Mediating Girl Power: A Cognitive Approach to Enola Holmes on Page and Screen

Children’s mystery and detective fiction has often reflected cultural and societal changes, introducing the concept of “girl power” as early as the first half of the twentieth century. This article compares the “girl sleuth” narrative in Nancy Springer’s The Case of the Missing Marquess (2006) and the “super-sleuth” schema in the film adaptation Enola Holmes (2020). Relying on cognitive criticism, the analysis focuses on the conceptual properties of mystery and detective narratives as well as the strategies of detection employed by the girl sleuth to distinguish between the synchronous/inclusive models of empowerment found in children’s mysteries and the transient/exclusive ones in super-sleuth action-adventure adaptations. As a modern retelling of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, the Enola Holmes story transforms the central schema in the great detective script by depicting the neo-Victorian girl sleuth’s transgression into the public sphere and the attainment of the feminine ideal of girl power. However, in popular media culture, the synchronous models of empowerment are often replaced by transient models, which are characterized by hyper-transgressions, the objectification of knowledge and cognition, and the affective engagement of viewers. Accordingly, the super-sleuth schema is the product of media discourses of empowerment and hyper-textual practices that often forgo the integration of body, mind and context found in mystery and detective stories. By embodying the contemporary treatment of knowledge and power as ephemerally shared commodities, the super-sleuth does not let the viewer into the game to the same degree as the girl sleuth does, providing a less empowering experience for its intended audience.