preview

Hound Of The Baskervilles Passage Analysis Essay

Satisfactory Essays

The following passage is from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles. It describes the scene in which Dr. Mortimer first meets Sherlock Holmes and John Watson, and he is reading the manuscript that describes the curse of the Baskervilles. The following excerpt is part of this manuscript. “Now, it opened into a broad space in which stood two of those great stones, still to be seen there, which were set by certain forgotten peoples in the days of old. The moon was shining bright upon the clearing, and there in the centre lay the unhappy maid where she had fallen, dead of fear and fatigue. But it was not the sight of her body, nor yet was it that of the body of Hugo Baskerville lying near her, which raised the hair upon the …show more content…

This aspect of the description may cause the reader to be skeptical about the true nature of the hound. This skepticism causes the reader to continue reading, in order to find out whether there really is a gigantic, ravenous hound roaming the woods. The tone of this passage is that of morbidity and horror. Doyle uses describes what are presumably two gravestones, which introduces the idea of death into the mind of the reader. Next, he goes on to describe the maid, who is presumed to have died from fear and exhaustion. Finally, the reader is exposed to Hugo Baskerville, who is presumably dead, being eaten by the hound. Each of these instances of death convey a dark, morbid tone. Furthermore, phrases such as “blazing eyes,” “dripping jaws,” and “shrieked with fear and rode for dear life” convey a tone of pure horror by allowing the reader to experience the fear of the hound both firsthand (through the description of the hound) and vicariously (through the description of the other men as they escape). One passage in the appendix of The Hound of the Baskervilles that directly relates to this excerpt from the story itself is the crime report from The Times, written in 1901. Specifically, this section of the crime report discusses John McNally, who was charged with assaulting his wife and an omnibus driver. “When [John McNally] got drunk he always

Get Access