Category: 2016 Blog Post

The Hound of Baskervilles is a cunning mystery novel that leaves the reader with questions many times throughout the story. It is fair to say that almost all books are extremely particular about the specific words that are used. This Sherlock Holmes novel has many interesting words and phrases weaved into it, and I picked up on a particular word that is mentioned very frequently. The word “grey” is used to describe many things; whether it be clothing, the weather etc. While reading the assigned pages, I thought to myself on many occasions, “why does this word keep showing up? What is the meaning behind it?” I believe this color/word is noted multiple times because of the exact meaning of the word. When I looked up the definition of “grey”, it stated: 1. Of a color intermediate between black and white. 2. Dull and nondescript; without interest or character. There is no clear understanding of the crime in this mystery, so the word grey is perfect to convey the confusion and blurriness of the truth. It is a color that has two mixed into it (black and white) just like this crime has multiple rumors and sides to it. There is no clear cut answer to the crime, just like grey is not a clear cut color. The pigment grey is mentioned twice on one page, as an example. “…the grim and GREY impression which had been left upon both of us by our first experience to Baskerville Hall” (62.) The other phrase is ” We were tired with our journey and chilled by our drive, so we took a GREY view of the place” (62.) The atmosphere by Baskerville Hall is mentioned as grey because there are unanswered questions around there. The same goes for “grey view of the place.” There are few answers to the many questions being asked in this mystery.

 

“A dim line of ancestors, in every variety of dress, from the Elizabethan knight to the buck of the Regency, stared down upon us and daunted us by their silent company. We talked little, and I for one was glad when the meal was over and we were able to retire into the modern billiard-room and smoke a cigarette.” Pg 61

The Hounds of Baskervilles takes place during a time of innovation and progress; Wednesday’s discussion emphasized this period as marked by inventions that greatly improved the standard of living. As discussed, technologies like the camera and advent of skyscrapers demonstrated the unlimited potential that scientific research could bring. Thus there was a focus on scientific explanations for various phenomenon and a transition away from the traditional reliance on legends and the supernatural.

Sherlock Holmes embodies this cultural shift as an expert detective who surrounds himself with individuals of high calliber such as doctors and naturalists, people who study the natural world. His sidekick Watson is likeminded in this regard and views the Baskervilles hound legend with a great deal of skepticism, opting for a more worldy explanation. This skepticism is carried over to his impression of Baskervilles hall where he repeatedly describes the hall with its “weather-bitten pillars … blotched with lichen … a ruin of black granite” (58). From a bio major perspective, lichen are considered pioneer species that transform bare rock into soil. This implies an ancient, unkempt image of Baskervilles hall that itself is situated within a primordial moor that may have once been home to primitive humans.

Referring back to the passage I chose, which until now I’ve barely remarked on, such an image of the hall is paired with an interior lined with old paintings of the Baskervilles line, which portray ancestors as early as an “Elizabethan knight” who would have been around in the 17^th century, nearly 200 years prior to the novel. Watson is apprehensive of these overbearing paintings and the general aire surrounding the moor and Baskervilles hall, being happy to return to his more modern room and an area reminiscent of London and civilization. London possibly representing the more developed realm of science and innovation that he’s so accustomed too, whereas the moor is an unexplored and secretive environment.

Exactly what Doyle is attempting to convey with this duality remains obscure as the moor vs. London isn’t so black and white when there exists characters like Mr. Stapleton, a naturalist who respects and appreciates the moor due to its many species undescribed by science, whether they be orchids for his sister or a Cyclopid for his butterfly collection. His character, being a man of science in an area where superstition reins above all may reveal Doyles opinion that there is reason to explore and knowledge to be gained from primitive areas seemingly abandoned by modern humans.

“From this point onwards I will follow the course of events by transcribing my own letters to Mr Sherlock Holmes which lie before me on the table. One page is missing, but otherwise they are exactly as written, and show my feelings and suspicions of the moment more accurately than my memory, clear as it is upon these tragic events, can possibly do.”

In this blog post I am going to relate the epistolary form of the latter part of the novel to our in-class discussion about Victorian Era anxieties about time. In addition, I am going to argue that the form speaks to the increasing amount of free time that the reading middle class gained during the Era.

In class on Wednesday we discussed the significance of the introduction of the moving picture to Victorian audiences, specifically in the form of the video showing the arrival of a train. Over the course of that discussion, we ended up talking about the conundrum this presented in the context of time: A singular and past event was able to be relived in the future an unlimited amount of times. I believe that the epistolary format is representative of the same development. Letters are fixed in time and are clearly dated, but much like a video, they present a clear perspective of the subject in current time. Watson’s letters thus serve as remnants of past events, yet at the same time they present an avenue to immortality for the persons involved. To tie this back into our introduction to Victorian culture that we received in the form of the handout, this matches the Victorian quest of leaving a lasting legacy.

Additionally, this form of storytelling could be seen as the product of its audience. The time period was marked by the expansion of labor laws and subsequent rise in leisure, which has we know radically increased literacy rates. By telling the story through letters, Doyle invites his readers to make their own attempt at solving the mystery as the clues unfold, far removed from Holmes ability to simply explain it away for the reader. By providing this degree of interactivity, I think it could be argued that Doyle was deftly expanding the popular appeal of his work while simultaneously filling a popular need.

In summary, I think this passage serves as a window into the Victorian psyche much like Lady Audley’s Secret, they merely illuminate different cultural anxieties. At the same time, I also think it serves as an enticing incentive for following along with the mystery.

“How difficult it is to believe sometimes that a man doesn’t like such and such a favorite dish!” (Volume III, Chapter II, “The Bearer of the Tidings”, by the end of the 22^nd paragraph)

 

In this all paragraph, Robert masculinity is at stake throughout the narrator’s metaphor of food. This is not the first time that in the novel, we might think at Robert as a misogynist, for example as Schorsch described in her post “Robert and his Contradictions”, Robert “describes women as a kind of tsunamic force behind men, driving them to conform to the image the wife has construed and forced upon them. Man is naked clay in the hands of manipulative, cunning, thoroughly unpitying women, who are above else never lazy, and never quiet. They force a man into the worst of possible circumstances against his will or inclinations, relentless in the pursuit of their own feminine ambitions.” However, she keeps going stating that Robert’s attitude is pretty contradictory: “his proclivity to have somewhat strong emotions almost immediately upon meeting two of the women in this story, would indicate an impulsive personality that does anything but hate women.” Thus far, we might be confused by reading about and understating his personality and the most common idea we come up with is that he is still a child when it comes to women, he’s not ready yet.

Then, we read this paragraph and everything changes. We start doubting Robert’s sexual desires thanks to the narrator’s point of view and Sir Michael Audley’s words. It might be weird, but what if this passage suggests that Robert is homosexual? In a very subtle way, the author, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, uses the metaphor of the food to explain such a complicated matter: a “respectable” man that doesn’t like women. It’s fascinating that the words used are so peculiarly placed so that the reader at first doesn’t even realize the connection between food and sexual differences. But because food is on everybody’s collective memory as keyword for sex (let’s think about the very first example: Adam and Eve in the Bible), we are not surprised when we actually realize what she is trying to imply through such an articulated but fluid word choice.

She concludes her metaphor by saying that “there are people who dislike salmon, and whitebait, and spring ducklings, and all manner of old-established delicacies, and there are other people who affect eccentric and despicable dishes generally stigmatized as nasty”. In this last sentence, it is so poetic the way she states that of course there can be men that don’t like some women because of their different beauties, and others that on the contrary like something which is not generally accepted as the norm. It’s peculiar that during those days there would be somebody writing about these delicate matters through a novel and we all must admit that the author Mary Elizabeth Braddon has an “avant-gardistic” point of view on that. She doesn’t condemn anybody, she is not saying that this behavior is to punish, instead she just says that of course it is “eccentric and despicable” but it is “generally stigmatized as nasty” which means that the society in which she lives knows about this “issue”.

To conclude, I have to admit that it shocks me to read about such things written more than 100 years ago because things didn’t change that much and actually in some countries it just got worse. Victorian Age has always been the time of sexual awakening both for women and for those who had “despicable” tastes and since then the “old-established delicacies” didn’t go through a process of modernization: they are still the same.

“I cannot!” cried my lady, pushing her hair fiercely from her white forehead, and fixing her dilated eyes upon Robert Audley, “I cannot!” Has my beauty brought me to this? Have I plotted and schemed to shield myself, and laid awake in the long deadly nights trembling to think of my dangers, for this? I had better have given up at once, since this was to be the end. I had better have yielded to the curse that was upon me, and given up when George Talboys first came back to England.” page 384, volume III, chapter VI

Okay, there is a lot packed into this short paragraph. The italicized “cannot’s” and “this’s” I though at first to be signs of despair. Now, not so much.

This paragraph is about Lady Audley’s reaction to the madhouse that Robert has brought her to. Robert tells her she can spend the rest of her life here in this institution and repent for all her evil ways, as “many a good and holy woman in this Catholic country freely takes upon herself.”

Her repeated “I cannot!” might mean that she isn’t repentant, and will suffer the consequences of her sins in a madhouse, but in a version she didn’t know existed before her arrival here.  When she was a young girl she visited her mother in a public sanitarium, a horrid, disgusting fate she fears for herself. But, unbeknownst to her, wealthy people don’t go to those kinds of places. What if she is really saying “BONUS!!!“? Remember? She packed up all of those beautiful things before she left Audley Court, and I thought that was really odd at the time. If you are going to be locked away somewhere, why bring all your “stuff”. Now it has a different meaning for me.

I think she’s thinking “Damn! If this is how I will live my life; in luxury, no plotting, no scheming, or looking over my shoulder for someone to out me, no fear of being thrown out of Audley Court to be a pauper again, I should have given up my secret a long time ago!!”. In this madhouse, she has everything she always wanted; to be taken care of, to cherish her possessions, and to be left alone. She has hit a jack pot. She might be locked in, but troublesome realities and the needs of other people, are locked out. There are no men she has to perform for, and on whose affection her desired lifestyle relies. She is finally free to be herself, by herself, free to be selfish and self-absorbed, and finally free of the iron mask that weighed her down with exhausting performances for others.  She is now able to be herself, gloriously free of her manufactured identity.

”You have conquered—a MAD WOMAN!”
“A mad woman!” cried Mr. Audley
“Yes, a mad woman. When you say that I killed George Talboys you say the truth. When you say that I murdered him treacherously and foully, you lie. I killed him because I AM MAD! Because my intellect is a little way upon the wrong side of that narrow boundary-line between sanity and insanity; because, when George Talboys goaded me, as you have goaded me, and reproached me, and threatened me, my mind, never properly balanced, utterly lost its balance, and I was mad!”
This passage is interesting and reveals several different things about the novel and Lady Audley herself. The first thing that struck me was that in the chapter titled “In the Lime Walk” there is a passage where Robert speaks about a conspiracy, Lady Audley cried “a conspiracy” and George launches into a long rant about what the conspiracy is. This passage has the same structure, although with the roles of Robert and Lady Audley reversed. When accused straight out, Lady Audley almost takes the place of a man in her outspokenness. This makes readers draw parallels between Robert and Lady Audley. Is Robert just as mad as Lady Audley in his obsession with George? The way Lady Audley presents her confession is also interesting. While the explanation of her madness might be an exciting twist for the readers, there appears to be more in it. She does not seem crazy when she speaks, but rather seems to be trying to convince Robert that she is justified in her actions. Perhaps because of the time period, she could not come out and say she was doing what is justified and accepted for any man to do, but when a woman does the same thing, she must be considered crazy. This is also showed through the parallel form. Lady Audley also threaten Robert in this passage. She seems to still be power hungry, deriving that power from the fear she is instilling in him. When she says “When George Talboys goaded me, as you have goaded me…” In this Lady Audley threatens to do to Robert what she did to George. The diction and form of this passage is also telling. The author begins sentences with because, uses long sentences with dashes and commas, and in my version of the novel capitalizing the words “I am mad” several times. Perhaps this is to mimic how a lunatic would sound.
Over all the passage seems to be directly telling readers two things. I first brings up the idea of a double standard between men and women, as using the same form as a previous passage between Robert and Lady Audley and reversing roles, now calling Lady Audley mad for acting and speaking in the way Robert did. This only adds to the novels interesting discussion of men and women. The second thing the passage does for the novel as a whole is add to Lady Audley’s complex character. It appears her last defense is to plead insane, and yet she is cunning and calculated in doing so. In the Victorian Era, madness was viewed very poorly as well, and people who were crazy were also treated very poorly. I find that this passage almost links craziness with womanhood, as the more and more you push a women, the more insane she will become.

In Lady Audley’s Secret, Mary Elizabeth Braddon uses allusion and various comparisons to describe Lady Audley and her actions. In particular, during Chapter 12 of Volume II, the author draws a comparison that is used to describe Lady Audley and her actions. Of these correlations, I will choose to focus on how Lady Audley was assigned characteristics similar to that of a siren. The purpose of this blog post is to elaborate on the observations we noticed in class by introducing new and old evidence that would allow us to develop more concepts on why she is compared to a siren.

From what I could observe, the first direct comparison between Lady Audley and a siren occurs on page 280. In this example, Lady Audley “tried to speak… a choking sensation in her throat seemed to strangle those false and plausible words [which was] her only armor against her enemies”(280). Alongside this, her deceiving actions are compared to a “syren’s art”(280). In this part of the novel, Lady Audley’s psyche has been worn away by the inquisition of Robert Audley and her defenses are down. With the idea that one of her strongest weapons against her enemies has been disarmed, she can be considered “vulnerable.” If a mythological siren were to lose their voice, it would mean that it would not be able to lure sailors to their death. This idea of Lady Audley is unable to deceive others to manipulate them means that she has almost been disarmed. Now you may be wondering, “Inverter of Truth, why would you say she has been *almost* disarmed?” Well readers, a siren could not only lure sailors with their voice, but with their appearance as well. On page 366, when Lady Audley is looking at herself in a cheval-glass, she “contemplated the reflection of her beauty [and thought to herself] whatever they did to her, they must leave her with her beauty [because] they were powerless to rob her of that”(366). Lady Audley’s alluring appearance combined with her unstable personality means that Braddon has created a dangerous character. But, like many great characters, she has a functional “Achilles heel.” Without being able to deceive others with her wit and beauty, she becomes powerless. In order to render her without power, the characters of the novel place her in a mad house far away from the people that she has influenced in the past. In this asylum, the power of her slippery tongue is gone, as the doctors know their patients. However, even then, Robert and Michael Audley truly cannot remove her beauty, as evidenced by a French Doctor referring to Lady Audley as a “beautiful devil” (383). Through the author creating the siren archetype for Lady Audley, she makes her into an even more deadly character. With this idea, her weapons (her appearance and her voice) become even more deadly, while her weaknesses also become more apparent.

**Beethoven’s 7th Symphony plays in the background**

‘”Can I ever forget it?” he thought; “can I ever forget his blank white face as he sat opposite to me at the coffee-house, with the Times newspaper in his hand? There are some crimes that can never be atoned for, and this is one of them. If I could bring George Talboys to life to-morrow, I could never heal that horrible heart-wound; I could never make him the man he was before he read that printed lie”‘ (377).

This is an important flashback in the story, and it really makes one consider the scene that occurred earlier in the novel. However, before referencing the earlier instance, it is important to cite repetition and binaries. The word “forget” appears twice and this is important because Robert doesn’t know if he can actually forget what has occurred, concerning his good friend, George. In addition, the binary “I could” vs “I could never” comes into play, indicating that, if Robert were able to bring George back to life, he most certainly would do so, but he would never be able to assuage the pain created by Helen’s “death.” Again, readers are shown that Robert really does care about George – whether this a romantic type of affection, or so forth.

In contrast to the time this scene actually occurred (p. 39), this flashback is understood differently by the reader, mainly because we now know what Lady Audley (AKA Helen) has done (when we previously had no idea) and, truly, that her entire life is a lie. This is an important passage because it highlights Lady Audley as a determined character, making readers think about her circumstance, and everything that she has experienced. Now readers have an understanding of her as a character: at first, she was Helen Maldon, daughter to a drunk. She ends up marrying a man named George because he had quite a lot of money. However, because George married someone of a low social and financial background, he was disinherited. After George goes to Australia, Helen becomes Lucy Graham and works as a governess. Later on, she becomes Sir Michael’s wife (and a bigamist). Clearly, this passage alone brings back the theme of “madness” and what it means to be a sane individual. Lady Audley enters a slow journey into madness through all of her decisions. Aside from abandoning her child, she doesn’t seem to show any emotions for the problems that she is concocting (such as leaving a horrible heart-wound on George).

This may be crazy, but if George were still alive, do you think Robert would explain the entire truth to George – let him know that Helen only married him for his money? Maybe, instead of George being completely crestfallen – and depressed – he would become infuriated, and find a way to “get back” at Helen. What if George actually is alive?

All throughout the novel, there are points where the narrator seems to foreshadow parts of the book that have not happened yet. Oftentimes, these foreshadowed events have a dark undertone. In Chapter 9, after a long day of work pursuing George’s fate and whereabouts, Robert falls into a deep sleep–where he has what seems to be a prophetic dream. Robert dreams of seeing, “A pale, starry face, looking out of the silvery foam, and knew that it was my lady, transformed, beckoning his uncle to destruction…but as he looked at the dismal horizon the storm clouds slowly parted, and from a narrow rent in the darkness a ray of light streamed out upon the hideous waves” (244). This passage is striking because it is the first allusion to the Greek story of the Sirens, mysterious half mermaid women who would lure men to crash their ships on their perch rock. The fact that Robert dreams about Lady Audley in such a manner, could be some allusion to the fact that she is an evil person or has committed some evil. Here, however, the victim is his uncle, and not George, as Sir Michael Audley is the man who is lured out to sea. Instead, we learn that there may be some sort of happy ending in this seemingly written script with regards to George’s death. The “ray of light” that interposes itself upon the deep waves could represent that, out of all the madness, the book could still turn out with somewhat of a happy ending where we learn that George is alive.  As we talked about in class, the portrayal of Lady Audley as a monstrous creature like a siren has been mentioned before, but in this instance, we see a ray of hope for the fate of George.

“She paused beneath its shadow, for the stranger was close upon her. She saw him: O God! she saw him, in that dim evening light. Her brain reeled, her heart stopped beating. She uttered no cry of surprise, no exclamation of terror, but staggered backward and clung for support to the ivied buttress of the archway. With her slender figure crouched into the angle formed by the buttress and the wall which it supported, she stood staring at the new-comer,” -Page 336

This seems to be the tipping point for Lady Audley. For the entire novel up to this point, she had kept her cool when it seemed like her secret was going to be revealed, but now, when she know the hour of her confession has come, she is overcome with shock. Until this point, she had showed little to no emotion when in dire situations, but now, she cannot even stay on her feet. It seems to me that this is the culmination of the entire novel’s worth of emotional suppression, the point at which she can no longer keep her feelings bottled up. This runs opposite to Lady Audley’s character from the rest of the novel. Before this point, she had been stoic when her secret was on the line, and had always found a way to talk herself out of trouble. However, when Robert Audley approaches her, she knows that he is going to confront her about her attempt to murder him, and thus breaks down. This shows that through all the atrocities that Lady Audley committed, she had not forethought. Never once had she thought that somebody would catch her for her crimes, least of all the very person whom she had tried to murder. Thus, Lady Audley’s character is completely reversed in this scene, as she goes from confident and emotionless, to weak and vulnerable, as she realizes that she will be caught and her guilt weighs upon her shoulders, so heavy that she is not even able to stand.