Character 3

Name: Arthur Jenkins

Age: 26

Place of birth: Brixton, London

Residence: Canary Wharf, London

Education: Evelyn Grace Academy, Brixton, self-employed

Relationship status: Single

Occupation: Amateur, self-employed police detective
Personality: stern, blunt, rude, inquisitive, authoritative

Backstory:

• Arthur is the only child of a doctor and an accountant. His father had a strong reputation within the Brixton area due to his doctor's surgery being local and serving many members of the community.
• As a child, his father owned a collection of Sherlock Holmes and detective memorabilia (books, films, TV series, magazines etc). At the age of 5, he sat down with his father and watched the 1959 film adaptation of Arthur Conan-Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles starring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Enthralled by the detective skills of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur developed an admiration for Conan Doyle and stories of famous detectives such as Hercule Poirot and Phillip Marlowe. This eventually developed into a lasting obsession that began to affect his everyday life.
• He insisted on going to school dressed as Sherlock Holmes, which made him very unpopular with his peers, often becoming the subject of jokes and teasing. During his time at school, Arthur began to develop a hard exterior which affects his empathy with other people's situations, a trait he takes advantage of with his detective work.
• English literature and Biology were his strongest subjects.
• Left school with 5 GCSEs (English, Maths, Biology and Chemistry) and eventually dropped out of sixth form college due to disinterest in his subjects and the constant need to tie everything he learns into his fascination with detectives.
• Arthur spent the latter half of his teenage years following police investigations around attempting to help solve any crimes that were happening in the area. He was banned from several police stations.
• Currently lives in a shared flat in Canary Wharf, living off of jobseekers allowance whilst attempting to pursue his detective work.
• Arthur is very stern and inquisitive. He is always scrutinizing people for signs of anything that could convict them of committing any sort of crime he can think of.
• He constantly carries a notebook on him so he can obsessively record every detail he comes across.
• He often comes to outrageous, irrational and offensive conclusions and accuses people of committing crimes they couldn't possibly have committed.
• His favourite films are The Big Sleep (1946), Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), Dial M For Murder (1954), Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
• His favourite books are: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, And Then There Were None,
• The Spy Who Came In From the Cold
• He enjoys listening to classical music, especially Mozart, Bach and Rachmaninoff.
• He likes to walk with his hands behind his back, he gets an air of authority and knowledge from it.
• He has little to no empathy for the situations of other human beings, very typical behaviour of a sociopath. He rarely gets on with people and is often labelled rude and pretentious.

========================================================================

Research:

The "Don Quixote" Complex

One major aspect of this character is that he sees himself as an intelligent, resourceful detective who has an eye for solving crimes. This stems completely from his fascination with detective novels and the actions of fictional detectives such as Philip Marlowe and Sherlock Holmes. This is reminiscent of the novel Don Quixote (Cervantes, 1605), which tells the story of a man who reads so many romantic novels, he believes he is a romantic hero himself.

    

Fictional Detectives

Whilst creating this character, I drew a lot of inspiration from the BBC television series Sherlock, a modern day retelling of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. The character is portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch, and displays the same sociopathic tendencies as Arthur. The character is very observant and is able to make very accurate evaluations based on minute details such as the brand of watch a character wears or the fabric of somebody's clothing. Although the evaluations are true and accurate, he is very blunt and unsympathetic in his analysis and still manages to offend people with them. This was the primary basis of this character.

"Anderson, don't talk out loud, you lower the IQ of the entire street."

"I am the most unpleasant, rude, ignorant and all round obnoxious arsehole that anyone could possibly have the misfortune to meet."

Although Sherlock Holmes is the primary influence on the character's detective preoccupation, he is also well read in detective fiction, both classical and contemporary.

The 20 Best Crime Novels of All Time (Telegraph, 2014)

1. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

2. Strangers On a Train - Patricia Highsmith

3. The Daughter of Time - Josephine Tey

4. The Complete Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle

5. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - Agatha Christie

6. The Madman of Bergerac - Georges Simenon

7. The Nine Tailors - Dorothy L. Sayers

8. Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier

9. Miss Smiller's Feeling For Snow - Peter Hoeg

10. In Cold Blood - Truman Capote

11. The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco

12. The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster

13. Misery - Stephen King

14. The Big Sleep - Raymond Chandler

15. LA Confidential - James Elroy

16. Fatherland - Robert Harris

17. True History of the Kelly Gang - Peter Carey

18. Fingersmith - Sarah Waters

19. The Suspicions of Mr Whicher - Kate Summerscale

20. Get Shorty - Elmore Leonard

The 12 Greatest Fictional Dectectives (That Aren't Sherlock Holmes)

12. Alex Cross - Along Came a Spider

11. Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers series

10. Precious Ramotswe - The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency in Botswana

9. Ralph Dibney - Batman series

8. Charlie Chan - The House Without a Key

7. Nero Wolfe - Fer-de-Lance

6. Jessica Fletcher - Murder, She Wrote

5. Hercule Poirot - Agatha Christie series

4. Dirk Gently - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

3. Miss Marple - Agatha Christie series

2. Veronica Mars - Veronica Mars

1. Columbo - Columbo

(Inglis-Arkell, 2015)

The Sociopath

Arthur shares multiple character traits with the modern incarnation of Sherlock Holmes, who regards himself as a sociopath.

Psychopaths and sociopaths share a number of characteristics, including a lack of remorse or empathy for others, a lack of guilt or ability to take responsibility for their actions, a disregard for laws or social conventions, and an inclination to violence. A core feature of both is a deceitful and manipulative nature. But how can we tell them apart?

Sociopaths are normally less emotionally stable and highly impulsive – their behaviour tends to be more erratic than psychopaths. When committing crimes – either violent or non-violent – sociopaths will act more on compulsion. And they will lack patience, giving in much more easily to impulsiveness and lacking detailed planning.

(Mallett, 2015)

In the BBC series Sherlock Holmes, Holmes pronounces to Watson that he is a 'I'm not a psychopath, I'm a high functioning sociopath, do your research', and this fascinating self assessment is one that gets many viewers questioning what precisely a sociopath is.

Sherlock's proclaiming himself a sociopath makes the term seem almost romantic and interesting rather than immediately disturbing when usually we would think of the traits of a sociopath as belonging to a villain, not a protagonist.

(Loewen, 2017)

========================================================================

References:

Cervantes, M. (1992) Don Quixote. London: Wordsworth.

Inglis-Arkell (2015) The 12 Greatest Fictional Detectives (Who Aren't Sherlock Holmes). Available at: http://io9.gizmodo.com/the-12-greatest-fictional-detectives-who-arent-sherloc-1718145839. (Accessed: 29 April, 2017)

Loewen, S. (2017) Characteristics of a Sociopath. Available at: http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/15850/1/Characteristics-of-a-Sociopath.html. (Accessed: 29 April, 2017)

Mallett, X. (2015) The difference between a psychopath and a sociopath. Available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/the-difference-between-a-psychopath-and-a-sociopath-10422016.html. (Accessed: 29 April, 2017)

Telegraph (2014) The 20 Best Crime Novels of All Time. Available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/10616667/The-20-best-crime-novels-of-all-time.html. (Accessed: 29 April, 2017)