Thursday, April 9, 2009

Some Themes in Hound of the Baskervilles

Here are a few themes or issues we weren't able to spend much time on at the reading group meeting:

Landscape as character and symbol:

As mentioned in the reading group, the landscape is a central character in the story. From the arrival of Sir Henry and Watson at the scene of the crime, the landscape creates an atmosphere of foreboding:

"there rose in the distance a gray, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream."

"...behind the peaceful and sunlit countryside there rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister hills."

It is a landscape that humans have not tamed, that is wild and treacherous. It is home to possibly supernatural forces (the hound), is like something out of a dream (nightmare), and weighs down on people's spirits just by its presence. It swallows the moor ponies unfortunate enough to take a wrong step. In one of his letters to Holmes, Watson calls the area "this most God-forsaken corner of the world." In a word, it is evil, and we may get the feeling that something of that evil has seeped into the Baskerville clan, starting with Sir Hugo.

And yet, the landscape is a complicated character, not just the backdrop of a Gothic horror novel. For one thing, it is a place of refuge (for ancient humans, for animals on little "island" in the middle, for criminals like Selden). It is a home for butterflies. The hound in the legend is supernatural, but not so much evil as an agent of vengeance against the evil perpetrated by a human, Sir Hugo Baskerville. Selden and Stapleton, who are murderers, both presumably die on the moor, but not Sir Charles, the victim. There is also an odd parallelism between the site of Sir Hugo's death on the moor, and Baskerville Hall:

"We found a short valley between rugged tors which led to an open, grassy space flecked over with the white cotton grass. In the middle of it rose two great stones, worn and sharpened at the upper end until they looked like the huge corroding fangs of some monstrous beast."

"Suddenly we looked down into a cuplike depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs which had been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Two high, narrow towers rose over the trees. The driver pointed with his whip. "Baskerville Hall," said he."

Since both the stones and the towers have been erected by humans, it could be understood as suggesting evil resides in humans, not in the landscape.

Since these complications make any simple identification of the moor with evil forces problematic, I would suggest another kind of symbolism at work. The untamed and wild landscape, crossed by paths where any misstep can mean disaster, could be understood as (using a cliche) "the minefield of the human heart." The Baskervilles are described at one point as "that long line of high-blooded, fiery, and masterful men." Sir Hugo's passions led to the first crime, and like a family curse (a staple of Gothic horror novels) that passionate nature has been passed on through the generations, to finally end with the crime of Stapleton and his (presumed) death.

The ancient people

Numerous mentions are made of stone ruins left by Neolithic people who lived on the moor. Like the landscape and the family curse, both staples of the Gothic horror novel, the reminders of the "ancient people" help create a mood of foreboding and danger. When Watson first sees the criminal Selden on the moor he gives this description:

"...an evil yellow face, a terrible animal face, all seamed and scored with vile passions. Foul with mire, with a bristling beard, and hung with matted hair, it might well have belonged to one of those old savages who dwelt in the burrows on the hillsides."

Several mentions are made that the area is "God-forsaken" and that "saints have never flourished in those parts," and the stone ruins suggest that something pagan or pre-Christian is still present. It's not hard for the reader to connect this with Sir Hugo's pledge "he would that very night render his body and soul to the Powers of Evil..."

And yet Watson undermines this symbolism of the stone ruins at another point when he wonders about why the prehistoric people would settle in such an inhospitable place, and imagines that "..they were some unwarlike and harried race who were forced to accept that which none other would occupy." One of their homes shelters Holmes for a time. Frankland, the amateur astronomer and lawsuit fanatic, even has plans "to prosecute Dr. Mortimer for opening a grave without the consent of the next of kin because he dug up the Neolithic skull in the barrow on Long Down." So we move from horror to farce. Either way, it adds another interesting layer to the story.

Theories of criminality

Several different understandings of criminality appear in the story.

(1) Dr. Mortimer is a student of phrenology, who is obsessed with the shape of people's skulls. Selden the criminal is described by Watson as having a "beetling forehead" and "sunken animal eyes." In a Wikipedia article on criminology, it mentions that in the late Victorian period "physiological traits such as the measurements of one's cheek bones or hairline, or a cleft palate, [were] considered to be throwbacks to Neanderthal man, [and] were indicative of "atavistic" criminal tendencies."

(2) Stapleton looks exactly like his ancestor Sir Hugo Baskerville. While Holmes is surprised at his mild-mannered appearance (although prim, hard, and stern), Holmes goes on to say: "Yes, it is an interesting instance of a throwback, which appears to be both physical and spiritual." While similar to the atavism mentioned before, it seems more directly related to heredity.

(3) Selden's sister, Mrs. Barrymore, offers another explanation for criminality:

"Yes, sir, my name was Selden, and he is my younger brother. We humoured him too much when he was a lad and gave him his own way in everything until he came to think that the world was made for his pleasure, and that he could do what he liked in it. Then as he grew older he met wicked companions, and the devil entered into him until he broke my mother's heart and dragged our name in the dirt."

Actually there are three theories here: upbringing, bad companions, and the devil...

(4) Finally, the sinister and foreboding landscape might be understood to contain an evil force that seeps into the humans living there. But this is the theory most consistently undermined by the story, along with any suggestion of supernatural beings.

Role of intelligence

From the beginning, Holmes realizes he is dealing with an adversary who has a very powerful mind. As with Moriarty, his arch-nemesis, there is no guarantee intelligence will side with the good in humans. In fact, as readers we have no reassurance that there is anything holding Holmes back from becoming a master criminal himself. It is hard to see a moral foundation to his activities, or something that motivates his tireless efforts to solve crimes, other than his fascination with solving puzzles. His drug addiction (in other stories), secretiveness, and arrogance enforce that rootlessness.

I would argue that the moral and emotional anchor of the story is, instead, the character of Watson, who represents a whole host of human values like common sense, decency, kindness, good-heartedness, courage, etc. Without him, we could never reach one of the deeper satisfactions of a good murder-mystery story, which is the final restoration of the moral and social order after crime has violently disrupted it.