DIPARTIMENTO DI FILOLOGIA,
LETTERATURA E LINGUISTICA
CORSO DI LAUREA IN LINGUE E
LETTERATURE MODERNE EUROAMERICANE
ELABORATO FINALE
Psychiatric Profiles and the Genesis of the Literary Text:
Sheldon Cooper from Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady’s The Big
Bang Theory.
CANDIDATO
RELATORE
Simona Biagioni Prof. Alessandro Grilli
ANNO ACCADEMICO 2015/2016
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INTRODUCTION ... VI
CHAPTER I ... 1
1. Facts ... 1
2. Overview of the characters ... 2
2.1 Leonard Hofstadter ... 2
2.2. Howard Wolowitz... 3
2.3. Penny ... 6
2.4. Rajesh Koothrappali ... 8
2.5. Bernadette Rostenkowskij ... 9
2.6. Amy Farah Fowler ... 10
CHAPTER II ... 13
1. Sheldon's geniality ... 14
2. Sheldon's eidetic memory ... 20
3. Sheldon's childishness ... 23
4. Sheldon's Obsessions and Manias ... 27
4.1. Hygiene Obsession ... 27
4.2. Routine Obsession ... 30
4.3. Sheldon's spot ... 32
4.4. Systematisation obsession ... 34
5. Sheldon's difficulty in understanding non-verbal behaviour ... 36
5.1. Facial expressions ... 36
5.2. Sarcasm ... 40
6. Sheldon's inability of being empathic... 44
7. Sheldon's tendency of reading the reality literally ... 47
8. Sheldon's over-realism – exasperation of the consequences. ... 50
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9.2. Relationship with his superiors and colleagues ... 57
9.3. Relationship with Amy ... 61
10. Sheldon’s need for a shelter when overwhelmed ... 65
11. Over-focusing on a particular topic ... 68
11.1. Science ... 68
11.2. Star Trek ... 70
11.3. Comic Books and Videogames ... 76
12. Motion Clumsiness ... 78
CHAPTER III ... 80
1. What Asperger syndrome is. ... 80
2. Manifestation ... 83
2.1. Severe impairment in reciprocal social interaction ... 86
2.2. All-absorbing narrow interest ... 89
2.3. Imposition of routines and interests ... 90
2.4. Speech and language problems. ... 95
2.5. Non-verbal communication problems ... 99
2.6. Motion clumsiness ... 101
CONCLUSION ... 103
REFERENCES ... 105
PICTURES CONTENT
Picture 1 - The Big Bang Theory logo………..……..1Picture 2 - Leonard Hofstadter………..…….2
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Picture 5 - Rajesh Koothrappali………..7
Picture 6 – Bernadette Rostenkowsji………...….9
Picture 7 – Amy Farah Fowler……….10
Picture 8 – Sheldon Cooper……….…..12
Picture 9 - Sheldon surrounded by cats………...…...22
Picture 10 - Sheldon playing with trains. ………,….…24
Picture 11 - Sheldon spraying the air with a disinfectant……….….27
Picture 12 - Sheldon sitting in his spot. ………..…..29
Picture 13 - Sheldon labelling his clothes to pack. ………...31
Picture 14 - Penny being uncredulous of Sheldon. ……….….36
Picture 15 - Leonardo holding the sign "Sarcasm"………...37
Picture 16 - Sheldon trying to be empathic. ……….….41
Picture 17 - From left to right: coy smile, friendly chuckle and vocalization of sympathy.……….….51
Picture 18 - The Friendship Algorithm. ……….52
Picture 19 - Sheldon wearing a Spock costume. ……….……..66
Picture 20 - The group of scientists posing for a Star Trek-themed picture…….67
Picture 21 - Sheldon talking to Spock in his dreams……….68
Picture 22 - Sheldon at the comic book store………..…71
Picture 23 - Sheldon awkwardly hugging Penny………...…73
Picture 24 - Sheldon trying to touch his feet………..…73
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“The most interesting people you’ll find are ones that don’t fit into your average cardboard box. They’ll make what they need, they’ll make their own boxes”. Dr. Temple Grandin. Doctor Sheldon Cooper is surely the most interesting fictional character of the American Tv Series The Big Bang Theory, on air on CBS from the 24th of
September 2007. This well-structured theoretic physicist shares a flat with his friend and colleague Leonard Hofstadter in Pasadena, California, and the series is built around the vicissitudes of the two, together with the two friends Rajesh and Howard and the neighbour Penny – a very important figure from the very first episodes for her deep contrast with Sheldon. During the development of the Series, a few more characters will add to the original cast, and they will be interestingly intriguing for their relationship with Doctor Cooper. For example, his girlfriend Amy Farrah Fowler, with her similarities to the doctor, provides intriguing material to work with in order to draw a clearer picture of the character of Sheldon as far as the physical contact is concerned; Sheldon's mother, on the other hand, will be vital to spotlight Sheldon's parental bond and childishness. The description will proceed systematically, and even if the characters are described as “real”, it must be kept in mind that they are “built”, that is to say that their whole lives construction are necessary to attribute the characters a certain personality. For example, Leonard is given an unloving mother to justify his insecurities with women, or Howard is childish because he still lives with his mother after his father left. This is to say that, even if the description does not repeat this feature (for rhetorical purposes), this fundamental aspect must be kept in mind. After having listed all 9the peculiar characteristic Sheldon Cooper is provided with, the analysis will then continue focusing on Asperger Syndrome, an extremely interesting autism spectrum. Step by step, all the necessary criteria for the diagnosis will be listed and for each of them, Sheldon’s belonging or not-belonging to the syndrome will be provided, concluding with the thesis of him being classifiable as Asperger or not.
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CHAPTER I
1. Facts.
First, an overview on the series is necessary. I will try to analyse it considering Sheldon as the protagonist (even though he is not for many). Until today (July 2016), 206 episodes have been released, divided into nine seasons. The very first episode is signalled as 01x00 since it is not the aired one. In fact, the very first one that was shot was not considered catching; Penny was portrayed by another actress and the set was on a street instead of inside the flat. It is possible to watch the “wrong pilot” online, keeping in mind that it has nothing to do with the series1. Although Leonard and Sheldon
are still the same two friends, roommates and scientist, Penny, Rajesh and Howard do not exist, and they are replaced by a drunk girl named Katy. Since this was a flop, Chuck Lorre rebuilt the pilot, changing settings and music, transforming it in the episode 01x01 that all the viewers know.
The series is co-written by Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady and it is produced by Warner Bros and Chuck Lorre Production. There is a main set, which is Sheldon and Leonard's living room, with the camera focusing on the couch where the group of friends gather almost daily. Different settings are also presents, such as Penny's apartment, the Comic Book store, Howard's bedroom and Rajesh's living room, but they occupy the minority of time. Since the main “stage” is Sheldon and Leonard's flat, the producers pay particular attention to the details. For example, it is the only location attributed with an address – 2311 North Los Robes – and also the decorative objects are carefully positioned. Usually in the
1 It is possible to watch the unaired episode here: https://koukni.cz/iframe?45907646
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flat there are two or more whiteboards with equations on them; this is possible thanks to David Saltzberg, physics and astronomy professor at the University of California in Los Angeles. He not only writes the equations, but also provides the scientific dialogues. In the article “There's a Science in CBS' 'Big Bang Theory'”, Saltzberg says: "Physicists love to nitpick, so for the 100 in the 10 million people who might watch the show, I try to get it as close to 100% accurate as I can”2, proving that the producers are very careful to the reliability of the
script, even though the average people who watch the show do not know what they are talking about.
2. Overview of the characters.
2.1 Leonard Hofstadter.
Interpreted by Jhonny Galecki, he is a short, four-eyed, lactose intolerant experimental physicist at CalTech, sharing a flat with Sheldon Cooper. He is not only a roommate for Sheldon, but also a loyal friend. He moved in Sheldon's flat two years before the beginning of the series and in the episode 03x22, the audience is acknowledged about how it all started. From the very first episode, the audience can spot the intellectual affinity between the two physicists. Leonard is one of the few characters who can follow Sheldon's train of thoughts and thanks to his knowledge, frequently he can challenge the doctor's ideas.
He falls in love with the neighbour Penny in the pilot and after numerous vicissitudes, the two get married in the episode 09x01. He is given a tough upbringing by his creators - his is a family of scientist, not used to show affections and this is useful for the creators in order to shape him as a figure who needs a rigorous woman next to him to replace his shaded maternal mother,
2 G.STRAUSS, ‘There's a Science in CBS' 'Big Bang Theory', in Usa Today Online, 2007,
retrieved from: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/television/news/2007-11-04-big-bang_N.htm. [last access 13th July 2016].
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identifiable in Penny. Every achievement usually recognized in a child, was never celebrated in his life; celebrating was allowed only for academic success. In fact, he had never had a birthday party before Penny organized one for him in episode 01x16 stating:
Leonard: I don’t celebrate my birthday. Penny: Shuddup, yeah you do.
Leonard: No, it’s no big deal, it’s just the way I was raised. My parents focussed on celebrating achievements, and being expelled from a birth canal was not considered one of them.
Penny: Uh, that’s so silly.3
In particular, Leonard's relationship with his mother is something he will never get over; she is a worldwide famous neurobiologist who lacks of every maternal characteristic. Instead of giving love to Leonard, she “used” him as a guinea pig for her experiments, writing then books on him. This is why Leonard never feels appreciated, and many times he is extremely insecure, most of all in his relationship with Penny.
2.2. Howard Wolowitz.
Interpreted by Simon Helberg, Jew, he is constructed as the stereotypical playboy. He is an engineer at CalTech, and because of this he is always ridiculed by Sheldon, who thinks engineering is “merely the slow younger brother of physics”.4 From the very
first episodes, the spectators can spot his exuberance both in the way he dresses up and in his utterances. He tries to seduce every kind of girl, showing off sentences in foreign languages to boast himself, but rarely – if ever – he succeeds. For example in the pilot, when he first meets Penny he says:
Howard: Enchante Madamoiselle. Howard Wolowitz, Cal-Tech
3 The Big Bang Theory (TBBT), 01x16, 1:20-34. 4 TBBT, 2x12, 13:58-14:00.
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department of Applied Physics. You may be familiar with some of my work, it’s currently orbiting Jupiter’s largest moon taking high-resolution digital photographs.
[...]
Howard: Bon douche. Penny: I’m sorry?
Howard: It’s French for good shower. It’s a sentiment I can express in six languages.
[...]
Howard: See-ka-tong-guay-jow.5
He lost his father when he was only five and he does not have good memories of him; all he can do is blaming him to have left himself and his mother. In the eighth season his stepbrother Josh appears, who went at Howard's after being contacted by Howard's mother's lawyer. Howard lives with his mother, Debbie Wolowitz until the sixth season, reason why he can be described as childish. This characteristic can be seen in several episodes such as in the 01x11 episode where, during a phone call with Leonard, he is interrupted by his mother saying:
Howard’s Mother: Were you playing with him [Sheldon, who is sick]? Howard: For God’s sake, Ma, I’m twenty six years old.
Howard’s Mother: Excuse me Mr Grown-up. Whadda-ya want for breakfast.
Howard: Chocolate milk and eggoes please!6
In addition, the other characters continuously pull his leg about his being immature, always referring to Howard's odd attachment to his mother. For example, in episode 06x04, Howard and Bernadette, his future spouse, are talking about Howard's moving out from his mother's house, and Penny – as usual – interferes in the conversation spotlighting the oddness of the relationship between he and his mother saying:
Howard: I will. I’m obviously not going to live in my mother’s house for
5 TBBT, 01x01, 14:01-34. 6 TBBT, 01x11, 7:30-41
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the rest of my life. I’m not a child. Penny: I’ve seen her burp you.
Howard: She did not burp me. She was patting me on the back, and I happened to burp.7
Because of this morbose attachment to his mother, he struggles with his first long relationship – the one with Bernadette Rostenkowski, habitual member from the third season on. His friendship with Rajesh Koothrappali, the Indian of the group, provides a sociologically interesting point, since the two together form an odd couple: Howard is the “modified” Jew, who follows the rule of his religion only when they come to his mind; the other is the Hinduist in an eternal vacation. Thus, both of them are built as stereotyped, religious characters, but only in order to mix them with the Californian culture that will change their habits. In the fifth season, he is chosen by NASA to be part of the expedition to the International Space Station, and from that moment on, he will refer to himself as Astronaut Howard Wolowitz. In general, Howard’s construction is very hilarious: Lorre and Prady certainly created a ridiculously immature character in order to provide the satirical spot in the series. His humour is different from Sheldon’s one: both of them make the audience laugh, but in a different way. On one hand, we have the “jolly” Howard, provided with colourful odd clothes who seems to have the ability to be always inappropriate; on the other, a different kind of humour, well described in chapter II.
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2.3. Penny.
Interpreted by Kaley Cuoco, she is Leonard and Sheldon's neighbour. The producers need a figure to contrapose to the geeks and here we have Penny. She is from Omaha, Nebraska and she moved to Pasadena to be an actress. She pays for her acting class working at the Cheesecake Factory, where she does not feel gratified at all. From the pilot she is in deep contrast with the scientists, because of her talk-activity and her naturalness in meeting new people. We do not know her surname – this is one of the contrast with all the other characters. Even though we meet her father in the episode 04x09, the group of friend refers to him as Wyatt and not Mr. X so we cannot extrapolate a surname. We are also acknowledged that Penny has a brother in jail for drugs making.8
She is an independent woman (exceptionally created to be in deep contrast with the others, who in a way or another still rely on their families), she can manage to pay her own bills and rent and she has difficulties in having a relationship. After never-endings hesitations, she decides to live a long-lasting love story with Leonard, with whom she will get married in the ninth season. In the eighth season she decides to quit the job at the Cheesecake Factory and thanks to the help of her friend Bernadette, she manages to start a career in pharmaceutical sales. Being grown up in the countryside, Penny can do several manual works, such as assembling furniture, hunting or fishing. Because of these “skills of the hill folk”9, Sheldon frequently mocks her, while the other
guys ask her for advice – like when Howard had to go fishing but had no idea where to start10. From the very beginning of the series, she tries to find a
8 Penny: Okay, um, hey, God. What’s up? Um, I’m good, but, uh, it would be a big help to my
family if you could get my brother to stop cooking meth. But no cops. Be cool. (TBBT, 05x06, 15:42-49)
9 Sheldon: Penny, I know you mean well, offering the skills of the hill folk, but, um, here in
town we don’t churn our own butter, we don’t, uh, make dresses out of gunny sacks, and, uh, we sure as shootin’ don’t get our hair cut by bottle-blonde… (TBBT, 05x18, 3:31-59)
10 TBBT, 06x10.
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common ground with the scientists even though they belong to completely different lives. A blatant example of this gap is to be find in episode 01x02 where the difference between Penny's vision of the Superman movie is only about how a great romantic movie it is, while the scientists – in particular Sheldon, analyse it scientifically.
Leonard: Um, if you don’t have any other plans, do you want to join us for Thai food and a Superman movie marathon?
Penny: A marathon? Wow, how many Superman movies are there? Sheldon: You’re kidding, right?
Penny: Yeah, I do like the one where Lois Lane falls from the helicopter and Superman swooshes down and catches her, which one was that? Leonard,Sheldon and Howard together: One. (Raj raises one finger). Sheldon: You realise that scene was rife with scientific inaccuracy. Penny: Yes, I know, men can’t fly.
Sheldon: Oh no, let’s assume that they can. Lois Lane is falling, accelerating at an initial rate of 32 feet per second per second. Superman swoops down to save her by reaching out two arms of steel. Miss Lane, who is now travelling at approximately 120 miles per hour, hits them, and is immediately sliced into three equal pieces.
Leonard: Unless, Superman matches her speed and decelerates.
Sheldon: In what space, sir, in what space? She’s two feet above the ground. Frankly, if he really loved her, he’d let her hit the pavement. It would be a more merciful death.
Leonard: Excuse me, your entire argument is predicated on the assumption that Superman’s flight is a feat of strength.
Sheldon: Are you listening to yourself, it is well established that Superman’s flight is a feat of strength, it is an extension of his ability to leap tall buildings, an ability he derives from Earth’s yellow Sun.
Howard: Yeah, and you don’t have a problem with that, how does he fly at night.
Sheldon: Uh, a combination of the moon’s solar reflection and the energy storage capacity of Kryptonian skin cells.
Penny: I’m just going to go wash up.
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a single reference to Kryptonian skin cells.11
2.4. Rajesh Koothrappali.
Interpreted by Kunal Nayar, he is provided with the characteristic of the cultural spot that the group needed. He is from New Delhi and he moved to America in order to study to become an Astrophysicist. As soon as he moved, he find himself comfortable with Howard, and the two get along really well, becoming very close friends in an odd way – for this the group sometimes mock them, like when they hint at their homosexuality12. Not only the others contribute to underline this “imaginary
homosexual relationship”, but the two protagonists sometimes act in a queer way, seeming not aware of what they are doing. The most blatant example is when Howard builds a long-distance kissing device, to be sent to Priya, temporary Leonard's girlfriend and Rajesh's sister. To test the device, the two scientist actually kiss each other, enjoying it.13 Raji is an interesting character
because he is equipped with Indian culture, even though americanised. He suffers of selective mutism, being incapable of talking to women unless drunk. He struggles to have a relationship due to his disturb, but after breaking up with Lucy (his first girlfriend), he will be able to overcome the pathology. From the seventh season he finds a girlfriend in Emily, a girl previously met online and then encountered randomly in a bar. She is deeply in contrast with Raji, since she has an odd taste for death, horror and macabre while the astrophysicist is more a fairy tales, romantic comedy guy – he indeed defines himself metrosexual. We meet his parents through a computer, since he usually
11 TBBT, 01x02, 3:31 – 4:16
12 There are several references to this topic, i.e. In episode 02x15, Leonard's mother analyses
the implications of Rajesh's mutism and Howard's attachment to his mother saying: “You know, both selective mutism and an inability to separate from one’s mother can stem from a pathological fear of women. It might explain why the two of you have created an ersatz ho-mosexual marriage to satisfy your need for intimacy”. (10:21-27). Another is
13 TBBT, 05x02, 15:00-16:35.
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skype them. For long, all we know about them is that the father is a gynaecologist and they have numerous butlers. Rajesh decides to leave his country because he hates it, he defines it “one endless Comic-Con, except everybody’s wearing the same costume, Indian Guy”14 In the eighth season, his
parents’ divorce and his father visits him in California, where he attends the Thanksgiving dinner with the group of friends.
2.5. Bernadette Rostenkowskij.
Interpreted by Melissa Rauch, she is the cheeky character Lorre and Prady invented. We meet her because she used to work at the Cheesecake Factory with Penny to pay for her studies in microbiology. She meets Howard thanks to Penny, since she needs to help Leonard to keep Howard's promise to find him a girlfriend who is friend with Penny. After some vicissitudes, the two get engaged and they marry at the end of the fifth season, before Howard leaves for space. She is adorable, always wearing flower dresses and speaking in a childish voice, but at the same time she reveals a very bossy behaviour that really scares people around her. Her strength is in this dichotomy: angelic look and despotic behaviour. At the beginning, she seems a doll, but as soon as she takes part in the story, she has the power to change Howard. We meet her parents several times – her father is a retired police officer who dislikes Howard scaring him to death. She dislikes children, since when she was young she needed to look after her siblings and this is the main reason why she does not want children. In episode 05x12, after a children magic party, Howard and Bernadette face this topic saying:
Bernadette: I’m sorry. I know it makes me sound like a bad person, but I just don’t like children.
Howard: Yeah, no, we all got that. But don’t you think it’ll be different
14 TBBT, 04x07, 4:18-24.
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when the child is ours?
Bernadette: Right, when it’s our kid that’s ruined my body and kept me up all night and I’ve got no career and no future and nothing to be happy about for the next 20 years, sure, that’ll be completely different.15
Despite that, in the ninth season she announces her pregnancy, being exceedingly cute due to the hormones.
2.6. Amy Farah Fowler.
Interpreted by Mayim Bialik, she first appear in the third season. Howard and Raji subscribed Sheldon to a meeting website, and his match was Amy. The two meet and their first dialogue is really odd – the audience understands that the two are made for each other. She is a Neurobiologist, working in a lab full of monkeys, which sometimes create a very funny scene. She grew up in a strict environment – her mother does not want her to know the outer world since she is an easy target for bullies for her not-so-appealing physicality. She dresses like an old lady, and in an occasion she admits that all her clothes are her grandma's (except for the bras):
Amy: I do appreciate a bargain. This entire ensemble once belonged to my dead grandmother.
Penny: You’re kidding.
Amy: Everything except bra and panties. And they’re a leopard-spotted secret I share with Victoria. 16
At the beginning, she is a female version of Sheldon, very robotic, but as soon as the series develops, she becomes friend with Penny and Bernadette, who try to “modernise” her. For example, she had never had a pyjama party before meeting the girls, watched Grease, or had alcohol. The impression the authors
15 TBBT, 05x12, 12:38-13:03. 16 TBBT, 05x02, 16:37-47.
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want to convey is that she transforms day bay day from a robot to a human, and this personal growth is hilarious since she faces a brand new world. In the relationship with Sheldon, she appears cold in the very first season – they do not touch or kiss. They both agree on having an intellectual relationship, based on scientific puns and games, like when they made up a game called Counterfactuals where they “postulate an alternate world that differs from [theirs] in one key aspect and then pose questions to each other”.17 Although the
two struggle to be the typical boyfriend-girlfriend couple, Sheldon decides that it is high time he did a step forward, writing down a Relationship Agreement, that officially renders the two a couple, that can hold hands and kiss. From that moment on, Amy shows her sexual impulses while Sheldon on the contrary has difficulties. In episode 05x08, the difference between the two is blatant:
Amy: At this moment, I find myself craving human intimacy and physical contact.
Sheldon: Oh, boy. You know ours is a relationship of the mind.
Amy: Proposal. One wild night of torrid lovemaking that soothes my soul and inflames my loins.
Sheldon: Counterproposal. I will gently stroke your head and repeat, aw, who’s a good Amy.
Amy: How about this? French kissing, seven minutes in heaven culminating in second base.
Sheldon: Neck massage, then you get me that beverage. Amy: We cuddle. Final offer.18
Their relationship will grow stronger episode after episode, until when they kiss passionately in the seventh season and make love in the ninth.
She is sometimes obsessed by Penny, who clearly feels uncomfortable. For example, in episode 05x02, Amy defines her friendship with Penny as “best friends, besties, BFFs, peas in a pod, sisters who would share travelling pants”19
and a few episodes later, she will give her a huge 3000 dollars painting depicting
17 TBBT, 04x03, 0:57-59. 18 TBBT, 05x08, 8:40-9:44. 19 TBBT, 05x02, 13:36-13:44.
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her with Penny, fomenting the awkwardness. This platonic homosexual relationship is created both to mirror Raji and Howard’s and to show that Amy in not a narrow-minded girl, although her upbringing.
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CHAPTER II
This chapter will focus on the character of Sheldon Cooper, the most interesting case in this Tv Series.
To analyse the complexity behind what the audience sees, it should be easier dividing his behaviour and attitudes into several categories and for each of them provide examples. He is a created as a complex figure, meticulously studied, interesting for his difficulty in finding a position in the world. In the next chapter, we will see how all the following characteristic will be useful in order to prove or discredit Sheldon’s belonging to the Asperger’s syndrome. The analysed categories are:
1. Sheldon's geniality
2. Sheldon's eidetic memory 3. Sheldon's childishness
4. Sheldon's Obsessions and Manias
5. Sheldon's difficulty in understanding non-verbal behaviour 6. Sheldon's inability of being empathic
7. Sheldon's tendency of reading the reality literally
8. Sheldon's over-realism – exasperation of the consequences 9. Sheldon's difficulty in understanding social relations 10. Sheldon’s need for a shelter when overwhelmed 11. Over-focusing on a particular topic
12. Motion Clumsiness
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1. Sheldon's geniality.
Sheldon's arrogance of repeating always his successful achievement in life never gets old. In various episodes, he reminds his friend of his academic path, focusing on the exceptional early age he graduated and on his exceptionally high IQ (187)20. His sharp mind is shown throughout all the series, from the very first
episode. An average spectator indeed, finds Sheldon's speeches difficult to decipher and he/she can imply he is smarter than an ordinary scientist is. This feeling of being in front of a genius is confirmed in many episodes by Sheldon himself, who actually loves to be in the centre of the discussion and to show himself off as the smartest member of the group. Doctor Cooper establishes himself into the everyday conversation with a boasting attitude, especially when talking about his academic achievements; even though he knows he is smarter than the average man, he explains his success in a very threatening way, so that who is in front of him feels inferior and guilty in a certain sense. This happens for example in the episode 5 of the first season: Sheldon asks Penny to help him to understand why Leonard has a tie hanging from his door. The dialogue between the two is intriguing because, in addition to know the fact he graduated at the age of eleven, the audience, through the channel of sight, can see Sheldon's expression of condemn to Penny, who is in fact the doctor's opposite.
Jump to the pair of them standing outside Leonard’s bedroom door. Bryan Adams “Have You Ever Loved A Woman” is emerging. There is a tie on the bedroom door.
Sheldon: Well? Penny: Well what?
Sheldon: What does it mean?
Penny: Oh, come on, you went to college. Sheldon: Yes, but I was eleven.21
The full list of his titles is portrayed by the doctor himself, who is introducing
20 Sheldon: Penny, I have an IQ of 187, don’t you imagine that if there were a way for me to
have had soup at home I would have thought of it? (TBBT, 01x11, 9:34-41).
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himself in a conference saying:
Sheldon: Good morning and welcome to Science and Society. I’m Dr. Sheldon Cooper, BS, MS, MA, PhD, and ScD. OMG, right?22
Thus, Sheldon earns the Bachelor in Science at the age of eleven, then during the years he succeeded in two masters and two doctorates. We also know from his conversation with Dennis Kim, a fourteen-years-old science student, that he won the Stevenson prize23 at the age of fourteen.24
Other information about Sheldon's formation can be extrapolated from utterances here and there: in the episode 11 of the first season doctor Cooper, in the middle of a flu, recounts to Penny when, at the age of 15, he was ill in Germany and when she asks why he was there, he answers stating he was a visiting professor. The naturalness with which he utters it astonishes Penny and at the same time bothers her in a certain way, since once again Sheldon succeeded in ridicule someone else.
Sheldon: Well, once. When I was fifteen, and spending the summer at the Heidelberg Institute in Germany.
Penny: Studying abroad?
Sheldon: No, visiting professor25.
In this situation, Penny, like all the other characters, is annoyed by Sheldon's arrogance but she learned to ignore him, because she knows that if she gave him attentions or if she congratulated him, he would boast his achievements more and more, increasing his self-esteem. He has a lot of self-confidence and cannot admit that someone else could be smarter then him (except for Steven Hawking, whom he adores). He even states that he would have discovered gravity also without an apple, establishing himself in a higher position than Isaac
22 TBBT, 04x13, 16:02-07.
23 It is not sure if the prize actually exists. If it does, probably it is the one cited from the UCL
website, where there is written: “The Prize is awarded to the student who is offering Mathe-matics as their main field of study for the BSc Degree and who is considered as having done the best work in Applied Mathematics in the first year of the course”. (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/current-students/money/scholarships/maps/stevenson).
24 TBBT, 01x15, 8:15-18. 25 TBBT, 01x11, 13:33-37.
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Newton's26. In the sixth season, he finds himself in a very comfortable situation:
he has to work together with Barry Kripke, rival scientist, since the university cut the funds for the research on string theory. As soon as he knows the news, as usual, he starts boasting himself, saying that he is not interested to work with someone that might be published only on Mad Magazine, but then, after days of arrogance, he actually finds out that Kripke's research was better than his. This is frustrating for Sheldon that, rather than admitting to Kripke that he did not have bright ideas that time, blames his carnal relationship with Amy, which is distracting him continuously27. In doing so, Sheldon saves his face twice
– he appears the same bright genius and also an active person outside the university.
Because of his exceeding geniality, he appears odd to the rest of the group. Sometimes, his train of thoughts goes too fast to be caught by the others, this is why, in more than one occasion, people label him as “crazy” or “insane”. When this happens, he always misinterprets the “offence”, thinking that the terms only refer to a pathology, and not just saying something wrong or off-topic. Thus, he always responds with one of his most famous utterances, which is: “I'm not crazy, my mother had me tested”. To make an example, in episode 03x02, Rajesh, Howard and Sheldon are arguing about Wolverine and this happens:
Raj: Give it up, dude, you’re arguing with a crazy person. Sheldon: I’m not crazy. My mother had me tested.28
Or in episode 02x04, after Sheldon provides an oddly forced comparison between a griffon and making new friends, the guys condemn him stating:
Howard: Sheldon, don’t take this the wrong way, but, you’re insane. Leonard: That may well be, but the fact is, it wouldn’t kill us to meet some new people.
Sheldon: Uh, for the record, it could kill us to meet new people. They could be murderers, or the carriers of unusual pathogens, and I’m not insane,
26 Sheldon: No, no that’s true, gravity would have been apparent to me without the apple.
(TBBT, 1x19, 2:35-37).
27 TBBT, 06x14.
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my mother had me tested29.
Another feature that comes naturally with his brightness is his being extremely arrogant since he sets himself in a superior position in every kind of situation and dialogue. There are specific examples regarding this situation, but the pattern is spread all over the sit-com; in almost every Sheldon's utterance there is a tone of superiority used specifically to establish a primate of intelligence. In episode 03x02, Sheldon and Howard fight continuously after spotting a cricket in Sheldon's apartment. The first thinks it is an Oecanthus Fultoni, while the latter is sure about it being a common field cricket. Throughout the episode, Sheldon appears boastful and sure about his assertion, ridiculing continuously Howard.
Sheldon: Hang on. Based on the number of chirps per minute and the ambient temperature in this room, it is a snowy tree cricket.
Howard: Oh, give me a frickin’ break. How could you possibly know that? Sheldon: In 1890, Emile Dolbear determined that there was a fixed relationship between the number of chirps per minute of the snowy tree cricket and the ambient temperature. A precise relationship that is not present with ordinary field crickets.
Raj: How do you know what the exact temperature of the room is? Sheldon: Under the terms of my roommate agreement with Leonard, I’ve had unilateral control of the thermostat ever since the sweaty night of ’06. Howard: Okay, you were right about Wolverine and bone claws, but you’re wrong about the cricket.
Sheldon: Howard, don’t embarrass yourself, the science chirps for itself. Humorous word play.30
To be kept in mind, is that also the channel of sight is vital in interpreting Sheldon's behaviour, and in this case it is pretty clear; his facial expressions are typical of an adult speaking with children. Sheldon in fact has problems in identifying the level of the audience. When he talks with his friends – especially Howard – he acquires a tone of superiority mixed up with condemnation and
29 TBBT, 02x04, 03:25-20. 30 TBBT, 03x02, 06:07-54
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tenderness, as if he was a teacher reprimanding children.
However, the two then decide to ask an entomologist for a consultation, who confirms Howard's thesis leaving Sheldon in a very unpleasant position.
Another example of Sheldon's boastfulness is in this paradoxical sentence, once again in episode 03x02 where he states: “Howard, you know me to be a very smart man. Don’t you think if I were wrong, I’d know it?”31. Again, when in
episode 04x14 he is invited to teach a class and this is his opening line: Sheldon: Good evening. I’m your guest lecturer, Dr. Sheldon Cooper. I was expecting applause, but I suppose stunned silence is equally appropriate. I agreed to speak to you this evening, because I was told that you’re the best and the brightest of this university’s doctoral candidates. Hmm. Of course, that’s like saying you are the most important electron in a hydrogen atom. ‘Cause, you see, there’s only one electron in a hydrogen atom. Best and brightest, my sweet patootie. All right, let’s begin. Show of hands, who here is familiar with the concept of topological insulators? Don’t kid yourselves.32
Again, here facial expressions play a fundamental role, since there is all his condemn to those “stupid minds” as he regards them.
Together with arrogance, Sheldon's brilliance comes with his lexical redundancy. Before exploring this part of the scientist's behaviour, it is necessary to provide a linguistic notion: the one of maxim. Paul Grice was deeply interested in the logic of language and how the mechanisms behind it work. His analysis focus on how a conversation should work, in order to be clear and concise. He elaborates four maxims that need to be respected in order to have a successful conversation and those are:
Maxims of Quantity:
Make your contribution as informative as required.
Don’t make your contribution more informative than is required. [...]
Maxims of Quality:
31 Ibidem, 0:10-11.
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Be truthful
Don’t say what you believe to be false.
Don’t say what you lack adequate evidence for. [...] Maxim of Relation: Be relevant. [...] Maxims of Manner: Be perspicuous.
Avoid obscurity of expression. Avoid ambiguity.
Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity). Be orderly.33
In order to have a cooperative and functioning conversation, these four maxims need to be respected and followed carefully – thing that Sheldon does not do. He often breaks the flow of natural conversation flaunting one of more maxims, resulting pedantic. The one he breaks the most is the relevance one, since often he provides surplus information, not relevant to the dialogue. For example, in episode 01x09, Leonard sees a letter in the trash can and in asking Sheldon why it is there, the resulting dialogue is the following:
Leonard: Sheldon, why is this letter in the trash?
Sheldon: Well, there’s always the possibility that a trash can spontaneously formed around the letter, but Occam’s Razor would suggest that someone threw it out34.
Here Dr. Cooper boasts his philosophical knowledge instead of being relevant – the consequence is that the conversation has a breakdown and Leonard needs
33 Grice, H.P., 'Logic and Conversation', in Cole & Morgan (eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol.
3, Speech Acts, New York: Academic Press, 1975, pp. 41-43.
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to reformulate the question. Or in another situation, the group of friends is sharing a meal, and this happens:
Raj: Are there any chopsticks?
Sheldon: You don’t need chopsticks, this is Thai food. Leonard: Here we go.
Sheldon: Thailand has had the fork since the latter half of the nineteenth century. Interestingly they don’t actually put the fork in their mouth, they use it to put the food on a spoon which then goes into their mouth. Leonard: Ask him for a napkin, I dare you35.
Once again, Sheldon flaunts the maxim of relevance – an also of quantity – since he should have just answered “Yes” or “No” to Rajesh's question. Instead, he boasts his knowledge informing his friend about the history of a fork, resulting thus pedantic (Leonard's “Here we go” is extremely clear about how annoying the breaking of a maxim is).
To conclude this first section, we can clearly state that Doctor Sheldon Cooper is a genius and he knows it. His constant ridiculing of the others is an evergreen, as it is his continuous establishing a primate in conversations. He loves to show off his qualities and his numerous degrees, fomenting the gap between him and the rest of the characters.
2. Sheldon's eidetic memory.
Sheldon remembers everything. Always. His is a condition called eidetic memory which is a deeper kind of photographic memory.
The Encyclopaedia Britannica provides the following definition:
Eidetic image: an unusually vivid subjective visual phenomenon. An eidetic person claims to continue to “see” an object that is no longer objectively present. Eidetic persons behave as if they are actually seeing an item, either with their eyes closed or while looking at some surface that serves as a convenient background for the image. Furthermore, eidetic persons describe the image as if it is still present and not as if they are recalling a past event. The incidence of eidetic imagery is very low in
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children (2–10 percent) and almost non-existent in adults36.
Although some academics seem to agree on the interchangeability between photographic memory and eidetic memory37, Sheldon strongly affirms that the
two are not the same thing. In episode 03x05 Sheldon explains the misnaming of eidetic memory while actually using it:
Leonard: Just play a potion card. Penny: Which one?
Sheldon: It doesn’t matter. You can’t possibly win. Leonard: Sheldon, don’t ruin the game.
Penny: How could he ruin the game?
Sheldon: Given the cards that have already been played, Penny can only be holding necromancer potions, which are only effective against wraiths and day-walkers, and there are no more of either left to be drawn. The cards remaining in the undrawn stack are four fire weapons, a troll, two ogres and the jewel of Osiris.
Leonard: See? Ruined.
Penny: Sheldon, that is incredible.
Sheldon: From your vantage point, it certainly must seem so. Leonard: Sheldon has kind of a photographic memory.
Sheldon: Photographic is a misnomer. I have an eidetic memory, as I’ve told you many times. Most recently last year during lunch on the afternoon of may seventh. You had turkey and complained it was dry38.
Here, we have an example of Sheldon's eidetic memory in practice. From average-minded people it can be seen as extraordinary – like Penny does. The extraordinariness in this can be spotted in different places – the fact that Sheldon knows which cards have been played not being physically present in the game, the memory of every card of the deck and the extremely long-term
36 ‘Eidetic’, Online Britannica, 2009, retrieved from:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/ei-detic-image, [last access 3rd August 2016].
37 “The term photographic memory is more often used to designate eidetic imagery” (Coon,
Psychology, a Modular Approach to Mind and Behaviour, Thomson Learning, Belmont, 2005, p. 301)
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memory.
Because of this, we might infer that Sheldon is able both to listen carefully to others while doing other activities (i.e. working at the computer and listening to the game at the same time) and to recall every card in the deck, not simply remembering it as an ordinary person would do, but as if it were in front of him. As a matter of facts, a characteristic of people with eidetic memory is the ability of recalling images in every detail - they actually see them. As far as this aspect is concerned, Hudmon writes:
Eidetic imagery is the ability to remember an image in so much detail, clarity, and accuracy that it is as though the image were still being perceived. It is not perfect, as it is subject to distortions and additions (like episodic memory), and vocalization interferes with the memory39.
Thus, Sheldon fits in the standard lines of the eidetic memory; he can clearly visualize an object in front of his eyes even if not materially present. As far as the long term memory is concerned, also in this case Sheldon is modelled to fit in the standards, since he remembers exactly what happened a year before. What astonishes the audience - and Penny – is the fact that he does not only recalls a photographic situation, but also the auditive canal and a situation in its whole. He in facts recalls the moment in which he told Leonard about his eidetic memory and he remembers clearly that Leonard did not appreciate the turkey for its dryness. To support this feature of the eidetic memory, Kujawski is an optimal source, since she writes: “eidetic memory is not limited to visual aspects of memory and includes auditory memories as well as various sensory aspects across a range of stimuli associated with a visual image”40. There are
several examples to provide to support this thesis; in 03x22, episode created ad hoc to acknowledge the audience about when they first met. Sheldon's opening line is: “I know what I said. I know what you said. I know what my mother said on March 5, 1992”41, that suddenly recalls his characteristic; or again in episode
02x01, Penny shared a secret with Sheldon and she does not want him to tell
39 Hudmon, Learning and Memory, Chelsea House Publisher, New York 2006, p. 51.
40 Kujawski Taylor, Encyclopaedia of Human Memory, Greenwood, Santa Barbara 2013, p.
1099.
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Leonard saying:
Penny: Look, just forget I told you about me not graduating from community college. Okay?
Sheldon: Forget! You want me to forget? This mind does not forget. I haven’t forgotten a single thing since the day my mother stopped breast feeding me. It was a drizzly Tuesday42.
Eidetic memory is usually manifested in early age, usually from childhood to preadolescence. The fact that a 27-years-old man like Sheldon has it, should be a hint to the next category we are going to analyse – his eternal childishness. This extraordinary memory is also a feature of Asperger Syndrome, which we will analyse later on.
3. Sheldon's childishness.
Mrs Cooper: Hold your horses, young man. Here in Texas, we pray before we eat.
Sheldon: Aw, Mom.
Mrs Cooper: This is not California, land of the heathen. Gimme. By His hand we are all…
Sheldon: Fed.
Mrs Cooper: Give us, Lord, our daily… Sheldon: Bread.
Mrs Cooper: Please know that we are truly… Sheldon: Grateful.
Mrs Cooper: For every cup and every… Sheldon: Plateful.
Mrs Cooper: Amen. Now, that wasn’t so hard, was it?
Sheldon: My objection was based on considerations other than difficulty. Mrs Cooper: Whatever. Jesus still loves you.
Sheldon: Thank you for carving a smiley face in my grilled cheese
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sandwich.
Mrs Cooper: Oh, I know how to take care of my baby. His eyes came out a little thin, but you can just pretend he’s Chinese. So, do you want to talk about what happened with you and your little friends?
Sheldon: They’re not my friends43.
In this dialogue, we can spot Sheldon's childishness. It does not come fully from him, but his mother is fomenting it, preparing him a toast craved with a face, treat that is usually reserved to kids in order to encourage them to eat. He also diligently obeys to his mother, praying before eating – he is a scientist and this is not his habit. The maternal figure is very captivating, since, together with his grandmother, can reorder Sheldon's mess occasionally. He obeys not because he believes what she says is right, but only because he is scared of being reprimanded – like a proper child.
Mrs. Cooper has a very hypnotic power on her son, being able to shape his mind at her will. She is not an omnipresent figure for she lives in Texas, but she can intervene in every difficult situation even just by phoning her. Every Sheldon's friend knows about her powers on him, and when the scientist loses his mind, his friends need to contact her to solve the problem. For example, in episode 04x03, Sheldon reacts oddly to his breakup with Amy, deciding to buy a clowder of cats. Apart from the hilarious choice of the names – after the scientists from the Manhattan Project except for Zazzle, who is too zazzy44 – this
episode clearly shows the influence Mrs. Cooper has on her son.
Leonard phones her as soon as he realises Sheldon is out of mind, and when she arrives in Pasadena, in a few hours she can easily bring him back on course45.
43 TBBT, 03x01, 15:12-16:20. 44 TBBT, 04x03, 12:35. 45 TBBT, 04x03.
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Another time where
his mother is
fundamental in the developing of the story is in episode 02x07,
where Penny and
Sheldon are arguing throughout because she does not want to be subjugated to his silly rules. They start a proper fight, until when Sheldon is so out of control that Leonard suggests Penny to phone his mother to solve everything. Indeed, Mrs. Cooper phones Sheldon and he is pushed to do the right thing, only hearing his mother's voice. The dialogue is extremely childish – it looks like one 5 years old kid is reprimanded by his/her mother.
Sheldon: Oh, good. Hi, Mom. How are you? But, Mom, she keeps sitting in my spot. And, and she touched my food. Okay, yes, I took her clothes, but she started it. No, that’s not fair. Why should I have to apologize?46
Even though he could show off all his brightness and support his thesis, he simply gives up, because his mother is asking so.
However, his mother is not the only one who can help us to analyse his childishness – also his grandmother. From the very first episodes, we know that he is extremely close with his Meemaw (as he dearly calls her) but we get to meet her only in the ninth season, when she visits her grandchild. At the beginning, she appears very loving, asking politely to Sheldon not to refer to Leonard in a rude way:
Leonard: Hi. So nice to finally meet you. Let me take this for you, Meemaw.
Meemaw: Thank you.
Sheldon: No. Oh, no. Now you call her Constance. I call her Meemaw. You have your own Meemaw. It’s not my fault she died when you were four.
46 TBBT, 02x07, 16:49-17:12.
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Meemaw: Is that nice to say to your friend? Sheldon: It isn’t, Meemaw. Sorry, Leonard47.
She is not despotic at all, plus she looks adorable – the typical caring grandmother.
Then, during the episode, we find out that she is a very rigid woman, who had a tough life and can be very authoritative – maybe Sheldon can spot this behaviour behind her loving sentences and he obeys because of that.
Also with his friends, Sheldon can be childish. He calls dips every time he wants something, like a proper child. Like when he wants a retired colleague's office, or when he calls for shotgun in the car.
In addition, he has an obsession with train models. He plays with them, and they are also a refuge when he is sad or upset. In episode 07x10, after having found out that his biggest discovery was based on a wrong table, he feels ashamed and embarrassed and finds a refugee in his bedroom, playing with train saying: “Here comes the Embarrassment Express. With stops at Fraudville, Wonder Blunderberg, and Kansas City. Because it’s a hub”48. Then, Will Weaton
and Amy enter the room trying to console him, and after talking for a while, Sheldon asks:
Sheldon: Would you two like to stay and play trains with me? Will: Sure.
Amy: Okay.
Sheldon: Oh, great, now, I work the controls, I say all aboard. You sit quietly and watch.
Will: Can I blow the whistle? Sheldon: You should probably go49.
Thus, Will wants to please Sheldon trying to enjoy the playtime, but as soon as he wants to touch Sheldon's train, the scientist gets angry, asking him to leave like a child when sees his toys used by other kids.
47 TBBT, 09x14, 1:14-28. 48 TBBT, 07x10, 4:35-38. 49 Ibidem, 06:34-48.
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There are actually uncountable examples where we can spot Sheldon's childishness, like when he ate a crayon because it smelled of blueberry50, when
he wants to be sung “Soft Kitty” by Penny during an illness51 or when he
performs a nursery rhyme when in the bathroom only to remember the right procedure his mother taught him52.
To conclude, we can state that Sheldon is a child in the body of an adult, and this is evident in every sphere of his life. In addition, his mother and his Meemaw can bring him back to course like all parents can with their children, while with his friends he tends to behave as a child amongst children, trying to prove his superiority and to be the boss.
4. Sheldon's Obsessions and Manias.
Sheldon reveals several obsessions throughout the series. In order to provide a clearer analysis, it is necessary to split this category in several subcategories, so that it will be clearer for the reader and more systematic for the comprehension. There will be well explained his obsession for hygiene and ordering, his repetitive, unbreakable routine and the obsession for his spot.
4.1. Hygiene Obsession.
Sheldon loves to live in a highly sanitised space. Thus, he supplies a weekly cleaning of his and Leonard's flat, paying particular attention to the bathroom. This must be in fact used following some rules that Sheldon himself set in the
50 TBBT, 8x14.
51 TBBT, 01x11, 02x21, 03x01, 03x08, 04x02, 05x06, 06x22, 08x13. The song is a Japanese
rhyme that goes: “Soft kitty, warm kitty, little ball of fur. Happy kitty, sleepy kitty, purr, purr, purr”.
52 TBBT, 03x21, 10:16-20. “Pee for Houston, pee for Austin, pee for the state my heart got
lost in. And shake twice for Texas”. Picture 10 - Sheldon playing with trains.
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Roommate agreement – another example of his mania for order. In episode 20 of the fourth season, Leonard and Priya discuss about Sheldon's rules in the bathroom saying:
Scene: The bathroom.
Leonard: – Priya, can I come in? Priya: Sure.
Leonard: Oh, God. Priya: What?
Leonard: It’s okay. You didn’t know. I’ll take care of it. Priya: What, what did I do?
Leonard: Sheldon doesn’t allow flossing that close to the mirror. Priya: You’re kidding.
Leonard: It’s a splatter thing. There’s a little piece of tape on the floor you’re supposed to stand behind.
Priya: That’s madness.
Leonard: I know. Just do it. There’s a big inspection coming up, and I don’t want to lose my TV privileges.
Priya: You really need to let me take a look at that roommate agreement one of these days53.
Thus, Leonard is used to Sheldon's madness, while Priya finds it absurd. The fact that Leonard can deal with Sheldon is because they are friend for a very long time, he knows Sheldon's obsession and prefers to stoop to them – fighting would only lead to disappointments, and he knows that living with an angry Sheldon is not easy. This aforementioned, was an example to show how Sheldon's life is based on a rigid regimen of hygiene, while two particular examples are following. The first one is in the first season, when Sheldon and Leonard visit Penny's apartment in order to drop off a piece of furniture. When Dr. Cooper sees how messy the apartment is, he cannot help but waking up in the middle of the night and tidy up while Penny is sleeping.
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Sheldon: Great Caesar’s Ghost, look at this place? Leonard: So Penny’s a little messy.
Sheldon: A little messy? The Mandelbrot set of complex numbers is a little messy, this is chaos. Excuse me, explain to me an organisational system where a tray of flatware on a couch is valid. I’m just inferring that this is a couch, because the evidence suggests the coffee table’s having a tiny garage sale.
Leonard: Did it ever occur to you that not everyone has the compulsive need to sort, organise and label the entire world around them?
Sheldon: No.
Leonard: Well they don’t. Hard as it may be for you to believe, most people don’t sort their breakfast cereal numerically by fibre content.
Sheldon: Excuse me, but I think we’ve both found that helpful at times. Leonard: Come on, we should go.
Sheldon: Hang on.
Leonard: What are you doing? Sheldon: Straightening up.
Leonard: Sheldon, this is not your home.
Sheldon: This is not anyone’s home, this is a swirling vortex of entropy54.
He defines it a chaos, entropy, nobody's house. During the night, while he is tidying up, he is joined by Leonard, who underlines the fact that Sheldon has indeed a problem, and what they are doing is creepy. Sheldon replies with: “I had no choice. I couldn’t sleep knowing that just outside my bedroom was our living room, and just outside our living room was that hallway, and immediately adjacent to that hallway was… this”55. He just cannot stand being nearly close
to a mess, his need to tidy is physiological and episode 19 of the sixth season confirms this. During a chat, Howard and Bernadette talk about how messy is their closet suggesting to show it to Sheldon, who will feel an innate need for tidying it:
54 TBBT, 01x02, 06:24-07:25. 55 TBBT, 01x02, 09:23-33.
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Bernadette: Fine. But after tonight we need to get a handle on this mess. Howard: You know what we should do? We should show the closet to Sheldon.
Bernadette: Why?
Howard: Are you kidding? He’s like a savant at organizing. Everything in his apartment has a label on it. Including his label maker, which has a label that says label maker. And if you look really close at that label maker label, you’ll see a label that says label.
Bernadette: He’s our guest, we can’t just ask him to straighten our closet. Howard: No, we wouldn’t ask him. We’d just show him the closet and let the goblins in his head take it from there56.
Sheldon's group of friends is well aware about his disturb – this is why later in the episode, Bernadette decides to seek for revenge letting him clean since he was rude with her. He does not only clean, but organises – wintry clothes on one side, white, blacks, memorabilia, shoes, all labelled and in their shelves. This compulsion can be considered a characteristic of the savant as Howard remarks, and this aspect is to be kept in mind for our later analysis in matter of Aspergerism. His phobia for order and hygiene is also portrayed in episode 01x11. Here Penny is just back from Nebraska, where she visited her family, and she hints at the fact that they were all sick; Sheldon is petrified, he distances himself from Penny and start spaying a disinfectant in the air. When germs are involved, Sheldon cannot contain himself, he feels the need to protect himself, often overreacting.
4.2. Routine Obsession.
Another aspect of Sheldon's mania for order and control is the one related to his routine – from eating habits to his wake up time, passing through intestinal movements and hair cutting ritual. Everything must be as previously decided
56 TBBT, 06x19, 0:35-1:06.
Picture 11 - Sheldon spraying the air with a disinfectant
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and planned, changes scares Sheldon. To start with his eating habits, they are so strict that he feels the duty to write them down in the Room-mate agreement he has compiled to safeguard his and Leonard's living arrangements. We can extrapolate his routine from various episodes, and it is the following:
On Monday, he has Thai food - chicken Satay with extra peanut sauce57
although this meal is not fully set since in episode 02x16 Leonard hints at the fact that on Monday he brings cashew chicken from Szechuan Palace58.
Tuesday is Cheesecake Factory night. Sheldon's habitual order is barbecue bacon cheeseburger; barbecue, bacon and cheese on the side59.
We do not have an exact menu for Wednesday night but we have a lot of contrasting information about Thursday. We understand from the episode 01x05 that it was soup night at Soup Plantation until he finds out the hamburger from the Cheesecake Factory60. From that moment, he moves the
Big Boy hamburger night – previously on Tuesday - to Thursday to give space to the new burger. Then, in episode 02x06, Sheldon says that Thursday is Giacomo's pizza night61, and his order is sausage, mushrooms and light olives.
Then, when Priya is dating Leonard, as a lawyer, she decides to read the roommate agreement and quotes the article where Sheldon states that Thursday is Franconi's pizza night. We might hypothesise that there was a switch in between the two episode, changing pizzeria from Giacomo's to Franconi's. In this same episode, Sheldon states that from when Franconi's closed, they decided to pick Graziano's.
On Friday night, Sheldon has Chinese food - steamed dumpling appetizer, General Tso's Chicken, beef with broccoli, shrimp with lobster sauce, and vegetable lo-main62.
It is not clear what Sheldon eats on Saturday night, but for breakfast, he has a bowl of cereal with 1/4 of a cup of 2% milk63.
57 TBBT, 02x06, 5:08-12. 58 Ibidem, 17:38-42. 59 TBBT, 02x07, 8:54-58. 60 TBBT, 01x05, 1:27-29. 61 TBBT, 02x05, 18:26-32. 62 TBBT, 01x07, 13:29-37. 63 Ibidem, 9:42-49.
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Having this specific kind of food is extremely important for Sheldon – it is a ritual. He has huge difficulties in facing the world (as it will be analysed later), and having certain set rules helps him not to have breakdowns. Therefore, he does not appreciate if something does not go as it should. He simply cannot stand changes whether in food habits or in other aspects of life. As a matter of facts, his rigid routine does not end up with eating habits, but every kind of activity is well regulated in Sheldon's calendar. He cut his hair every specific amount of time, he goes to the bathroom at set hours and on Saturday night he does his laundry. Every change makes him highly uncomfortable, since he feels the universe is not under his control, finding it highly chaotic. His business card is his ritual knocking – three quick knocks followed by the name of the person, all this per three times. The iconic knocking is the one to Penny, scattered all over the series.
4.3. Sheldon's spot.
Sheldon has a favourite spot on the sofa. It might seem odd to dedicate a whole sub-paragraph to this aspect of his life, but it is necessary. His spot is not only a designed place where he sits – it is the centre of his universe. In episode 03x22, where the audience is shown how the cohabitation with Leonard started, the couch was not present in the room, but a garden chair was there to be Sheldon's Linus' blanket. There he explains to Leonard:
This seat is ideally located both in relation to the heat source in the winter and a cross breeze in the summer. It also faces the television at a direct angle allowing me to immerse myself in entertainment or game play without being subjected to conversation. As a result, I’ve placed it in a state of eternal dibs64
Then Leonard decides to buy a couch to be put in the living room – not even to mention how the scientist was disappointed by the change - and Sheldon's spot is the one on the very right, recalling the position of the previous chair. The spot is very significant for him, who explains to Penny that it is the point of consistency in his universe as he explains to Penny:
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That is my spot. In an ever-changing world, it is a single point of consistency. If my life were expressed as a function on a four-dimensional Cartesian coordinate system, that spot at the moment I first sat on it would be zero-zero-zero-zero65.
It is a certainty for him; after being overwhelmed by a day of work he knows that home he has his spot waiting for him. After being in the North Pole for three months, the first thing he does once home is going to the spot and telling him “Daddy's home”66. He explains all the love
he feels for the spot to Howard, in episode 4x07, when, after having revealed secret information about the engineer to FBI, Howard is fired, and he wants to apologise, giving him his spot.
Howard: You’re giving me a couch cushion?
Sheldon: No. The cushion is merely symbolic. I’m giving you my spot on the couch.
Howard: But you love that spot.
Sheldon: No. I love my mother. My feelings for my spot are much greater. It is the singular location in space around which revolves my entire universe. And now it’s yours67.
Of course, this thought moved Howard, who forgives Sheldon. All of his friend know about his spot, how important that is – it is a thing.
In addition, Sheldon is assigned of a parking spot, which recalls the features of his spot on the sofa, but is not recurrent in the series – only in one episode. Funny enough though, because Sheldon cannot just describe it as his, but he needs to provide reasonably explanation why he love it and why he does not want Howard to take it.
65 TBBT, 02x16, 5:55-06:09. 66 TBBT, 03x01, 1:15-16. 67 TBBT, 04x07, 16:15-17:08.
-34-
I don’t want another parking space. I want my parking space. It’s perfect. It’s a corner spot, cutting the risk of door-dings in half. It’s a mere 28 steps from the building entrance. The nearby tree provides shade on hot days and is also home to a delightful squirrel. Which is fortuitous because most squirrels are real jerks68.
The definition clearly recalls the one gave about the couch spot, and it is hilarious because after six season, the public finds out that Sheldon has another spot.
We might conclude that Sheldon's spot is an institution, a shelter, a point of unity and a recurrent theme in the series known by every person who watches the show.
4.4. Systematisation obsession.
As if it was not enough, Sheldon is obsessed by systematisation – he needs to catalogue, to label and to organise everything around him. In an already mentioned quotation, Howard says to Bernadette that Sheldon labels everything, also the label machine. In another episode Sheldon confesses Leonard his frustration for not having
apple pancake mix in the top shelf because it starts with A69. On a special occasion,
Sheldon has to pack, and instead of putting his clothes into a suitcase like all ordinary people would do, he feels the need to catalogue every item he is bringing with him, attributing it a bar-code he can scan and verify on his laptop:
I’m simplifying the task of packing for our trip. See, by attaching RFID tags to
my clothing, it will enable my laptop to read and identify the items with this wand. I will then cross-reference them against destination, anticipated activity spectrum, weather conditions, duration of trip, et cetera70.
68 TBBT, 06x09, 3:15-17. 69 TBBT, 08x12, 13:22-28. 70 TBBT, 02x17, 3:01-14.
Picture 13 - Sheldon labelling his clothes to pack.
