The structure however would be rendered useless if it were not for Conan Doyle’s ability to create horror and atmosphere in a single sentence or paragraph with his use of language. In ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ the atmosphere of fear he creates is a feat which really accentuates the brilliance of the narrative. The descriptions of the forbidding moor, the gothic atmosphere of Baskerville Hall or the sheer horror of the Hound all are examples of this. The reader is riveted to the text, he or she is not just reading the story but is in it, feeling those moments of fear and responding physically to the tensions created by the descriptions by Conan Doyle.
‘There rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister hills.’ (The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 6; ‘Baskerville Hall’.)
‘A hound it was, an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen.’ (The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 14; ‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’.)
‘The Hound of the Baskervilles’ is not however the only Sherlock Holmes story in which he creates this feeling of fear through langue, also in his short story ‘The Speckled Band’ his talent comes through for creating a mood deep and unsettling.
‘A moment later moment later we were out on the dark road, a chill wind blowing in our faces, and only one yellow twinkling light in front of us through the gloom to guide us on our sombre errand.’ (The Speckled Band.)
It is important to consider the actual nature of the plot, the super natural context and how it creates horror and mystery in the Hound of the Baskervilles. Conan Doyle’s story of the Hound of the Baskervilles is such an astonishing plot with the bare bones of the plot bringing terror and mystery. The very idea of a large supernatural hound which hunts down a cursed family incites such interest from a reader it causes on its own, a prick of fear. In human imaginations we always have, tucked away, a fear of the unknown and the supernatural and what Conan Doyle does is simply unlock that fear.
‘As they looked the thing tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with fear.’ (The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 2; ‘The Curse of the Baskervilles’)
The fear of the reader and their feeling of mystery is also built on, by Conan Doyle, by the means of characteristics of the settings of the story, the misty, bog strewn and menacing moor with its ability to conceal the unknown and create a feeling of mystery, and the lonely isolation of Baskerville Hall with its gothic horror features creates fear in the reader.
‘The front was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where a window or a coat of arms broke through the dark veil. Then rose twin towers, ancient, crenulated and priced with many loop holes.’ (The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 6; ‘Baskerville Hall’)
The real feel of mystery however is created by Conan Doyle’s technique of writing a criminal mystery plot. The format in which he creates false trails to allow the reader to build up their own suspicions of the unravelling of the mystery, preserves the feel of mystery right to the pivotal moment in the plot when all is revealed to the reader. An example of this is where at the start of the book a mysterious figure with a black beard is following Sir Henry Baskerville in a coach. The reader thinks it is the bearded Baskerville servant Barrymore in fact it was someone completely different. This writing, allows the reader to try and speculate at the truth and almost play along with the characters in the book also preserves the reader’s interest.
The view point of Watson allows them to see events through the mind of an ordinary or at least more normal person, a person, who they can relate, his ideas of the mystery to their own. This is compared to the brilliant mind of Sherlock who works out the mystery in a short time and so his point of view will not do.
Sir Henry Baskerville: ‘A warden no doubt. The moor has been thick them.’
Dr Watson (narrator): Well, perhaps his explanation may be the right one, but I should like to have some further proof of it. (The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 9; ‘The light upon the Moor’)
Conan Doyle also makes Holmes the kind of character who does not reveal his understanding of a mystery, not even to Watson when they are about to capture the villain and end the mystery, this conveniently keeps both the reader and other characters in the dark till the moment of action when any thing could come out of the mist. He also drops little snippets of information which tantalise the reader and Watson.
‘Even now we have no clear case against this very wily man. But I shall be very much surprised if it is not clear before we go to bed.’ (The Hound of the Baskervilles, Chapter 13; ‘Fixing the nets’.)
The Hound of the Baskervilles is a narrative which evokes fear and creates mystery so apparently unfathomable that it is as thick as a Dartmoor mist. It is a tale of true brilliance.