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Jonathan Small in The Sign of Four — character analysis

The Sign of Four · Arthur Conan Doyle · Set text on AQA GCSE English Literature (8702) — 19th-century novel option; not on Pearson Edexcel International GCSE (4ET1) · Grade 9 Notes

In one sentence. The convict with the wooden leg and the long story

Jonathan Small is the wooden-legged man behind the crime. A soldier who lost his leg in India, he was working on an indigo plantation when the rebellion of 1857 broke out. Trapped in the fort at Agra, he joined three Sikh guards in murdering a merchant, Achmet, for a treasure he carried. Convicted of the murder, he was sent to the penal settlement on the Andaman Islands, where two officers, Major Sholto and Captain Morstan, agreed to help him escape in exchange for a share. Sholto betrayed them all and took the treasure to England. Small escaped with Tonga, an Andaman Islander, and spent years tracking it down. Captured after the chase, he reveals that he has thrown the treasure into the Thames, and tells his story in the final chapter.

This study ends with Arthur Conan Doyle. Build your reading of Jonathan Small in The Sign of Four, teach it, then defend it against Arthur Conan Doyle.

How Jonathan Small develops

India and the Andamans

Small first exists in the novel only as traces: a paper among Captain Morstan's things bearing a plan of a fort and four names, and the same paper left by the murdered Bartholomew.

“the sign of the four” — The paper among Captain Morstan's things, and at the murder, Chapters 3–6

The phrase that gives the novel its title marks a pact between four thieves — Small and three Sikh guards. It turns a theft into a bond of vengeance that crosses decades and continents.

Methods: title motif · repetition

Small's story, told in his own voice in Chapter 12, moves from an English village to the army, to India, to the fort at Agra during the rebellion, to the murder of Achmet, to the convict settlement in the Andaman Islands. It is told from the point of view of a British soldier and convict, and its account of the rebellion and of Indian people is shaped by imperial assumptions: the rebels appear as a faceless threat, and the narrative accepts the right of the British to rule. A modern reader should notice this rather than absorb it.

London and the end

In London Small finds Pondicherry Lodge, and Tonga kills Bartholomew Sholto with a poisoned dart, which Small says he never intended. Pursued down the Thames, Small is captured and Tonga is shot dead. Small has thrown the treasure into the river rather than let anyone else have it: he claims it was his by right, earned by years of suffering.

“The Great Agra Treasure” — Chapter title, Chapter 11

The chapter in which the box is found empty is named for the treasure's imperial origin. The title promises a fortune; the chapter delivers nothing, and Small's spite is the reason.

Methods: chapter title · irony

How Conan Doyle builds Small in language and structure

Small is first known by traces: the print of a wooden leg, the paper with the sign of the four.

In Chapter 12 he tells his story in his own colloquial voice, an embedded narrative that explains the crime.

Structurally he moves from hidden threat to narrator, and the novel gives him its last full story.

Small in context

His story is set in the 1857 rebellion and the Andaman penal settlement; it is told from a British soldier's viewpoint that carries imperial assumptions about Indian people.

His companion Tonga is presented through racist, dehumanising description and given no voice — a feature of the novel to name, not repeat.

Relationships

  • Tonga — His companion; the novel presents Tonga through racist and dehumanising description and gives him no voice.
  • Major Sholto — The officer who betrayed him and stole the treasure.
  • The three Sikh guards — His partners in the murder of Achmet — the 'four' of the title.

What Jonathan Small stands for

  • The wooden leg: a body marked by empire.
  • The sign of the four: a pact of thieves that becomes a mark of vengeance.

Why Doyle made Jonathan Small

  • To give the mystery a back-story set in imperial India.
  • To complicate guilt: Small is a murderer, and also a man cheated by an officer and a gentleman.

Jonathan Small — the strongest quotations, analysed

“The Strange Story of Jonathan Small” — Chapter title, Chapter 12

The novel hands its last chapter to the criminal's own story. Small's voice explains the crime, which complicates any simple sense of who is guilty.

Methods: chapter title · embedded narrative

Jonathan Small: all 6 quotations in the The Sign of Four quote bank, analysed →

Readings you could defend

More than one reading of Jonathan Small can win the debate. These are the credible alternatives — argue one, and know the others.

  • A murderer whose self-pity cannot excuse his crime.
  • A man made bitter by the betrayal of a gentleman officer.
  • A product of empire: a working-class soldier used and discarded by it.

Essay arguments

  • Conan Doyle lets Small tell his own story, so the final chapter questions who the real thief was.
  • Small's throwing away the treasure shows greed turned into spite.
  • Small's narrative carries the novel's imperial assumptions, which an essay can name and examine.

Jonathan Small in theme essays

  • Greed: the treasure thrown into the Thames.
  • Empire: the fort at Agra and the Andaman Islands.

Questions that get asked

  • Read the extract from Chapter 12 in which Small tells his story. How does Conan Doyle present Small here and across the novel?
  • How does Conan Doyle explore ideas about guilt in The Sign of Four?

Think you understand it?

Reading is the start. On Incandio a topic counts as mastered only once you have taught it and defended it — the two things a revision guide cannot ask of you.

Incandio this topic → Prove it. Teach it. Defend it. What does “Incandio it” mean?

  1. Teach it — Explain your reading of Jonathan Small in The Sign of Four to Ember, an AI pupil who has not made one, and answer the awkward question. Understanding is credited; wording is not required.
  2. Defend it — Hold your reading of Jonathan Small in The Sign of Four against Arthur Conan Doyle in a short, structured debate marked against descriptors you can read first.
  3. Then the exam — exam-style practice, marked on Incandio.

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