Analyse Conan Doyles depiction of the moor in chapter six of The Hound of the Baskervilles. With reference to Doyles style and authorial technique , explain how language is used to , construct a memorable setting for the nove

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Shadi Paterson

Analyse Conan Doyle’s depiction of the moor in chapter six of “The Hound of the Baskervilles.” With reference to Doyle’s style and authorial technique , explain how language is used to , construct a memorable setting for the novel.

This essay will analyse chapter six Conan Doyle’s “Hound of the Baskervilles” , and how he makes it incredibly memorable and paints a vibrant picture in the readers mind in every part of his story. A convenient example of this is chapter six, this being filled to the brim by imagery, symbolism, personification, alliteration and a variation of similes and metaphors makes it very easy to understand Conan Doyle’s style, but what makes it truly interesting is the way he uses his narrators voice to convoy a biased opinion of the character to add different level’s to the story.

At the start of chapter six the main characters (Sir Henry,Mr Holmes , Watson , Dr Mortimer)  are taken to the station .

The first speech is of Mr. Holmes and he brings the word suspicion into the reader’s view this is done when he says –“by suggesting theories of suspicion” This is important because the book was based around 1884-5. In 1844 people were very much more likely to be more suspicious about anything really (witches, ghosts and other mythical creatures ).So the theory of a ghost dog or something of the genre wouldn’t be swiftly shaken off by the readers of the time (1901-1902).On page 60 line 9 The characters train comes to a stop and they get off an observe the surroundings. A key observation is that of two soldier’s .The two soldiers are incredibly important to the telling of the story. The reason behind this is that the characters are in the country side. Now in that age seeing a soldier in the country side let alone inner city London would be very unusual. So as the reader has not been told the reason behind the presence of the soldiers, the reader is made to come to they’re own conclusions for this feature, inevitably the reader may come to the fact that the need of this security would be unnerving and make the characters very suspicious. As they ride the ‘cobs’ down the pasture lands Conan Doyle makes a sharp contrast between the land that they are riding down and the moor.

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-‘Rolling pasture lands curved upwards on either side of us, and old gabled houses peeped up from amid the thick green foliage ‘ This description of the surrounding land makes Devonshire seem beautiful  with words such as peaceful , sunlit and thick green foliage - ‘ but behind the peaceful and sunlit countryside there rose after’ At this point the positive description of the surroundings change to depressing negative descriptions of the surroundings ‘ dark against the evening sky, the long , gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister hills’

This description is intended to emphasise ...

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