Detecting Ideology: a Reading of the Political Connotations

of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervilles

Debaditya Mukhopadhyay

Abstract  Though the earlier critics of the detective fiction focussed exclusively
on the genre’s use of a formulaic structure with significant variations, the
subsequent eras saw critics engaging with these texts’ politics in a significant
manner. This article will read Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Hound of the
Baskervilles (1902) in the light of the latter approach for mapping and analyzing
the text’s ideological aspects. A close-reading of relevant sections of the text and
references to significant observations regarding the text as well as the genre are
used for carrying out this study.

Keywords: Politics of Detective Fiction, Popular emperialism, Ideological

Aspects, atavistic land, civilizing mission.

At its earlier stage, criticism of detective fiction focused mainly on the way these
works used the renowned templates and tropes associated with the genre in various
permutations. Heta Pyrhönen gives an overview of this era of detective fiction criticism
saying: “The early critics concentrated on plot structure and narrative techniques
because they wanted to show that what set detective fiction apart from all other
modes of literature was its unusually shapely narrative organization” (45). Naturally,
this reductionist approach entailed interpretations that ignored the cultural politics
involved in these works. According to Pyrhönen, a departure from this trend began
during the 1970s and 80s (47). Critics of this period shifted the focus from the study of
the poetics of the genre to its politics. In fact, they started exploring the influence of
the latter on the former with great interest. In Pyrhönen’s words, these critics opined
that these narratives incorporated “elements and ideas” from “the discourses circulating”
in contemporary culture and as a result, ideology, which for them signified “specific
strategies for legitimating the power of dominant social groups”(47), played a pivotal
role in the shaping of these works. This article will offer a reading of Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle’s The Hound of the Baskervillles (1902) in a similar vein, focussing on
significant elements of the text that the existing studies left unremarked.
A recent study of the novel by Janice M. Allan offers a deatiled survey of the
way this text has put an amalgamation of the two apparently opposite genres of detective
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and gothic fiction to an interesting usage. Allan considers the text as a manifestation
and a gothic retun of the subjects Doyle was willing to get himself detached from in
order to engage himself with writing “carefully researched historical fiction” (180).
She substantiates her observation chiefly by drawing attention to the way the text
presents a “transition” in its sixth chapter by having the action shifted from “the legible
terrain of modern London” to “the primitive Gothic landscape of Devon”(172). Though
the article sheds light on a vital aspect of the text in great detail, it leaves scope for
exploring the significance of the journey into the heart of the darkness that Devonshire
stands for in the text. The concurrently published essay by Christine Berberich offers
an important insight into the ideology inherent in the entire Holmes canon by focusing
on its recurrent portrayal of the victory of the “British power” against people who are
connected to the rival nations of England, namely Germany, Italy, Australia, America,
etc (65-66). According to Berberich, Doyle has frequently shown Holmes to be a
protector of such areas of the rural England that embody “a traditional, safe
Englishness”(59). The novel The Hound of the Baskervillles, however, is not found
to be following this pattern as instead of the “Southern English scenery of the Home
Counties”, this text shows Holmes journeying to the Western section of England which
Doyle always showed to be “darker and more threatning”(59). This article will use
Berberich’s essay as its take off point, thereby offering the significance of the setting,
the enemy, and the journey to Dartmoor undertaken by Sherlock Holmes as well as
Sir Henry Baskerville, for arriving at a more comprehensive understanding of the text.
Dartmoor, the setting of the novel, is associated with the unruly and the atavistic
from the very beginning. The first person bringing information about the place to
Holmes and the readers is Dr. James Mortimer who inhabits there as it is full of the
traces of prehistoric people. When Watson looks up Mortimer’s name in the Medical
Directory, he is found to have authored two articles that have “Reversion”
and“Atavism” as keywords. Even the third article is entitled “Do We Progress?”.
Holmes calls him “an unambitious man” before his entry as he voluntarily chose to
move to the countryside giving up his position in London. All these threads of information
overtly begin the process of establishing Dartmoor as a backward place. Even
afterwards Mortimer is described to be busy mainly with unearthing bones from a
grave of neolithic era(79) rather than actually working as a doctor in Dartmoor.
Dartmoor is chosen by him because it is a place untouched by civilization which has
made it a trove of prehistoric objects. The legend about the supernatural hound too
functions in a similar manner as it shows Dartmoor to be a place where uncivil men
loom large. The narrative mentions that a “wild, profane, and godless man” like Hugo
Baskerville, whose lecherous nature had got the Baskervilles cursed, was not at all
treated as an exceptional threat by the inhabitants of the nearby places. Rather, they
are assumed to have “pardoned” Hugo as “saints have never flourished in those
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parts”(11). Besides, the very story of the hellish hound turns the place into a typical
land of evil forces, far from the glitter of civilization. As Holmes comments, with the
“Ordnance map” in front of him, it is indeed a place “worthy” of seeing “the devil”
putting his hands “in the affairs of men”(27).
From the moment of his arrival at Dartmoor, Dr. Watson, the narrator keeps
drawing attention of the reader to the dark and desolate condition of the place. It is a
place untouched by civilization and yet it is certainly not a romantic retreat with soothing
greenery. On the contrary, “the long, gloomy curve of the moor”, “sinister hills”(55),
and oak and far trees “twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm”(56), are the
images that greet the readers as soon as Watson arrives from London. After surveying
the whole area to the best of his capabilities, Watson is found writing to Holmes: “On
all sides of you as you walk are the houses of these forgotten folk, with their graves
and the huge monoliths”. For him the place seems so undeveloped that he feels that a
modern man hardly belongs to it. He describes it saying: “if you were to see a skin-
clad, hairy man crawl out from the low door . . . you would feel that his presence there
was more natural than your own”(75). Janice M. Allan opines that “the moor is
reminiscent of a lost, primordial world” for which it is shown to be harbouring a runaway
murderer like Selden, adding how frequently beast imagery is used while describing
him (174). Such descriptions cumulatively portray the place as one that seems to
stand as a challenge to the glorious British empire’s civilizing missions all over the
world. Christopher Frayling’s reading of the moor as “less a map reference than a
nightmare which has defeated the successive attempts of human beings-prehistoric
people or modern tin-miners-to civilize and tame it” (xxvi) too accepts this image of
Dartmoor as a land questioning the capabilities of the Empire.
The narrative becomes an account of a civilizing mission getting disrupted when
the implication of the activities of the two Baskervilles, namely Sir Henry and Sir
Charles, at Dartmoor is taken into account. Both of them wanted to transform Dartmoor
into a developed place by bringing in the glitter of the cities utilizing their financial
strength. The news article from Devon County Chronicle read aloud to Holmes and
Watson describes Sir Charles as a wise person who had returned to his rural home
after earning a substantial amount of money in South Africa. Not only is he described
to be a man of “extreme generosity” but his dedication to the uplifting of his surroundings
is notably appraised. It is lamentingly mentioned that: “It is only two years since he
took up his residence at Baskerville Hall, and it is common talk how large were those
schemes of reconstruction and improvement which have been interrupted by his death”
(15). Towards the end the article reads: “it is obviously of the utmost importance that
Sir Charles’s heir should settle at the Hall, and continue the good work which has been
so sadly interrupted”(17). Sir Henry seems to minutely follow his uncle’s footsteps
with great urgency after arriving at their family residence. Looking at the dark world
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of Dartmoor he declares it a very disturbing one and blames its primitive condition for
his uncle’s death, saying: “It’s no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on
him in such a place as this” (57). He instantly decides to “have a row of electric lamps
up here inside of six months”(57). In short, both uncle and nephew epitomize the noble
and enlightened souls dedicated to civilize the uncivilized.
Naturally, the antagonist Stapleton who was actually an offspring of Sir Rodger
Baskerville, for his constant opposing of his noble uncle and cousin, becomes something
more than a greedy villain. Unlike Sir Charles and Henry he stands for regression. He
is described as a “throw-back” to the notorious Hugo Baskerville in both “physical
and spiritual”(139) sense by Holmes immediately after he shows Watson how strongly
the portrait of Hugo resembles Stapleton. He is certainly one of those English villains
of the Holmes narratives that, to quote Berberich, “have lived in-and been tainted by-
foreign lands that have led them to forget English values”(65). Though both Sir Charles
and Sir Henry had lived in South Africa and America, respectively for a considerable
span of time, neither of them got tarnished by these places chiefly because they did
not really mingle with the foreign people. Both of them remained bachelors during
their stay in their respective foreign lands but Stapleton got his English blood mixed
with that of a foreigner, which is certainly seen as a sign of corruption. His father Sir
Rodger, considered to be a man with a “sinister reputation” had to escape to South
America and it is implied that he too had married a foreigner. After growing up there,
Stapleton alias Rodger had married “Beryl Garcia, one of the beauties of Costa
Rica”(159) and had to eventually arrive in England for saving himself and his wife
from law. The corrupting influence of Beryl Garcia alias Mrs. Vandeleur(introduced
as the sister of Stapleton initially) is shown in the text through the way she affects Sir
Henry’s otherwise controlled mind. Watson, while describing her writes: “There is
something tropical and exotic about her” and opines that it is expected of an “active”
man like Sir Henry that being stuck in “a lonely spot”(77), he would get attracted to
her. Apart from these foreign beauties of seductive appeal, Stapleton is shown to be
immensely attracted to the wild moors. He tells Watson with great enthusiasm: “You
never tire of the moor. You cannot think the wonderful secrets which it contains. It is
so vast, and so barren, and so mysterious”(66). These words are polar opposites of
the kind of reaction Sir Henry and Watson have to the moor. They both find it
uncomfortable and Henry, the man of action, therefore decides to literally shed light as
soon as possible on this undeveloped region. Stapleton wants the enigma of the land to
persist as it allows him to hide all of his secrets and intends to get a takeover by killing
the remaining Baskervilles.
In order to analyze the novel’s ideological nature, it seems necessary to read it as
a work allegorically glorifying English imperialism. Doyle’s involvement in propagating
such idealized image of imperialism is cogently explained by Kenneth Wilson. In his
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opinion, unlike Kipling, Doyle seldom used “overtly imperial landscapes and situations”
(22). Wilson points out that when Doyle wrote his most famous works between 1883
to 1914, an ideology that he refers to as “popular imperialism”(23) developed. He
explains it to be born out of the concern about the gradual downfall of the empire.
During this time the National decay of England was related to the degradation of
individual character by conservative imperialists and as a result an emphasis on
maintaining “sound character” emerged. Drawing upon the “Victorian conceptions of
manliness”, it was suggested that it is necessary for a man of sound character to
“experience solitude, hardship, suffering and sorrow, communion with nature, self-
dependence, and contact with realities of life”(24). Both of the good Baskervilles
resemble this character type but Rodger/Stapleton who resembles the Prodigal Son
lacks nearly all the qualities of a man of sound character . His liason with multiple
women, his constant changing of name, and purloining of public money or institution
like the school he started in East Yorkshire, show how he differs from the model
personality Doyle’s England had decided to endorse.
Daniel Ferras Savoye considers “modern detectives” as an out and out “product
of the city” who “functions as a repository for its essential values” (SCRIBD, 27).
Whenever the action of a detective story takes place in a non-urban place, it is found
that truth, which is always preserved in the Urban world is getting compromised due
to the influence of some antagonist and hence a detective originating from the urban
world has to be the saviour. To Savoye, Holmes in particular is inseparable from the
urban world. He explains: “221B Baker Street functions as a metonymy of London
City and of Sherlock Holmes himself, and remains a meaningful paradigm throughout
most of his adventures: it is if nothing else the natural place of birth for most of his
cases, which usually start with the visit of whoever is in need of the great detective’s
services”(32). This novel too begins with the formidable detective sitting at the breakfast
table in his abode and Dr. Mortimer appears afterwards seeking assistance. Moreover,
the importance of Holmes’s role in saving Sir Henry too makes him the detective
figure Savoye talks about but the way the narrative links revelation of truth with the
survival of Sir Henry seems to indicate the importance of paying attention to the text’s
link with popular imperialism.
The problem with the novel’s glorification of Sir Henry and Sir Charles to some
extent, is the way it unproblematically glorifies the class. During the description of the
desolated condition of Dartmoor, the newly constructed building of the Baskervilles is
called “the first fruit of Sir Charles’ South African gold”(57). Although the nature of
his business is never revealed, readers are informed by Mortimer that he “had brought
back much scientic information from South Africa” which enabled them to have regular
discussions on “the comparative anatomy of the Bushman and the Hottentot”(18).
These comments endorse the value of these colonial missions to a great extent which
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looks far from being problematic. On the other hand, Sir Henry is shown to be quick
tempered on multiple occasions. During their first meeting Watson comments: “It was
evident that the fiery temper of the Baskervilles was not extinct in this their last
representative”(36). Afterwards, he is shown to lose his cool when he finds his servant
Barryman refusing to answer his query or Watson following him without permission.
He may be perfect as an imperialist but the way he gets offended the moment his
commands are not followed reveals the underlying issues of this supposedly perfect
character.
Looking at the connotations of the various sections of The Hound of the
Baskervilles, its ideological baggage gets detected. It tells the story of civilizing a
primitive land in the guise of a tale of detection. The detective does not simply function
as a seeker of truth in the tale. Instead he is shown to be a saviour of a character who
is basically a white saviour for the natives of Dartmoor. Together they defeat a villain
who is interested in retaining the darkness of Dartmoor and misusing the large sum of
money gathered from the Empire. It was written during a time when the empires of
Great Britain had started getting out of control. By presenting the dauntlessness of Sir
Henry in service of the extension of the civilizing process and its ultimate victory, the
text attempts to reinstate the glory of the Empire in its readers’ minds. Thus, the text
apart from simply being an intellectual puzzle, appears to be a narrative that indirectly
does the bidding of imperialism.

Works Cited
Allan, James M. “Gothic Returns: The Hound of the Baskervilles.” The Cambridge Companion
to Sherlock Holmes. Ed. Janice M. Allan and Christopher Pittard. New York: Cambridge
University Press, 2019. 168-181.
Berberich, Christine. “Englishness and Rural England.” The Cambridge Companion to Sherlock
Holmes. Ed. Janice M. Allan and Christopher Pittard. New York: Cambridge University
Press, 2019. 55-66.
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan. The Hound of the Baskervilles. New York: Oxford University Press,
2008.
Frayling, Christopher. Introduction. The Hound of the Baskervilles. New York: Penguin, 2003.
vii-xxxv.
Pyrhönen, Heta. “Criticism and Theory.” A Companion to Crime Fiction. Ed. Charles Rzepka
and Lee Horsley. West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell, 2010. 43-56.
Savoye, Danniel Ferras. SCRIBD. 3 September 2019 <https://www.scribd.com/document/
361675998/Daniel-Ferreras-Detective-Fiction-and-the-Myth-of-the-Urban-Truth>.
Wilson, Kenneth. “Fiction and Empire: the Case of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.” Victorian Review
19.1 (1993): 22-42.