The moors described as being, “So vast, and so barren, and so mysterious”.
Merripit house was to be known as the, “Bleak moor land house”. And Baskerville hall was repeatedly described as “Dim and sombre”.
The Script that Doyle used almost certainly depicts settings of mystery.
“The coming of the hound”. Was believed to have plagued the Baskerville family for years and needed to be investigated. Doyle wanted his book to appeal to his readers and now with the possibility of a supernatural phenomenon he had a theory to solve. With his success of increasing the ratings of Doyle’s previous books there could be only one person for the job. With his logic thinking and experience in criminology who better to star as a main character than a detective who could return from the dead; Mr Sherlock Holmes, and there in his famed Barker Street office the narrative begins.
Doyle with the assistance of Fletcher succeeded in making this book as gripping as possible and is written in a way that would appeal to a varied range of readers in any day and age. Because of Doyle’s fascination with the supernatural I think he wanted this book to be classified as a horror story and in many ways he succeeds, with its detailed graphic imagery of “The beast” And its “Blazing eyes and dripping jaws“ Instantly introducing a chill factor. Doyle also uses animal imagery which is normally done to make someone sound more scary than they are like when he describes Stapleton as a, “big lean jawed pike” and a “Wiry bulldog” it automatically transforms him into a more frightening being. Horror was intended to be injected into the story by Doyle as he used nouns in a way to suggest the “Great black beast” to be daunting and the alliteration increases to the terror. The verbs used to describe actions introduced a certain amount of fear to me, like the way the thing “Tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville”. Doyle wrote of scenes that any horror fanatic would appreciate but I think it would be unfair to categorize this novel as a horror story because although Doyle’s script is packed with scenes of horror, it is not constant unlike the depiction of mystery which runs throughout the whole novel, also as Arthur Conan Doyle decided to introduce a detective into the mix it would obviously become a detective novel.
From the beginning of this book Sherlock and Watson began analyzing a subject, in this instance a cane, and in doing this he shows his abilities as a detective which resulted in him gaining my respect and had me hanging off his every word. I think this may be due to the way in which Watson tells the story and think that in effect it works well. I got the feeling that he was thinking in the same way as a reader, his guesses and thoughts weren’t unlike mine and this made the book easier to read. Told by the ever reliable Dr Watson, Sherlock’s loyal sidekick the mystery is about to become clear but not before many suspects were to evolve. I think the way the suspects are introduced is very important as it meant to me that I got to know the characters individually, and it made it easier to identify with each of their characteristics and draw my own conclusions. To begin, Barrymore was my favourite character as his personal traits portrayed him as the first suspect when his “Black beard” matched a witnesses description, but then his explanation eliminated him. This added to the intrigue once again, and the curiosity continued to grow as each of the accused was ruled out and another came to light.
The suspense slowly builds up and by the end is in abundance, so much so that I admittedly read chapter 15 before chapter 13 which was a huge mistake because to the novels credit, the plot didn’t actually develop as I had predicted.
The conspiracy theories kept flowing all the way through the novel led by Watson’s many thought provoking questions, which in turn kept the suspense alive and the mystery present in the way that any first-rate detective novel should and consequently guiding me to my conclusion that The Hound of the Baskervilles is in no doubt to me a whodunit.
