Dr. Gregory House was one of the most enigmatic characters on the hugely popular Fox network medical drama, House M.D. The talented British actor Hugh Laurie gave a career-best performance as the eccentric medical genius who headed the Department of Diagnostic Medicine at the Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital.
One of the basic premises of the show was the personality of its male lead, a socially inept but brilliant physician who is a master at solving the most mind-boggling medical mysteries. But as enrapturing as the character is, it’s intriguing when you realize that the inspiration for the character lay in a classic literary figure—the legendary creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes.
The Name Itself Is A Play On ‘Holmes’
You wouldn’t realize it off the top of your head but the name House is a play on ‘Holmes’; in fact, it’s a homophone for the word ‘Homes’. Sherlock Holmes was an unusual name, to begin with, and the creators of the show drew inspiration from this strange nomenclature to name their protagonist.
The idea was to develop this sardonic character with a strange name and exceptional talents, modeled on the evergreen figure of the literary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes.
James Wilson Was Really John Watson
Once again, it might go unnoticed but the mild-mannered, warm-hearted oncologist James Wilson, who is House’s only real friend in the whole wide world, is actually meant to be Sherlock Holmes’ closest friend and associate, Dr. John Watson. The adorable Wilson was an instant fan favorite. He was a perpetual victim of House’s weird—often verging on crazy— antics, but was the one person that House trusted implicitly, a fact the latter took full advantage of.
Wilson offered House some stable ground, acting as his conscience and creating a bridge between him and the society. Like Dr. Watson who indulged his otherwise brilliant friend’s eccentricities, Wilson too was an enabler, although he tries to knock some sense into the cranky genius from time to time. Another thing that Wilson had in common with Watson was his affinity to women. He wasn’t a quintessential ladies’ man but he was much married and dated every now and then.
House Lived at 221B
The references to Holmes become crystal clear when House's home address is shown to be 221B. Needless to say, this is the legendary address of the apartment that Sherlock Holmes rented with Dr. Watson.
House is a loner. He lives alone, unlike Holmes, although Wilson hangs out with him once too often and has also been known to live with him for short periods. The apartment is House’s den where he plays the piano and es out on Vicodin.
House Is An Idiosyncratic Genius
Sherlock Holmes was a brilliant detective, and a deeply idiosyncratic one. He would lie on his sofa for days on end when he was obsessing with a case, forget to eat and could tell the difference between 140 types of ashes.
House too was full of quirks. In fact, he drove people crazy with his eccentric ways, a premise that the show relied on greatly for many of its most hilarious moments. From getting his fellows to dig through his patients’ houses to suddenly getting a wheelchair to compete with a specially-abled person for a parking spot to drugging his best friend and his girlfriend's mother, House pretty much takes the cake in quirky.
Like Holmes, House Is An Addict
Holmes, as we know, was an addict. Not only did he smoke tobacco —the most iconic image of Holmes in people’s minds is the detective smoking a pipe with his deerstalker hat on—he did both cocaine and morphine, especially when he didn’t have a case to stimulate his brain. He famously injected himself with a seven percent solution of morphine; Watson disapproved of his friend’s drug habit and tried his best to get him to give it up.
House too is addicted to the pain medication Vicodin. The unbearable pain from his leg where he had an infarction in his right thigh was what initially drove him to drug dependency. He is shown to go into massive hallucinatory episodes. His dependence on the pain meds and his friends’ failed endeavors to wean him off is another main premise of the show.
House Plays Music In His Pastime
House has multiple talents besides being a great doctor and irritating people incessantly. He is a musician who plays the piano beautifully in his leisure.
Of course, anybody who has ever read any Holmes story knows that the detective too played the violin. He had apparently purchased it for a pittance from a broker in London’s Tottenham Court Road. He would play to while away time when he was bored and didn’t have a case in hand.
House Was Socially Inept Just Like Holmes
One of the primary traits in House’s personality is his maddening ability to drive everyone around him crazy. He is not only socially handicapped but seems to take pleasure in alienating people and slowly turning into an embittered, cantankerous man. In fact, House has so little interest in human , that he doesn’t even visit his patients until and unless it’s absolutely necessary, relying on his fellows to deal with them most of the time.
Similarly, Sherlock Holmes was a socially awkward man who had little interest in humanity as such. He had no friends except Watson and apparently saw his elder brother Mycroft only when there was some curious case to discuss.
House Loved A Single Woman With All His Heart
Holmes, as fans would know, didn’t have a lot of interest in the fairer sex. It was Watson who had a weakness for women. In fact, Holmes’ sexuality has been the topic of much intrigue over the years as the detective has been given a contemporary feel in more recent depictions. However, there was one woman, whom Holmes called ‘the woman’ who bested even this genius detective; readers have been given to understand that he always held a candle for the beguiling Irene Adler.
House has been married in the past and he still loves his ex-wife. However, during the course of the show, he is obsessed with a particular woman—Lisa Cuddy. Holmes’ respect for Adler, which modern-day interpretations have hinted was more than mere respect, never turned into a proper relationship, although House and Cuddy actually loved each other and thought of starting a life together. But then, House, in his inimitable manner, managed to mess things up spectacularly, causing Cuddy to leave him forever. This led directly to House’s mental decline and the viewer understands that despite his bitterness, he always loved her.
House Was A Puzzle Solver
A major characteristic of Dr. House is that he sees his cases as medical riddles or puzzles and he cannot rest until he has got to the bottom of it. His obsession with finding out the truth about the patient’s condition is part of his enigma; he has no interest in his patients as people, as mentioned earlier, and sees each of them as medical mysteries.
Holmes, of course, was the master of deduction. He was intrigued by the problem, having little curiosity with the people involved in the cases. He took an interest in cases that were singular in nature, just like House, who only ever bothered to take on a patient with very intriguing symptoms. Holmes, like House, obsessed with his cases until he had figured it out.
Like Holmes, House Faked His Death
Finally, the makers of House did not leave anyone in doubt about the inspiration that House drew from Holmes as they decided to end the show with House faking his death to spend time with his dying friend, Dr. Wilson.
Holmes, as is well-known, faked his own death when he got into a fight with Professor James Moriarty. Even his dear friend, Watson, was kept in the dark until he revealed himself to him in disguise, and almost gave Watson a heart attack. Conan Doyle famously had to bring his eccentric detective back from the dead due to popular demand.