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 21-24Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 21 Summary
Now in his second year at Cambridge, Watson is living in cold but attractive quarters in Clare College. The college food is awful, and the “poison” of two local restaurants combines, by November, to give him sustained stomach pains (108).
One evening, at Crick’s new home, Odile discusses getting him a connection with a high class boarding house where many pretty French girls come to practice their English. Odile says she’ll set him up for French lessons with Camile Prior, who runs the establishment, so he might be invited to meet her “current crop of French girls” (109).
Back in his cold room, Watson falls asleep, daydreaming about how DNA chains might fit together. He has written on his walls “DNA → RNA → Protein” (11) which reflects the transference of genetic material from sequences of nucleotides in DNA to sequences of amino acid in proteins. But the molecular structure of DNA still alludes them: “We still remained stuck at the same point we were 12 months before” (110).
Occasional tinkering with their model leads to no further advances, and the presence of Peter Pauling in the lab is welcomed as an opportunity to talk about the “comparative virtues of girls from England, the Continent and California” (112) when scientific talk runs aground.
Much to their horror, Peter comes in with a letter from his father saying he now had a structure for DNA. The letter gives no specifics, and in an anxious frenzy Crick tries to guess at Pauling’s thinking. Watson reflects “the English labs were again about to be humiliated by the Americans” (112).
Chapter 22 Summary
Without news before Christmas from Pauling, Watson becomes more optimistic: maybe he hasn’t quite cracked it. He sees Wilkins and tells him “Pauling is in his pasture” (113). Wilkins seems unmoved, but is happy to share that Franklin has asked for a transfer.
In January, Peter Pauling arrives with a copy of his father’s manuscript on DNA. Pauling’s model is remarkably similar to the one Crick and Watson proposed the previous year: a three-chain helix with a central backbone. Watson reads it quickly, “believing all was lost” (114), but soon senses a mistake in Pauling’s chemistry. The phosphate groups in his example are non-ionised, and contain a bound hydrogen atom with no net charge. This amounts to saying nucleic acid doesn’t have the properties of an acid: “Everything I knew about nucleic acids told me that phosphate groups never contained bound hydrogen atoms” (115).
At first Watson fears this might be some revolutionary move on Pauling’s part, but it gradually becomes clear that it’s simply a mistake. Watson, Crick and others take pleasure in seeing “the world’s most astutechemist” trip up (116). They realize it’s only a matter of time before Pauling realizes his error and redoubles his efforts, and this gives renewed impetus to their own search for the solution.
It’s agreed Watson will take a copy of Pauling’s manuscript to Wilkins, as he’s going to London shortly to see Hayes about their joint work on bacteria reproduction.
Chapter 23 Summary
Watson visits Wilkins in London. He’s busy when Watson arrives so he pops in at Franklin’s office unannounced. He shows her Pauling’s manuscript, points out the error, and also the resemblance to their own attempts. The mention of helices annoys Franklin. She states that not a shred of evidence supports helical postulations.
Watson fights back with some of his recent thinking. Franklin starts to lose her temper and says his stupid ideas are ruled out by her latest photos. Watson retorts that she can’t interpret her own data properly. Franklin steps towards him and “fearing that in her hot anger she might strike” (119), Watson retreats. It is at this point that Wilkins arrives.
Watson explains what happened to Wilkins. He confides in Watson that months earlier she had made a similar “lunge” (120) toward him following an argument. Now seeing Watson as more of an ally, Wilkins shares that he’s been quietly duplicating Franklin’s research so as to make a quick start when she leaves. Crucially, he shares that Franklin produced a photo of a different three-dimensional form of DNA—the B-structure—occurring when the molecule is surrounded by volumes of water.
When Watson sees it, he’s immediately excited, as the pattern is much simpler than the previous A form, and the reflections strongly indicate a helical structure. He hears that Wilkins’ colleague has been working on three chain models without any success yet, the crucial stumbling block being “the absence of a structural hypothesis” (120) for the bases inside the helix. This is assuming that Franklin is right to see the bases in the centre of the molecule and the backbone on the outside.
Watson warns Wilkins of the danger posed by Pauling, but Wilkins remains his usual calm self. Heading back on the train, Watson sketches out what he remembers of the B pattern photo and resolves to start looking at two-chain models instead of three.
Chapter 24 Summary
The next morning, Watson announces the new evidence in the Cavendish, and impresses on Bragg its importance. Bragg encourages Watson to start again with the models, and Watson orders the relevant parts.
Crick arrives talking of how enchanted Odile is with a new French boy that Watson’s sister brought to dinner. Elisabeth Watson is now staying in Cambridge at “Pop’s”, and become friends with the recently-arrived French boy, Bertrard Fourcade, who is staying there, too. He was considered the “most beautiful male in Cambridge” (125), and Odile, like many Cambridge women, was somewhat besotted.
Crick is immediately interested in the new photo evidence, and they set about analysing the details of the 3D structure it implies. Crick is less convinced by Watson’s idea to begin with two-chain models. No serious model building can begin until the pieces have been made.
Watson has dinner at Pop’s with Bertrand, Elisabeth and Peter Pauling. Elisabeth and Bertrand disappear to a fashionable party, leaving Watson and Peter to talk about women.
When the models are ready, three days later, they initially start constructing sugar phosphate backbones, centrally placing them. Watson considers whether the bases could go on the inside. He realises his reluctance to accept this possibility is linked to the sheer variety of arrangements it would create. The key problem is “how to pack together two or more chains with irregular sequences of bases” (127). He and Crick resolve to give “backbone-out” models a shot, while waiting for the shop to build the remaining molecules.
That weekend, Wilkins comes for a visit. He gives no further details, and shows no sense of urgency, but tells them that when Franklin is gone, in six weeks’ time, he will start work in earnest. They ask if he would mind if they started work on DNA models, and he says he wouldn’t. Watson reflects that the work would have continued regardless.
Chapters 21-24 Analysis
This group of chapters are packed with activity, from anxious talk of Pauling’s solution to its arrival and failure, and from the argument with Franklin and new photo evidence to new model-building efforts. The pace of the narrative speeds up, and a new sense of urgency is injected by Pauling’s attempts and the possibilities presented by the new evidence. Again, we have the overriding sense of a race and a competition.
In Chapter 21, we see Watson acknowledging that they’re basically stuck. The crucial change is Franklin’s B-structure photo, which provides new data and new interpretative possibilities that bring them closer to a solution. Practically, as well, the challenge from Pauling creates a situation where Bragg is willing to have Watson working on DNA again. We see again the heart of the problem lies with the nucleotide bases, and how they could be arranged to form regular chains.
Pauling is the acknowledged master of his field, so Watson and Crick aren’t alone in taking delight in his failure, even drinking “a toast” to it (117). Watson’s initial assumption, as soon as he hears Pauling has a paper on DNA, is that the game is up. We see that strong sense of competition again in his assumption that the English labs would be humiliated. We then have a sudden emotional turnaround, from despair to elation. That Pauling gets it wrong gives fresh hope to Watson and Crick, as perhaps does the fact that his attempted solution was so similar to theirs.
Pauling seems to replicate the fuzzy thinking and theoretical over-eagerness to capture the solution that Watson and Crick were guilty of in their first attempt. The key difference is that his authority and stature allow him more faith in his model. It’s intriguing that his mistake should be something so allegedly elementary.
This shows two things: firstly, the familiar eagerness to fudge a solution and find a pattern that fits when there remain deeper unresolved problems. Maybe Pauling, for all his greatness, was also caught up in the spirit of the race; he knew the English labs were working on DNA, and perhaps wanted to mark out his progress before they beat him to it.
Secondly, Pauling appears to work mostly alone. He is presented as the sole scientific genius, where by contrast Watson and Crick (and even in a sense Franklin and Wilkins) form an admittedly fraught team; they are continually challenging and questioning each other, even at times holding each other back, but their shared perspectives makes the chance of a single public blunder like Pauling’s unlikely. Pauling is, after all, only human, and even “the world’s most astute chemist” (115) can make mistakes. Crucial to scientific development are the human elements of debate and collaboration. The partnership of Watson and Crick is, as we shall see, crucial in reaching the eventual solution, and they are clearly spurred on by competition with Pauling. Pauling’s paper in fact sets in motion events that lead to the fight with Franklin and the discovery of the B-structure photo.
In Chapter 23—one of the most dramatic chapters in the book—we have the altercation with Franklin, directly followed by the revelation of the B-structure photo. The argument with Franklin is one area where Watson’s reliability as a narrator may be questioned, partly because it’s such an emotive event. As Watson says in the Preface, “no two people see the same event in exactly the same light” (1), and this is especially true if that event is an argument between them.
Watson paints himself as the more reasonable of the two, and one wonders if he is right to interpret Franklin’s forward movement as a gesture of aggression. We have a continued negative picture of Franklin as belligerent and emotionally unstable, and utterly stubborn in her refusal to see helical properties. Interestingly, though, her B photo (taken the previous summer) will prove absolutely crucial in cracking the structure of DNA, and her idea that the backbone is on the outside is also correct, though Watson doesn’t know this yet.
The fight with Franklin establishes a new level of trust between Watson and Wilkins. Watson has now experienced something of Wilkins’ “emotional hell” (120), and this appears to contribute to Wilkins decision to show Watson the B-photo. This is evidence which he is taking from Franklin without her permission, and this presents the biggest ethical problem in the whole narrative: does this not constitute a significant violation of the rules of scientific fair play and intellectual ownership, so often mentioned? The ambiguity is that Wilkins and Franklin are technically still lab partners, and that maybe Wilkins has some right to the photo in this capacity. However, showing it to Watson, even just briefly, and without permission, raises serious ethical questions.
Interestingly, Watson himself doesn’t dwell on this issue at all. He is immediately caught up in the scientific possibilities presented by the photo, and applies all his resourcefulness to seeking the solution. It could even be argued that, in a subtle or unconscious way, the presentation of Franklin as the irrational aggressor in this chapter helps Watson to paint over, or even justify, the moral issue surrounding his use of her evidence. She is depicted at this point as incapable of seeing the potential of her own evidence. We are reminded again that what Watson is presenting here are his impressions at the time, and these differ markedly from his later retrospective response to Franklin, as seen in the Epilogue.
Amidst all the scientific drama, we have also Watson’s reflections on the Cambridge social scene he’s moving in at the time. Pop’s boarding house, where his sister takes a room, is seen as an appealing place, because of the abundance of attractive French girls there. The language used is predictably objectifying, and we see a familiar opposition repeated, with the arrival of Peter Pauling, as conversation turns to women when science hits a temporary impasse. But we also see that this cuts the other way too, with Odile and others happily admiring the beauty of Bertrand Fourcade.
The busy social calendar of Bertrand and Elisabeth hints at a bustling and fashionable social scene, of which Watson remains more on the margins. As in the world of science, he is more than aware of the power of social networks, and he reflects that a foot in the world of Peter, Elisabeth and Bertrand might give him “a chance to escape acquiring a “faculty-type wife” (127). Here, again, Watson sees women and science as two interests best kept apart.
