Category: 2017 Blog Post

“But 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”(56).

The settings of Audley Court and Baskerville Hall are interestingly similar, despite the text being very different. The main similarity is that both residences are isolated in some manner, which makes sense considering the gothic trope of isolation. Audley Court however, is isolated in an arguably more deceptive way. The lack of linear time certainly separates it from the outside world, as well as the fact that it is physically out of the way. The court itself,though, operates normally and seems to blend well with the town of Essex. Baskerville Hall,however, is very different in its isolation. It is physically isolated which can be seen in the quote with the juxtaposition of the moor and the surrounding area. The “peaceful” and “sunlit” countryside is juxtaposed with the “gloomy” moor and “dark” sky. There is nothing deceptive about the moor. Its quality as “sinister” is explicitly stated by Watson, and not implicitly inferred like that by the narrator of Lady Audley’s Secret. There is clearly a physical barrier to the countryside in Devonshire and that is the moor, for its peace is “broken” by the “jagged hills”.

In Lady Audley’s Secret there was very much an element of terror from the deception of Lady Audley. She is even compared to a siren several times in the text and she is so frightening because  she looks innocent and harmless but is in fact the opposite. Even though there is a potential for this in The Hound of the Baskervilles based on the escaped convict and Barrymore, I don’t expect the evil to be rooted in the inside because of the potent description of the evil coming from the outside, or the moor, for it is “gloomy,” and “sinister.”

“I hereby commend you, and I counsel you by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted.”  (Doyle, 16)

So far in my reading of The Hound of the Baskervilles, I have come across the Gothic trope of the uncanny.  From the very beginning of the novel, Doyle made the reader aware of some supernatural powers lurking in the plot which has already caught my attention.  When viewed through this Gothic lens, I already see many parallel’s in the text between The Hound of the Baskervilles and Lady Audley’s Secret.  However, one that really stood out to me is how both novels introduced early on a sort of sacred space that is mentioned to make the reader uneasy.  At the very end of the manuscript read by Dr. Mortimer in chapter two, it is mentioned that no member of the Baskerville family shall cross the moor after dark.  This poses many questions to the reader.  What lies beyond the moor?  What shall happen if one crosses the moor gate?  I think this introduction to such a space is a foreshadowing moment that maybe some of the answers are found there.  It leaves the reader with many questions but also seems to set the scene for this underlying supernatural theme the author plans to delve into further in the novel.

This parallels Lady Audley’s Secret because in the very first chapter of the novel, the narrator speaks of a lime-tree walk, “an avenue so shaded from the sun and sky, so screened from observation by the thick shelter of the over-arching trees, that it seemed a chosen place fro secret meetings or for stolen interviews; a place in which a conspiracy might have been planned or a lover’s vow registered with equal safety; and yet it was scarcely twenty paces from the house” (Braddon, 9).  Both the moor from The Hound of the Baskervilles and the lime-tree walk introduce the reader to this mysterious place not far from the main setting of each novel and as we find out later in Lady Audley’s Secret, the walk is where the reader finds the answers to the main mystery.  Which makes one wonder, what will Holmes and Watson find lying beyond the gates of the moor?

When looking at The Hound of Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle through the lenses of Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Braddon, how young men in the aristocracy can be naïve and somewhat prideful. In both novels appear young aristocratic male characters who are the last living male heirs to their family’s estate who have been thrown into a mystery surrounding the well-being of their family. In The Hound of Baskerville Sir Henry Baskerville says, “Whichever it is, my answer is fixed. There is no devil in hell, Mr. Holmes, and there is no man upon earth who could can prevent me from my final answer.’ His dark brows kitted and his face blushed to a dusky red as he spoke” (Doyle 38). Henry does not listen to Sherlock’s or Dr. Mortimer’s advice. He assumes that he knows more than both the men even though they are more educated and older than he is. Henry does not like the idea of someone telling him what to do or having any sort of control over him, hence he does not care if there might be a threat of danger to him. Henry’s reaction to Sherlock’s warning reveals how he is not only ignorant of the situation, but that he is prideful that he cannot imagine being at the will of someone else.

This depiction of the aristocracy also appears in Lady Audley’s Secret, “He [Robert] was a handsome, lazy, care-for-nothing fellow, of about seven-and-twenty; the only son of a younger brother of Sir Michael Audley” (Braddon 35). Like Henry, Robert is also an ignorant and entitled person. He does not work very hard and it is seen many times in the novel that he is not a particularly smart person. These two men together represent how the aristocracy is not as amazing as sometimes imagined.

It is interesting to compare Watson as a narrator of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” with the unknown narrator of “Lady Audley’s Secret”. Watson plays a much more active role as both a narrator and as a character, whereas the narrator in “Lady Audley’s Secret” was only there to observe the other characters. “Holmes laid his hand upon my arm. ‘If my friend would undertake it there is no man who is better worth having at your side when you are in a tight place. No one can say so more confidently than I.’” (pg. 48) from “The Hound of the Baskervilles” compared to just an omnipresent rendition of the events as in “Lady Audley’s Secret”. Watson will also be doing his best to be an accurate narrator because he has been sent on a mission for Holmes, so the reader will be able to observe the plot with a narrator that is paying close attention to everything around him. The reader gets detailed descriptions of the landscape and analyses of the other characters as Watson writes and reports back to Holmes. The narrator of “Lady Audley’s Secret” had no part in the action of the book, and also did not seem to follow one character in particular, and in “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, Watson almost revolves around his interactions with Holmes. On page 27, Watson skipped over most of his day because it was not spent with Holmes: “I therefore spent the day at my club, and did not return to Baker Street until evening. It was nearly nine o’clock when I found myself in the sitting-room once more.” It is only once Watson is distanced by more than a few miles from Holmes that the reader is given a more detailed description of what Watson is doing away from Holmes.

While Lady Audley’s Secret by Mary Elizabeth Braddon and The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle on the surface are very similar, such as including a crime needing to be solved and a murder mystery in the works, the differences are even more apparent between the two novels. Immediately, readers can see that the methods of detectives Robert Audley and Sherlock Holmes are strikingly different. Already, within the first few pages, Sherlock Holmes is connecting pieces together; while Robert Audley managed to beat around the bush for the majority of our previous read.

Therefore, it is best to cite a similar detail that brings the two novels together. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, readers first learn about Sir Charles Baskerville when they hear of his death. Barely anymore information is given about the man that doesn’t surround this incident. Yet, “though Sir Charles had resided at Baskerville Hall for a comparatively short period his amiability of character and extreme generosity had won the affection and respect of all who had been brought into contact with him” (Conan Doyle, 16).

This instance immediately reminded me of Lady Audley. Though she was only seen in glimpses by many around her, she was still loved and admired by all, initially. For example, “she had appeared at several public balls at Chelmsford and Colchester, and was immediately established as the belle of the country” (Braddon, 56). Lady Audley was only seen at these public affairs for a brief time, yet she left a favorable aura, much like the brief stay Sir Charles had amongst his company. With that being said, it will be interesting to see if the opinion readers have of Sir Charles changes as the plot progresses, as they did with Lady Audley.

“‘There is a realm in which the most acute and most experienced of detectives is helpless.’ You mean the supernatural?’ ‘I did not positively say so.’ ‘Since tragedy, Mr. Holmes, there have come to my ears several incidents which are hard to reconcile with the settled order of Nature.” (Doyle, 24)

While reading The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle with a lense of Lady Audley’s Secret, the books share aspects associated between the sensation fiction literature genre. We learned of several characteristics or tropes that work as figurative language or symbols to represent something.

A trope found within both novels that are more aligned with the sensation fiction genre is the thriller/Tragedy trope. Within Lady Audley’s Secret, we think we see a crime being committed by one of the characters even if it is never directly stated.

In The Hound of the Baskervilles, the story is focused on a murder chain of a mysterious creature. The detective Sherlock Holmes works to find the culprit and solve the mystery much like Robert did in Lady Audley’s Secret.

A second similar trope of the sensation fictional literature that can be pulled from the two texts from this quote can be families/domestical complications. The complications in LAS are all taking place from a select group of people from the Audley household, with a close family friend involved. The HOB has a murder spring revolving around the Baskerville family, which is yet to be solved. These similarities to me, show that a family drama is very compelling as the family unit was a topic of dispute around this time in England as HOB was published around when divorces were becoming legal.

A trope the books do not share though to contrast them is the gothic trope of the supernatural. The Hound of the Baskervilles revolves around a supernatural being that has yet to be identified but is the source of drama in the novel. In Lady Audley’s Secret, there is no supernatural force within the novel and the drama comes from a real person performing the supposed murder.

In this book, we immediately find an acquaintance in the narrator. The reader knows by inference and dialogue (though he does not directly introduce himself) that the narrator is Dr. Watson. Holmes talks directly to Dr. Watson, the narrator, and Dr. Watson responds, and frequently refers to himself as well as his actions. This is the first difference between The Hound of the Baskervilles and Lady Audley’s Secret. In this book, we as readers have a more direct relationship with Dr. Watson as a narrator.

Secondly, this book differs from Lady Audley’s Secret in its descriptions in general. In Lady Audley’s Secret, the descriptions of even simple objects (such as letters) are long, drawn out, and elaborate. Descriptions in The Hound of the Baskervilles are detailed and intriguing, however, they are not as whimsical, or tied to moments of emotion in the text. In Lady Audley’s Secret, the more important and emotionally-tied an object or a person was, the longer and more elaborate the description. (Such as many descriptions of Lady Audley, for instance).

These two superficial differences are the first noticeable when beginning to read.

Although Sherlock Holmes novels are known to be detective novels, reading The Hound of the Baskervilles through a gothic lens allows us to see that there are, in fact, many gothic elements. The first mention of any type of gothic theme is when Dr. Mortimer shows Holmes the letter he has in his possession: “…standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye had rested upon… One, it is said, died that very night of what he had seen…” (Conan Doyle, 15). If one was not reading this through a gothic lens, the common tropes may not be as easily recognized. The hound may be written off as just a device used in the detective novel. But by looking through a gothic lens, immediately, the supernatural trope commonly used in gothic literature is apparent. This hound cannot, reasonably, exist. Clearly the hound is part of the supernatural. Additionally, one of the witnesses to the hound drops dead upon witnessing it. This plays into the uncanny trope, as it seems very strange that one would just drop dead from being scared, and is definitely unusual.

The trope of power is also abundantly clear throughout the novel. Watson constantly refers to Holmes as some type of supreme being, and even the other characters in the book are aware of Holmes’ power: “‘Have you any better explanation?’… Has Mr. Sherlock Holmes?’” (Conan Doyle, 66). Here Holmes’s opinion is regarded so highly, that Stapleton reveals that he knows Watson’s true purpose, just to hopefully hear what Holmes has to say. This dynamic of power may have gone unnoticed by reading this novel through a crime lens, but when viewed as having gothic elements the prominent power relationships cannot be ignored. Therefore, even though Sherlock Holmes is not typically regarded as gothic, it is clear that there are gothic elements to the text.

“It’s no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in such a place as this… It’s enough to scare any man. I’ll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you won’t know it again with a thousand-candle-power Swan and Edison right here in front of the hall door.” (Hound of the Baskervilles, p 58)

These lines, spoken By Henry Baskerville, are the man’s immediate reaction to the near-desolate Baskerville manor. The mention of installing lamps, no matter how brief, presents a reference of setting and time for the novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles. This novel is the third of the crime novels written by Arthur Conan Doyle, Originally serialized in a magazine from August 1901 to April 1902. This puts the novel firmly post development of the lightbulb, arguably one of the most influential technological breakthroughs of its time. Despite this, the lightbulb, or in-house electricity was not cheap enough to be widely available across the classes until the 1910s – after the novel takes place. This means that Sir Henry had considerable privilege. Associating lack of electrical lighting, or general technological advances, with a depressing or bleak lifestyle describes Sir Henry’s view of wealth, in my opinion. Those who have money are more fulfilled than those who do not. The comment also brings in the Victorian trope of the archaic; references to a time when the advantages of the “present” were not available. Sir Henry seems to be a man firmly planted in his time period, who evaluates wealth and technology as necessary stones to lead a life worth living.