered Indian culture are taught to view the Indian other as animalistic, even monstrous, and therefore dangerous and criminal. The character of Tonga best exemplifies this othering, though all the Indian characters, including Sholto’s servants and Small’s other accomplices, are likewise exoticized and criminalized.
Tonga, however, is most blatantly portrayed as less than human, described as “half animal” by Watson, and labeled a bloodthirsty “hell-hound” by Small, despite the fact that Tonga murders Bartholomew on Small’s behalf. To the British characters, Tonga represents mindless and animalistic violence. Watson, in his narration, repeatedly emphasizes Tonga’s monstrous appearance, with “eyes that burned and glowed” and a “hideous face” (105). Even Holmes’s supposedly factual account of the Andaman Islands relies on offensive racist stereotypes, such as the claim that the Andamanese native population are “the smallest race upon this earth” (83), prone to violence, untrustworthy, murderous, and even cannibalistic.
In the course of Holmes’s investigation, he quickly determines that Small’s accomplice must be an Andamanese native. Despite the fact that Small is the person most obsessed with finding the Agra treasure and exacting revenge on Major Sholto, it is his unknown Andamanese accomplice to whom Holmes attributes violence and savagery. Even though Holmes has previously claimed that he is not swayed by physical characteristics (explaining that the most beautiful woman he ever saw was a murderer, and the ugliest man he ever met was a philanthropist), in this case, he readily equates criminality with perceived physical monstrosity.
This theme relates closely to British Imperialism and Its Impact, in that the English characters use the monstrous other implicitly or explicitly to justify colonialism and imperial expansion. Describing his experience of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, Small says:
Suddenly, without a note of warning, the great mutiny broke upon us. One month India lay as still and peaceful, to all appearances, as Surrey or Kent; the next there were two hundred thousand black devils let loose, and the country was a perfect hell (121).
Small portrays India as a savage land that needs to be tamed by the civilizing influence of the English. As soon as English imperial power is challenged, the “peaceful” landscape devolves into nightmarish chaos. Small expresses shock that the Indian people would dare to fight to take back their own country, because he does not see them as human. They are merely “devils let loose” (121)— monstrous, uncaged animals incapable of governing themselves. Small believes that the British Empire is justified in criminalizing—and punishing—the monstrous other.
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