84 pages • 2 hours read
James D. WatsonThe Double Helix
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1968A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 1-4Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 1 Summary
Watson begins with a description of Francis Crick, who he first met in autumn of 1951, when he came to the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge to work on the structures of proteins.
He starts, “I have never seen Francis Crick in a modest mood” (7), and notes this immodesty long pre-dates his recent fame. Crick, who was 35 at time, was “almost totally unknown”, and despite his quick mind, had a reputation for talking too much (7).
Watson briefly describes the other key figures at the Cavendish. He mentions Max Perutz, the unit leader, who was working with X-ray diffraction techniques on haemoglobin crystals. He also mentions Lawrence Bragg, the director of the Cavendish. Bragg was then a well-established scientist and Nobel Prize winner. A pioneer of crystallography and X-ray diffraction methods, in the early post-war years Bragg was interested in using X-ray diffraction to determine the structure of complex proteins.
Bragg is characterised as the theorist, with Perutz as the experimentalist, and between them Watson locates Crick, who dabbles in both, but whose natural bent was for throwing out speculative theories to anyone who would listen. He is described as lively and impetuous in his theorising, talking “louder and faster than anyone else” (8). His manic presence was enjoyed by most, excluding Bragg, who could barely stand him.
Crick was expansive in his theorising, and would go to other labs enthusiastically offering bold new interpretations of the data of another scientist. This led to an “unspoken fear” in some quarters that he might one day hit the mark (9).
Crick wasn’t a fellow of any Cambridge college, something which Watson puts down in part to his eccentric and challenging nature.
Chapter 2 Summary
This chapter provides important scientific background and introduces us to Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin.
Watson explains that in 1951 Crick was still working on proteins, not DNA. Despite his increasing interest in DNA, there were reasons why his focus hadn’t yet shifted. At the time, scientists were starting to appreciate the crucial significance of genes as the key to understanding cell reproduction, hereditary characteristics, and life itself. Experiments had shown that hereditary traits could be transmitted in bacteria cells by DNA, but scientists were still divided as to whether the key component in genes was a special type of protein molecule or DNA itself. Having started work in the field of proteins, Crick was not in a position to switch his attention just yet, despite having a good hunch about DNA.
There were other major practical constraints. The focus of the Cavendish lab was on proteins. Moreover, Maurice Wilkins, who was based in King’s College, London, was recognised as the authority on DNA in England. DNA was seen as his domain, “and it would look very bad if Francis jumped in on a problem that Maurice had been working on for years”(12).Watson notes that this vague sense of fair play informed the way scientists interacted in England, in a way that it did not in the US.
The frustration for Crick was that Wilkins, while very intelligent, was too steady and studious. Also, Wilkins’ progress on DNA was affected by a tense relationship with his colleague, Rosalind Franklin. Franklin had been brought in as an expert on x-ray diffraction allegedly to help with his work on DNA. She, however, saw herself as an equal and independent researcher, and a bitter power struggle was underway between the two.
Watson goes on to describe Franklin, then 31 years old. While not unattractive, “by choice she did not emphasise her feminine qualities” (14). From Wilkins’ assumed perspective, she is described as austere, with a “good brain,” but belligerent, and almost impossible to work with (14). Their personal struggle made scientific progress seem unlikely.
As a final complicating factor, we learn that the brilliant American chemist Linus Pauling is also turning his attention to the problem of DNA around this time.
Chapter 3 Summary
This chapter explains how Watson himself came into the picture. It jumps back to the spring of 1951, when Watson attended a lecture on DNA by Wilkins at a small scientific meeting in Naples. At the time, Watson was a young man, doing post-doctoral research at the University of Copenhagen, with the biochemist Herman Kalckar.
Watson’s main area of research was in microbiology and the replication of bacterial viruses, known as “phages.” His approach followed from a group of scientists who held that studying the behaviour of phages might hold the key to understanding genes. Watson’s PhD supervisor, Salvador Luria, and his friend, Max Delbruck, were chief proponents of this approach. Luria suspected that understanding the chemical structure of viruses was crucial to understanding their behaviour, and so had sent Watson, “his first serious student,” to learn chemistry with Kalckar (17).
Things were not working out, though. Watson had no natural bent for chemistry and couldn’t see how Kalckar’s work “would lead to anything of immediate interest to geneticists” (18). He began spending more time in the lab of a friend of Kalckar’s, who was researching phages, and together they made some respectable progress, though not in the direction of understanding genes. Watson feels awkward about side-lining his work with Kalckar, especially as he still requests an extension of that fellowship. But when Kalckar tells him he is getting divorced and it seems his mind will not be on science for a while, it appears that things have worked out for the best.
Sensing he needs to learn more genetics, Watson accompanies Kalckar to the Zoological Station at Naples for a few months that spring.
Chapter 4 Summary
This chapter focus on events in the small meeting in Naples, where Watson hears Wilkins speak. Wilkins arrives there to give a talk, in place of the director of his King’s College lab. We learn that these kinds of gatherings are not usually serious scientific affairs—more social events, with touristic excursions.
Watson, who had been in Naples for several weeks at this point, was already restless: frustrated by the cold, and the fact that though he was grasping some of Kalckar’s work, “[g]enes were never at the centre, or even the peripheries of his thoughts” (22).
Watson spends his time reading old journal articles and daydreaming about discovering the secret of genes, but without “the faintest trace of a respectable idea” (22).
Wilkins’ talk, with its x-ray diffraction image of DNA, is the only one that strikes Watson at the meeting. The image Wilkins presents reflects a crystalline substance and the strong possibility therefore of a regular and solvable structure for DNA: “[s]uddenly I was excited about chemistry” (23).
Watson considers the value of working with Wilkins and attempts to start building a relationship. The presence of Watson’s attractive sister, Elizabeth, on the excursion, and his own intense interest in DNA is not, however, enough to establish a strong connection: “[o]ur futures did not seem to be in London” (24).
Chapters 1-4 Analysis
These early chapters do a good deal of scene setting. They introduce us to the main characters in the story of DNA, provide valuable scientific context, and also explain what brought Watson to the Cavendish, and what motivates his interest in DNA.
We see something of Watson’s style and approach as narrator. As Bragg had warned in the Foreword, his style is remarkably frank and direct, especially when describing people. He works in broad, memorable strokes, and at times strikes a satirical note.
His presentation of Crick is a good example. No physical description is offered, but we have the impression of his “booming laugh” (8), his loud effusive presence, and the endless stream of new ideas being pronounced to all who will listen. He is characterised primarily as an uncontrollable voice. This is comically counterpointed by the more reserved and delicate presence of Bragg, who retreats at the first sign of Crick’s laugh. We are even given the comical scene of Crick (more theorist than experimentalist) twice flooding the corridor near Bragg’s office.
When it comes to the description of Rosalind Franklin in Chapter 3, Watson again works in broad strokes. Notable here is the role of gender in Watson’s description. Franklin is unusual as a female scientist working at a time when science was almost exclusively a male domain. Watson’s initial presentation of her is symptomatic of the difficulties she must have faced. She is introduced as Maurice’s troublesome assistant, “not that he was in love with [her]” (13).
While her scientific abilities are conceded, the initial and primary focus is on her status as a woman, and a problematic woman at that. The perspective here is one of sympathy with Wilkins for having to deal with her.
Unlike other figures, she is described primarily in physical terms. She is a woman who plays down her “feminine qualities,” both in terms of looks and behaviour; she “might have been quite stunning had she taken even a mild interest in clothes” (14). We detect a note of rebuke here, and perhaps also a question about traditional gender roles. Is an unspoken part of Watson’s concern that Franklin is adopting a role not suited to her sex? Perhaps Franklin’s choice of dress and assertive nature form part of an attempt to claim some sense of authority in a scientific community slow to welcome women as equals.
In this section, the overwhelming impression given of Franklin is as an obstacle to Wilkins’ progress. This is certainly a passage that doesn’t speak well for Watson (or conventional attitudes to women at the time). It is perhaps in keeping with the author’s commitment to honestly represent his impressions of the moment, however “unfair” they might be. In the Epilogue, speaking from a distanced and considered perspective, Watson gives a much more sympathetic portrayal of Franklin.
Watson prefers to dwell on portrayal of other characters and gives no sustained presentation of his own character. Still, in these early chapters, a distinct impression of the narrator begins to emerge.
We can see his ambition, his desire for glory focused around uncovering the secret of genes. He is a young, talented, and self-interested scientist, with keen pragmatic instincts for how best to apply himself to this goal. He becomes quickly impatient when he comes upon work he feels is leading nowhere, and doesn’t mind bending rules to find shortcuts to progress. We see this in the way he handles the fellowship in Copenhagen, and his quick attempt to establish a connection with Wilkins, even using his sister as bait.
As much as his scientific talent, it is this resourcefulness and unscrupulous pragmatism which gets him on the right track. His chemistry at this stage may be limited, but he has a talent for sniffing out where the heart of the matter lies, and (just as importantly) where it does not. He zeroes in quickly on the structure of DNA and x-ray diffraction as the crux of the matter, and orientates his actions efficiently around that.
We also see that quick and emphatic judgements are part of his nature: from those he makes about his colleagues and the majority of talks at the Naples meeting to the intellectual calibre of his sister’s suitors.
These early chapters also provide a sense of the diversity and complexity of the scientific disciplines and approaches that gathered around the understanding of genes.
In Chapter 1, Watson notes the distinction between the theorist and the experimentalist, with the latter requiring months of dedicated labour to build up data, while the former is more a case of looking for coherence, for the big picture. We see raised again the moral dilemma about intellectual ownership, as other scientists fear Crick swooping in, and the etiquette of “fair play” which establishes DNA as Wilkins’ domain, in England at least.
We hear of a distinction in calibre of science and scientist, with Watson repeating Crick’s opinion that a good number of scientists are “narrow minded” and “stupid” (12).
Finally, we note the various disciplines and approaches, and the ways they intersect on the issue of genes. From structural chemistry, and mathematically complex crystallography, to biochemistry and psychics. It’s clear the solution will depend on their interaction in some way, hence Watson’s renewed interest in chemistry. Part of the interest here, on a personal and scientific level, is the way these different approaches interact.
One thing they all seem to agree on is that cracking “the secret of genes” would represent a crucial step forward and a personal victory. This is nothing less than the secret of how life organises and reproduces itself, how all organisms are created at a molecular level. It is in this spirit that Watson refers to Wilkins’ x-ray image as a “potential key to the secret of life” (25).
