Tuesday, July 27, 2010

The Hound of the Baskervilles

Sherlock Holmes is one of the few fictional characters so internationally famous that even before readers encounter the Holmes stories, they are already familiar with the great detective. Now that you have read The Hound of the Baskervilles, how would you answer the question, "Who is Holmes?" What scenes or details in Hound do you think illustrate his character especially well? To what extent do you think the character described in the story lives up to his myth?

Sherlock Holmes is one of my favorite literary characters because he is not a typical detective. He is arrogant and humorous. We also know he is a cocaine addict which makes his thought process even more eccentric as Watson describes him as having "the power of detaching his mind at will." Watson first describes him as usually "very late in the mornings save upon those not infrequent occasions when he [is] up all night," showing us he is usually hard at work or hardly working. He asks interesting and sometimes aloof questions and says, "The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes." He describes his investigation methods as, "The past and the present are within the field of my inquiry, but what a man may do in the future is a hard question to answer." While he is investigating the murder, he says, "I tell you, Watson, this time we have got a foeman who is worthy of our steel," obviously knowing the immense talents he has to offer in his work. He seems like he makes his investigation perfect in silence without worrying about the proper details and swoops in at the last minute with it all figured out in his head. He also seems excited by the work, saying, "There is nothing more stimulating than a case where everything goes against you."

The Hound of the Baskervilles is marked by the constant juxtaposition of the rational and scientific with the irrational and supernatural. How can you see this tension in the novel? Which of the two forces -- science or the supernatural -- triumphs at the end? How is this made clear? Why might this tension have been especially riveting for a Victorian audience?

Doyle starts out telling us about Sir Charles Baskerville, who "never returned" from his walk and that he died from "cardiac exhaustion," leading us to wonder if it was his body or something else that did him in. The evidence of footprints and health issues are countered by rumors of a haunting, the ghostly cries of the Hound, The Baskerville legend about the "evil" moors, and the freakish size of the hound. Dr Mortimer lead us to believe things more by saying, "Since the tragedy, Mr. Holmes, there have come to my ears several incidents which are hard to reconcile with the settled order of Nature. . . I find that before the terrible event occurred several people had seen a creature upon the moor which corresponds with this Baskerville demon, and which could not possibly be any animal known to science." We are left to wonder if it was something supernatural or scientific that caused Baskerville to die. I think the supernatural and the science build up equal tension throughout the story. Holmes say about their mysterious clues on the supernatural end to Watson, “The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?” Holmes and Watson figure out what really happen and make rational reasoning as answers for his death as opposed to supernatural. Holmes seems also intrigued by this supernatural mystery saying, "The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes."

The moors in The Hound of the Baskervilles are so central to the plot that they almost act as an extra character. If you were to describe them the way you would describe a human character, what would you say about them? Which person in the story do they most resemble? How?

The moor is a creepy foggy setting for this mysterious town, which is an element of what every great mystery needs. To some of the residents, it is the access of evil. It doesn't help the residents to change their opinion when they hear the ghostly cries of the hound coming from the moor. Dr. Mortimer believes Sir Charles Baskerville was afraid of the moors, saying "I think it unlikely that he waited at the moor-gate every evening. On the contrary, the evidence is that he avoided the moor." Hugo Baskerville created the legend with the warning, "To that Providence, my sons, I hereby commend you, and I counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted." It must have been from this warning, Sir Charles gets his fear. They even find a note written for Sir Charles saying, "'As you value your life or your reason keep away from the moor.' The word "moor" only was printed in ink" which leads them to wonder who wrote it and why the moor is so disturbing. On the other hand Stapleton describes the moor as "a wonderful place. You never tire of the moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious." As readers we find Stapleton is also "mysterious" and full of "secrets," since he is the murderer.


Historians of the detective novel recognize the pairing of the brilliant Holmes with a very ordinary partner -- Watson -- as one of the Arthur Conan Doyle's key contributions to the genre. Why do you think their pairing works so well? How would Hound be different if Watson were taken out of the tale? Holmes remarks in another novel that Watson "sees but does not observe." How does that make him a useful narrator for a detective story?

Holmes and Watson are a good literary pairing because they seem like total opposites. Watson is straight-laced as opposed to Holmes, which makes him a great counterpart. I think it is because they don't get along and constantly debate about their work, that makes their partnership so great. I don't think Holmes would have a great confidant he could also argue with and would go even more insane if Watson was taken out of the tale. Holmes and Watson approach their cases differently. It is obvious Holmes thinks highly of Watson's help in their cases, saying, "Really, Watson, you excel yourself. I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt." Watson looks at the facts and what he can physically see, while Holmes looks at the coincidences and the feelings and the hidden clues of the cases, which Watson doesn't see. If Holmes was the narrator, there wouldn't be as good as conclusion, because we would already know what Holmes is thinking. Watson finds out the solutions the same time as we do, which makes it thrilling.

In a well-crafted detective story, nothing is wasted; each scene adds suspense and clues to the hunt for "whodunnit." How tightly written is Hound in this sense? What particular clues, details, descriptions or lines of dialogue do you think worked particularly well to build suspense? Which do you consider the climactic scene? Why?

Doyle gives us a taste of the mystery in each chapter, leaving us to want more. I believe Doyle has Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Watson ask important questions to the people and doctors who are their leads and suspects, because they are questions we would want to know the answer to if we were in the story. We also experience the climatic settings of the murder in a first hand way like Holmes and Watson, with them describing and finding every suspicious trail, hearing every cry, spotting the cracks in Stapleton's story, and seeing the moor and the giant hound for what they actually are, as the murder victims saw them. The clues through inner and outer dialogue make us enfold them in our minds while reading them. We also get to see Holmes and Watson break the clues down and debate as to what is actually going on, like we would do if we were investigating the murder. It is also important that Watson writes letters to Holmes why he was away, going deeper into the mystery and the lives of the people who were involved in Baskerville's life. Through the letters, we learn what Watson finds important about the case, searching on his own, and not relying on Holmes to solve the mystery for him.

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