THE
PLOT
The Hound of the Baskervilles opens with a mini mystery—Sherlock Holmes
and Dr. Watson speculate on the identity of the owner of a cane that has been
left in their office by an unknown visitor. Wowing Watson with his fabulous
powers of observation, Holmes predicts the appearance of James Mortimer, owner
of the found object and a convenient entrée into the baffling curse of the
Baskervilles.
Entering the office and unveiling an 18th century manuscript, Mortimer recounts
the myth of the lecherous Hugo Baskerville. Hugo captured and imprisoned a
young country lass at his estate in Devonshire, only to fall victim to a
marauding hound of hell as he pursued her along the lonesome moors late one
night. Ever since, Mortimer reports, the Baskerville line has been plagued by a
mysterious and supernatural black hound. The recent death of Sir Charles
Baskerville has rekindled suspicions and fears. The next of kin, the duo finds
out, has arrived in London to take up his post at Baskerville Hall, but he has
already been intimidated by an anonymous note of warning and, strangely enough,
the theft of a shoe.
Agreeing to take the case, Holmes and Watson quickly discover
that Sir Henry Baskerville is being trailed in London by a mysterious bearded
stranger, and they speculate as to whether the ghost be friend or foe. Holmes,
however, announces that he is too busy in London to accompany Mortimer and Sir
Henry to Devonshire to get to the bottom of the case, and he sends Dr. Watson
to be his eyes and ears, insisting that he report back regularly.
Once in Devonshire, Watson discovers a state of emergency,
with armed guards on the watch for an escaped convict roaming the moors. He
meets potential suspects in Mr. Barrymore and Mrs. Barrymore, the domestic
help, and Mr. Jack Stapleton and his sister Beryl, Baskerville neighbors.
A series of mysteries arrive in rapid succession: Barrymore
is caught skulking around the mansion at night; Watson spies a lonely figure
keeping watch over the moors; and the doctor hears what sounds like a dog's
howling. Beryl Stapleton provides an enigmatic warning and Watson learns of a
secret encounter between Sir Charles and a local woman named Laura Lyons on the
night of his death.
Doing his best to unravel these threads of the mystery,
Watson discovers that Barrymore's nightly jaunts are just his attempt to aid
the escaped con, who turns out to be Mrs. Barrymore's brother. The doctor
interviews Laura Lyons to assess her involvement, and discovers that the lonely
figure surveying the moors is none other than Sherlock Holmes himself. It takes
Holmes—hidden so as not to tip off the villain as to his involvement—to piece
together the mystery.
Mr. Stapleton, Holmes has discovered, is actually in line to inherit the
Baskerville fortune, and as such is the prime suspect. Laura Lyons was only a
pawn in Stapleton's game, a Baskerville beneficiary whom Stapleton convinced to
request and then miss a late night appointment with Sir Charles. Having lured
Charles onto the moors, Stapleton released his ferocious pet pooch, which
frightened the superstitious nobleman and caused a heart attack.
In a dramatic final scene, Holmes and Watson use the younger
Baskerville as bait to catch Stapleton red-handed. After a late supper at the
Stapletons', Sir Henry heads home across the moors, only to be waylaid by the
enormous Stapleton pet. Despite a dense fog, Holmes and Watson are able to
subdue the beast, and Stapleton, in his panicked flight from the scene, drowns
in a marshland on the moors. Beryl Stapleton, who turns out to be Jack's
harried wife and not his sister, is discovered tied up in his house, having
refused to participate in his dastardly scheme.
Back in London, Holmes ties up the loose ends, announcing
that the stolen shoe was used to give the hound Henry's scent, and that
mysterious warning note came from Beryl Stapleton, whose philandering husband
had denied their marriage so as to seduce and use Laura Lyons. Watson files the
case closed.
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is the ever-observant,
world-renowned detective of 221b Baker Street. For all his assumed genius and
intuition he is virtually omniscient in these stories, and Holmes becomes more
accessible in the context of his constant posturing and pretension.
Holmes
lets down his guard and admits of a fragile ego. When challenged at the
beginning of the book—Mortimer calls him the second best crime solver in Europe
and Holmes lets down his guard and asks who could possibly be the first. By and
large, however, Holmes' ego is kept in check by a constant dose of adulation
from Watson. Holmes regularly announces some absurd and unsubstantiated
conclusion only to mock Watson by revealing the most obvious of clues. In the
end, Holmes toys with his associates (and particularly Watson) at least as much
as he flouts his enemies, equivocating, misleading, and making fools out of
them only to up his own crime-solving cachet.
The good doctor plays
the sidekick to Holmes' self-obsessed hero figure. Watson is a lowly apprentice
and live-in friend, who spends most of the book trying to solve a difficult
case in his master's stead. Always on hand to stroke Holmes' ego, Watson is
nonetheless intent on proving his own mettle by applying Holmes' techniques.
Watson's
never-ending adulation, which is presumably meant to mirror our own
understanding of the legendary detective, comes through most forcefully at the
end of the novel, when Holmes arrives at Devonshire. Holmes announces that he
meant for Watson to think he was in London, and a pouty Watson reacts:
"Then you use me, and yet you do not trust me!" Codependent
throughout, Holmes and Watson fill each other's needs. Watson provides Holmes
with an ego boost, and Holmes needs Watson's eyes and ears to inconspicuously
gather clues. Watson is awestruck by Holmes' power of observation, and Watson
feels more powerful by association.
Intended to incarnate
ill will and malice, Stapleton is conflated at various points with the
lecherous libertine Hugo, whom he resembles. Stapleton is a black-hearted,
violent villain hidden beneath a benign, bookish surface.
If Hugo operates as a
kind of Doppelganger for his entomologist heir, then the convict offers an interesting
parallel as well. Serving mainly as a red herring in the mysterious death of
Sir Charles Baskerville, the convict also operates as a foil for the real
culprit, Stapleton. Personifying "peculiar ferocity," "wonton
brutality," and even dubious sanity, the convict is shown to be a
pathetic, animalistic figure on whom the detectives ultimately take pity. Not
so with Stapleton, a man with a "murderous heart," and a wolf in
sheep's clothing.
Stapleton
is a worthy adversary because of his birthright. If the convict is a simple
murderer, he is also simply born, related by blood to the Baskerville's
domestic help. Thus, the convict is part of a lower class than Holmes, and
therefore is not a worthy adversary. Stapleton, however, is an intellectual,
and when his evil side comes out, his hidden nobility comes out as well. Once
Holmes is handling an educated and noble rival, he begins to take things much
more seriously. In this sense, Stapleton's character adds to the strong
classist themes imbedded in this book.
Themes
Natural
and supernatural; truth and fantasy
As soon
as Dr. Mortimer arrives to unveil the mysterious curse of the Baskervilles, Hound wrestles with questions of natural and
supernatural occurrences. The doctor himself decides that the marauding hound
in question is a supernatural beast, and all he wants to ask Sherlock Holmes is
what to do with the next of kin.
From Holmes' point of view, every set of clues points toward a logical, real-
world solution. Considering the supernatural explanation, Holmes decides to
consider all other options before falling back on that one. Sherlock Holmes
personifies the intellectual's faith in logic, and on examining facts to find
the answers.
In this sense, the story takes on the Gothic tradition, a
brand of storytelling that highlights the bizarre and unexplained. Doyles'
mysterious hound, an ancient family curse, even the ominous Baskerville Hall
all set up a Gothic- style mystery that, in the end, will fall victim to
Holmes' powerful logic.
Doyle's own faith in spiritualism, a doctrine of life after
death and psychic powers, might at first seem to contradict a Sherlockian
belief in logical solutions and real world answers. Holmes is probably based
more on Doyle's scientific training than his belief system. But the struggle
for understanding, the search for a coherent conception of the world we live
in, links the spiritualist Doyle with his fictional counterpart. Throughout the
novel, Holmes is able to come up with far-flung if ultimately true accounts of
the world around him, much as his author strove for understanding in fiction
and in fact.
Classism and hierarchy
Hound's
focus on the natural and supernatural spills over into other thematic
territory—the rigid classism of Doyle's milieu. Well-to-do intellectual that he
was, Doyle translated many of the assumptions of turn-of- the-century English
society into his fiction. The natural and supernatural is one example.
Throughout the story, the superstitions of the shapeless mass
of common folk- everyone attributes an unbending faith in the curse to the
commoners-are denigrated and, often, dismissed. If Mortimer and Sir Henry have
their doubts, it is the gullible common folk who take the curse seriously. In
the end, when Watson's reportage and Holmes' insight have shed light on the
situation, the curse and the commoners who believed it end up looking silly.
At the same time, Sir Henry's servants evince a kind of docility, and their
brother the convict is reduced from dangerous murderer to pathetic rodent under
Watson's gaze. Hound's
classism is also enmeshed in questions of entitlement: who has the right to
Baskerville Hall, to Holmes' attention, to our attention.
Motifs
Superstition and folk tales
The story opens with the folk tale of the Baskerville curse,
presented on eighteenth century parchment. The reproduction of the curse, both
in the novel and in Mortimer's reading, serves to start the story off with a bang-a
shadowy folk tale, nothing if not mysterious. At the same time, it offers a
nice contrast to Watson's straight-forward reporting, a style insisted upon by
the master and one which will ultimately dispel any foolish belief in curses
and hounds of hell.
Red Herring
A classic of the mystery/detective genre, the red herring
throws us off the right trail. Much like the folk tale, it offers a too-easy
answer to the question at hand, tempting us to take the bait and making fools
of us if we do. In Hound, the largest red herring is the
convict. After all, who better to pin a murder on than a convicted murderer.
Barrymore's late-night mischief turns out to be innocent, and the convicted
murderer turns out to not be involved in the mysterious deaths.
Key
Facts
FULL
TITLE · The Hound of the Baskervilles
AUTHOR · Arthur Conan Doyle
TYPE
OF WORK · Novel
GENRE · Mystery
LANGUAGE · English
TIME
AND PLACE WRITTEN · Returning
from the Boer War in South Africa, Doyle wrote and published Hound of the Baskervilles in England in 1901.
DATE
OF FIRST PUBLICATION · 1901,
serialized in The Strand; 1902, published by Newnes
PUBLISHER · George Newnes, Ltd.
NARRATOR · Dr. Watson
CLIMAX · Holmes' secret plan comes to
fruition when a guileless Sir Henry heads home across the moor, only to be
attacked by the hound. Hindered by a thick fog and sheer fright, Holmes and
Watson nonetheless shoot the beast and solve the mystery.
PROTAGONIST · Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes
ANTAGONIST · Jack Stapleton
SETTING
(TIME) · 1889.
Holmes notes that the date 1884, engraved on Dr. Mortimer's walking stick, is
five years old.
SETTING
(PLACE) · The novel
starts and ends in London, in Holmes' office at 221b Baker Street. Most of the
rest of the novel takes place in Devonshire, at the imposing Baskerville Hall,
the lonely moorlands, and the rundown Merripit House where Stapleton lives.
POINT
OF VIEW · The
mystery is told entirely from Watson's point of view, although the author
regularly switches from straight narrative to diary to letters home.
FALLING
ACTION · Holmes
explains the intricacies of the case; Sir Henry and Mortimer head off on
vacation to heal Henry's nerves
TENSE · Modulates from past (as in
Watson's narration of London events) to recent past (as in Watson's diary and
letters)
FORESHADOWING · The deaths of some wild horses
prefigure Stapleton's own death by drowning in the Grimpen mire. There is a
sense in which all the clues serve as foreshadowing for later discoveries.
TONE · At different times, the novel's
tone is earnest, reverent (of Holmes), uncertain, and ominous.
THEMES · Good and evil; natural and
supernatural; truth and fantasy; classism, hierarchy, and entitlement
MOTIFS · Superstition and folk tales;
disguised identities; the red herring
SYMBOLS · The moor (the mire); the hound
