Intelligence through the Meeting of the Rational and the Supernatural in Doyles (1901) The Hound of the Baskervilles - Essay Example

? Intelligence through the Meeting of the Rational and the Supernatural in Doyle’s (1901) The Hound of the Baskervilles 31 April 2013 Is it possible to marry the occult and the rational to find out what is real and what is true? The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle (1901) tries to answer this question, as Sherlock Holmes investigates the contest between the rational and the occult. As a man of science, Mortimer should not believe in superstition, but seeing the tracks of a large hound near his dead patient and friend’s body, Charles Baskerville, influences him to lose some faith in rationality. Holmes, nevertheless, focuses on the facts and in finding the human culprit of the Baskerville curse. This paper studies the tension between the supernatural and the natural. In The Hound of the Baskervilles, Doyle demonstrates that the two should not even collide because human intelligence works best, when the supernatural provides the imaginative material for the scientific mind. The novel explores the tension between the supernatural and the rational, where some people tend to see the supernatural as rural, an inferior way of thinking that must be vanquished through pure European rational thinking. To believe in the supernatural is animalistic because it arouses only human instincts, particularly fear. The hound is a metaphor for the animalistic basis of the supernatural, which is why even Mortimer believes the hound to be true. Upon seeing giant hound footprints near the body of his friend, he cannot help but somehow believe in it, but he does not want to publicise such a mysterious detail because “...a man of science shrinks from placing himself in the public position of seeming to indorse a popular superstition” (Doyle, 1901, p.26). He believes that the supernatural is not aligned with rational minds, especially rational professions. The hound arouses primal fear and frightens people, pushing them to flight, instead of determining the truth. The hound, furthermore, resides in the rural imagination, a place that, as the novel suggests, nurtures backward thinking. Mortimer, as he explains the fright over the moor, focuses on country characters whom he interviewed, the “hard-headed countryman, one a farrier, and one a moorland farmer” (Doyle, 1901, p.35). The use of these characters suggests that the supernatural resides in rural areas, where people do not use logic to understand their conditions. As a result, they need someone to protect them from their irrational beliefs. Mortimer wants to help Henry Baskerville because “it cannot be denied that the prosperity of the whole poor, bleak country-side depends upon his presence” (Doyle, 1901, p.37). Charles Baskerville represents the seat of logic and power, a means for people, who believe in the supernatural, to cope with their distress over the hound’s curse. To deepen the analysis of the supernatural, this paper understands how it is connected to the rural. The countryside has been turned into, not only an idyllic place, but a world of sinister energy. Watson (1901) describes the rural setting in contradicting ways: “...but behind the peaceful and sunlit country-side there rose ever, dark against the evening sky, the long, gloomy curve of the moor, broken by the jagged and sinister hills” (Doyle, 1901, p.89). The countryside, in general, is simplified as idyllic, but its essence is portrayed as forbidding. Fisher (2004) reviews the current literature on The Hound of the Baskervilles, noting that even 100 years after its publication, it continues to interest scholarship inquiries. He mentions the countryside setting of the novel and suggests how the countryside has been used as a metaphor for the supernatural through its natural nature. The natural has become supernatural, as Doyle (1901) uses the mystery of the moor to capture the mystery of the occult. Another way of seeing the centrality of white male power is that it signifies how dominant classes employ rationality as a defence for their conquering of foreign lands. Many foreign communities, for instance, believed in the occult, which the rational European society wanted to stamp out. In “Ritual and the Liminality of Sherlock Holmes in the 'Sign of Four' and The 'Hound of the Baskervilles,” Taylor-Ide (2005) calls the act of undermining the foreign way of thinking as a mark of colonialism. Wynne (2002) agrees and asserts that the conflict between the occult and the rational is also based on the underlying beliefs on what the dominant class sees as “foreign.” The occult has become part of the foreign landscape, something that justifies rescuing the people. To put it back to the argument of the paper, the rational seeks to disqualify the supernatural as a valid way of proving the truth. After analysing the connection between the natural and the supernatural, this paper proceeds to the analysis that too much of the supernatural sacrifices the balance between imagination and critical thinking, which are essential to a well-rounded pursuit of truth. Depending only on supernatural beliefs can overwhelm the human mind, particularly when reality is not always based on the senses, but in one’s perceptions and beliefs. Mortimer does not initially believe in Charles Baskerville, but he later realises that his patient cannot know the difference between reality and fiction. As a doctor, he comprehends the impact of perceptions on reality, and he explains to Holmes why he advised Charles to go to London: “however chimerical the cause of it might be, [it] was evidently having a serious effect upon his health” (Doyle, 1901, p.28). Chimerical refers to legends or myths, but since Charles believes in the truth of the hound tale, it has become his reality as well. Perception can be so real, which can replace reality itself. Holmes narrates his hypothesis of what happened to Charles Baskerville to Watson: “There are indications that the man was crazed with fear before ever he began to run” (Doyle, 1901, p.45). Charles’ main enemy is not the hound, but his energetic fear for it. His supernatural beliefs stunt his ability to think critically of his situation. Aside from the cons of extreme supernatural beliefs, too much rationality can stop people from realising other potential ways to the truth. Mortimer can be too rational in his means of analysing human behaviours. He uses skull shapes and sizes to determine the personality and to understand the behaviours of people, when he says that Henry has the “rounded head of the Celt, which carries inside it the Celtic enthusiasm and power of attachment,” while Charles has “a very rare type, half Gaelic, half Ivernian in its characteristics” (Doyle, 1901, p.88). Biological determinism, or the belief that one’s biology determines one’s behaviours, is too extreme to explain human abilities. In particular, Mortimer misses how Stapleton’s head could have made him the mastermind of Charles’ death. Moreover, being too certain of one’s rationality can cloud the imagination that can help people think critically of their situation. Belief in the finality of the supernatural as the rational explanation for the mysterious events in the lives of the Baskervilles, for example, disables people from connecting the uncanny to the real. The occult has swayed Mortimer a bit too much for him to consider other possible flesh-and-blood criminals. He can no longer analytically investigate what truly happened. Thus, logic alone should not be the basis of scientific investigation and intelligence because it can lead to a dead end, instead of diverse options. Instead of maligning the supernatural per se, however, to maximise it is natural, even to the most scientific minds, because it supports the imagination of the scientific mind. Holmes knows that intelligence is about open-mindedness. He tells Watson that “[t]he world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes” (Doyle, 1901, p.42). His brilliance comes from his ability to include in his imagination what some people might think as unimportant. The supernatural, specifically, can be employed to explore different ways of knowing the truth. The devil has been used several times as an image of the supernatural, but for different purposes, which shows that several characters see the occult in different, clashing ways. Mortimer believes that the work of the devil is all over the crime. He cannot find another sensible explanation for the footprints of the gigantic hound. On the opposite, Holmes sees the devil as not just in the realm of the supernatural, but in the hearts of human beings. He explains his views on the devilish affair of the Baskerville curse to Watson: “The devil’s agents may be of flesh and blood, may they not?” (Doyle, 1901, p.43). Evil is not supernatural because it can be natural to dark human hearts. Furthermore, Holmes uses the devil to describe the equal risks of Henry Baskerville being in harm at Devonshire and London: “A devil with merely local powers like a parish vestry would be too inconceivable a thing” (Doyle, 1901, p.38). He uses a sarcastic tone to emphasise to indicate that the real people, who want to harm the Baskervilles, will not be choosy in their locations. Henry Baskerville agrees with Holmes that the legend of the hound is not real enough to deter him from coming home: “There is no devil in hell, Mr. Holmes, and there is no man upon earth who can prevent me from going to the home of my own people, and you may take that to be my final answer” (Doyle, 1901, p.59). This statement suggests that he does not believe in stories; he wants to discover the truth too. The devil is in not knowing if the curse is real. The supernatural, in the case of Holmes, enables people to be creative in solving problems. In the article, “The Hound of the Baskervilles: Modern Belgian Masters, Paralyzing Spectacles, and the Art of Detection,” Clausson (2009, p.36) explores the conflict between the occult and the rational. He argues that instead of using science to solve the mystery, Holmes uses his love for the arts, particularly his “artistic imagination,” where “his talk about analytic reasoning and the scientific use of the imagination constitutes a repression of the artistic imagination that is the real source of his success as a detective.” For him, the scientific reasoning that Holmes adapts is an outward expression of his imaginative, or not-so-rationalistic, ability. The supernatural can be found in the emotional and spiritual elements of the arts, which, in turn, provide the material for Holmes to analyse the different routes to the truth and to finally ascertain who the real culprits are. Because the truth cannot be pursued without a balanced mind, the best form of intelligence consists of both logic and imagination. Logic is useful in systematising data and thoughts. Watson describes the scientific process of Holmes: “...he weighed every particle of evidence, constructed alternative theories, balanced one against the other, and made up his mind as to which points were essential and which immaterial” (Doyle, 1901, p.40). The process of rational thinking includes determining and assessing alternatives. Alternatives, nevertheless, are based on the imaginative analysis of events. Holmes says it himself: “It is the scientific use of the imagination, but we have always some material basis on which to start our speculation” (Doyle, 1901, p.54). The phrase “scientific use of the imagination” is an allusion to John Tyndall, the Irish physicist who wrote the influential 1870 essay, “Scientific Use of the Imagination” (Frank, 1999, p.338). What Mortimer calls as guesswork, Holmes asserts as exercising his imagination logically. What seems to be foolish can be the foundation for the right answer to their mystery at hand. Imagination helps people open their minds to a larger world of possibilities. Holmes is not a man of science alone, but a man of the spirit and the mind combined, which strengthens his critical thinking skills. Frank (1999) explores the meaning of the metaphor “Man on the Tor” and other metaphors of the mind in the article, “The Hound of the Baskervilles, the Man on the Tor, and a Metaphor for the Mind.” He argues that the Man on the Tor represents the challenges that come with the inquisitive rational mind, which he explores through Tyndall’s beliefs about the scientific process. Tyndall asks what will happen if people have “been taught to regard [spirit and matter] as equally worthy...as two opposite faces of the self-same mystery” (p. 454 cited in Frank, 1999, p.354). Frank (1999, p.54) supports Tyndall’s argument, when he says that “the human consciousness endures in the union of matter and spirit.” Tyndall asserts: “not alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life... but...the human mind it- self-emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena-were once latent in a fiery cloud" (p. 453 cited in Frank, 1999, p.354). This paper also believes that intelligence is not rationality alone, but creates logic from the spirit of the imagination. Imagination enables Holmes to go through the red herrings and to eliminate each one, until he finds out what is real from what is not. Intelligence is about exercising thought on logic and imagination, until it becomes clear what the truth truly is. Instead of calling it the exercise of imagination in scientific ways, Taylor-Ide (2005) calls it liminality. He applies the concept of liminality on Holmes’s two novels in “Ritual and the Liminality of Sherlock Holmes in the 'Sign of Four' and The 'Hound of the Baskervilles.” He uses the definition of liminality from Victor Turner, a social theorist, who asserts that liminality is made of ritual processes, where the self is dissolved from the social structure, so that a person can go between worlds (Taylor-Ide, 2005, p.56). Taylor-Ide (2005) argues that ritual transformation is a dominant theme of the novel. He explores the “liminality” of characters, especially Sherlock Holmes: “The Hound of the Baskervilles illustrates how Holmes’s pas sage between the world of society and the dark, polluting world outside it through ritual transformation is in fact the central theme that enables his solving of the mystery” (p.56). Holmes becomes liminal indeed, liminal enough for Watson to think of him as the convict in the woods. Holmes goes through different worlds to determine the mind behind the so-called curse of the Baskervilles, until he learns the truth that is hidden behind the facade of Stapleton. The tension between the supernatural and the natural in The Hound of the Baskervilles, on the one hand, seems to show that the supernatural is inferior to logic. It is the stuff that legends and myths are made of; they are mere fairy tales for children. On the other hand, the supernatural is a man-made product. Holmes knows this, so he uses it to his own advantage. He could not have known the truth, if he is only rational. His active imagination solves the crime, as he considers the gap between substance and form. The hound is not the devil. It is a rational human being in hound’s clothing; it is a human being in his devilish form. Reference List Clausson, N., 2009. The Hound of the Baskervilles: modern Belgian masters, paralyzing spectacles, and the art of detection. English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, 52(1), pp.35-48. Doyle, A.C., 1901. The Hound of the Baskervilles. Available at: http://www.planetpdf.com/planetpdf/pdfs/free_ebooks/The_Hound_of_the_Baskervilles_T.pdf [Accessed on 27 Mar. 2013]. Fisher, B.F., 2004. The 'Hound of the Baskervilles' 100-years after: a review essay. English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, 47(2), pp.181-190. Frank, L., 1999. The Hound of the Baskervilles, the Man on the Tor, and a metaphor for the mind. Nineteenth-Century Literature, Historical Period: 1800 to 1902, 54(3), pp.336-372. Taylor-Ide, J., 2005. Ritual and the liminality of Sherlock Holmes in the 'Sign of Four' and The 'Hound of the Baskervilles.' English Literature in Transition 1880-19202005, 48(1), pp.55-70. Wynne, C., 2002. The colonial Conan Doyle: British imperialism, Irish Nationalism and the gothic. Connecticut: Greenwood. Read More