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Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of Baskervilles

The Strand, a British magazine published The Hound of the Baskervilles in serialized

manner from August 1901 to April 1902. It belongs to the rich era of detective fiction. The book

has been republished continuously for over one hundred years now, and internationally several

stages and film versions have been created. The purpose of writing this paper is to elucidate on

the use of logic and science in this novel.

The plot is complex and compliments Holmes’ sagacity of formulating deductions and

methodical gathering of clues and the reader is gradually familiarized with his antics and gets

further information. The Baskerville family has been haunted and killed for generations by a

ghostly, killer dog. The last heir came back to England in the creepy countryside and invited

Sherlock Holmes to resolve the bewilderment created by the stories of a curse. Sherlock Holmes

sends Watson ahead to keep an eye on things. Henry the last heir is being followed, receives a

warning note and bizarrely his shoes are stolen.

To Watson’s surprise, Holmes had been already hanging around and suspected Jack to be

the killer by exploiting the legend of the ghostly hound. The course of events leads to revealing

uncanny, weird truths about Jack and Beryl pronouncing them to be husband and wife and Jack

turning out to be Henry’s uncle. In order to obtain the family money, he used a real dog painted
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with glow-in-the-dark paint to scare Sir Charles to death and was after Henry. In the twisted end

Jack succeeds in tempting Henry to come to his house at night, and as Henry leaves for home,

Jack sends his dog after him. Sherlock Holmes fires at the dog killing him in the nick of time,

and Jack gets chased to a swampy quicksand and meets his end.

Conan Doyle presents Holmes as a man of science and a trendsetter of forensic

techniques. The outcome was 60 stories with deduction, logic, and science dictating the detection

routines. Holmes is rightly at the forefront of logical and scientifically proven detection that he

has been a pioneer of more than a few monographs on crime deciphering procedures. The

exceptionally well-read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle presented Holmes on quite a few occasions

employing methods years earlier than they were actually implemented by official British and

American police forces. (O'Brien)

Throughout the case in The Hound of Baskervilles, Holmes brings all of his five senses

into play in order to congregate information. Not an iota of his observations is an assumption,

and cannot be termed a guess as all the information he presents to the reader are based on his

extreme deducing powers and his profound scientific knowledge. Holmes exercises the power of

deduction, which is a process of stringing modest petty details collectively in order to hit on the

most important finale. He deduces that the boot was given to the dog to get the scent of Henry

and was returned inexplicably merely because as it was a new shoe. The line of attack and tactics

employed by Holmes to solve the crime are precisely the same as of a scientist, none of the facts

and fables is dismissed as irrelevant, and there are no predetermined ideas regarding the meaning

of the facts. Sherlock Holmes dispels the supernatural and obscure in The Hound of the

Baskervilles and generates responsible and precise results proven scientifically.

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It can be observed that at whatever time Holmes is there in the narrative the center stage

is taken by the rational, coherent detective story. Such sections of the Hound of Baskervilles are

preponderated by an unruffled logic and the strange events going on the moors adjoining

Baskerville Hall are put through a scientific and logical investigation. (Buzwell) Doyle uses

stock-in-trade trick by making Holmes disappear and surprisingly reappear in order to pacify the

evil character into a counterfeit sense of safety and to camouflage the elucidation to a mystery. It

is apparent that Holmes’s was not intimidated, at any turn of the story, by declarations of

supernatural forces pestering the Baskerville folks. His to the point conclusion at the end of the

story asserts him being the most rational detective "But now we have to prove the connection

between the man and the beast." Holmes tells Watson in the Hound of the Baskervilles. (Doyle)

Holmes was a creation of Doyle, and Sir Doyle stayed away from supernatural beliefs

and insisted in the form of Holmes that there must be an organized, scientific, and logical

explanation for everything (Clausson). He asserts and establishes there must be a rational basis

and that one cannot obtain conclusions from spiritualism. The narrator also frequently points out

the sense of reason and logic presented by Holmes although it is already apparent in the manner

he deals with the cases. Watson writes of Holmes at the start of chapter 15, "he would never

permit cases to overlap, and … his clear and logical mind would not be drawn from its present

work to dwell upon memories of the past." (Doyle) In The Hound of The Baskervilles, Holmes

stays isolated in his study trying to solve the case by poring over comprehensive clues and hints.

He utilizes his familiarity with newspaper fonts to conclude the source of the threatening note

that Henry received in London. He employed his immense knowledge about perfumes and

revealed the involvement of Beryl Stapleton in the case. (Wilson) He logically tries to find the

“footprints of a gigantic hound…” (Doyle)

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Sherlock Holmes accurately advocates that logic is the science of deduction and analysis.

(Wagner) Holmes is familiar with logic extremely well and furthermore, understands how to

apply it in his scandalous investigations precisely. The reasoning and logic presented by Holmes

are phenomenal. He exactly knew how to deduce the correct information regarding a person’s

past by just glancing. Sherlock Holmes was able to do this for the reason that he was extremely

good in the art of inspection and investigation. He could make astounding deductions concerning

especially a total stranger, and his analysis was anchored in what he heard and saw in a first few

instances. Holmes could decipher relevant information merely by a man's expression, his coat

sleeves, his trouser-knees, his boots, and the callosities on his thumb and forefinger and

nevertheless, science has proved Dr. Watson wrong and Sherlock Holmes as right. Holmes in

many of his cases like The Hound of Baskervilles aptly depicts that the explanation of the crime

and precious information regarding a suspect can be found out by simple inspection and logic.

Sherlock is a scientist. His character is a mash-up of all stereotypes scientists we have

ever seen introverted, solitary, reckless, daring, cruel, vaguely inhuman, brilliant, imaginative

and obsessive. (the Guardian) At the beginning of the second Holmes story, The Sign of the Four

Holmes informs Watson that detection is, or ought to be, an exact science" (Doyle) and proves

his saying in his subsequent cases.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle portrays his character as "a calculating machine"(the Guardian).

This is his charm. Holmes is a mystery himself and is not merely a solver of mysteries. No

scientist, even if that scientist happens to be a literary character, could continue to exist on bitter,

mechanical logic only. As a result, Holmes transforms into an ascetic, unconventional bohemian,

heavily affixing on sixth sense and inexplicable flickers of insight. Sherlock Holmes utilizes
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nothing extra other than scientific knowledge and logic to solve problems, and not especially not

far-fetched superpowers and contemporary gadgets.

Works cited

Buzwell, Greg. "An Introduction To The Hound Of The Baskervilles". The British
Library. N.p., 2017. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.
Clausson, Nils. "Degeneration, Fin-De-Siecle Gothic, And The Science Of Detection:
Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound Of The Baskervilles And The Emergence Of
The Modern Detective Story". Journal of Narrative Theory 35.1 (2005): 60-87.
Web.
Doyle, Arthur Conan. The Sign Of The Four ; And, A Scandal In Bohemia. 1st ed.
Chicago: Rand, McNally & Co., 1917. Print.
O'Brien. "Sherlock Holmes: Pioneer In Forensic Science". Encyclopedia Britannica
2014: n. pag. Print.
the Guardian. "Sherlock Holmes Is The Archetypal Scientist – Brilliant But Slightly
Scary | Sarah Day". N.p., 2017. Web. 26 Apr. 2017.
Wagner, E. J. The Science Of Sherlock Holmes. 1st ed. New York, NY: John Wiley &
Sons, 2010. Print.
Wilson, A. N. After The Victorians. 1st ed. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2005. Print.