My rewrite's narrative

The Hound of the Baskervilles Re-Write Narrative

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the third Novel by Arthur Conan Doyle starring his Detective Sherlock Holmes. The tale follows the Detective as he and his colleague are called by the Baskerville family to solve the mystery of a strange Dog with supernatural qualities that has been terrorising their family for generations over the lands of Dartmoor. At the same time, they have to capture a convicted killer who has escaped from a local prison and try to understand why the Baskerville family have a seeming rivalry with another family on the moor, the Stapleton family. My chosen rewrite for this story is Chapter XIV of the book which is titled after the book itself. Despite the novel being synonymous with its eponymous villain which is the Phantom Dog itself, it becomes evident over the course of the book that the real villain is Stapleton and that the dog was in fact used as an advantage for the Stapletons against the Baskervilles. This is relevant to my choice of re-write because of the fact that the story involves a more supernatural touch than the original story did and that the villain is relying on the help of the occult to get at what he wants through the dog.

The plot of the original tale is set at the turn of the 19^th century in the English countryside of Dartmoor in Devon. My rewrite is also set at the same time in history. I have based it on a myth or belief shared by the locals of Dartmoor which is sighted even today and was the inspiration for the original tale. It is believed that Phantom Dogs known as ‘Black Shuck’ thought to be Pets of the Devil, roam the Moor and have been involved in several grizzly events over Dartmoor such as the sinister account of a Devil-Worshipping Squire called Capbell, as well as their involvement in the deaths of people during Church services. While in the original tale, the Dog is simply found to be trained by Jack Stapleton as a savage killer, here I have given the Dog a paranormal character to directly reference Black Shuck in order to draw a comparison between the inspiration for the Arthur Conan Doyle’s original tale and the tale itself so that the Dog’s supernatural presence in a fair manner can be as strong as the inspiration for the tale is.

The setting is the English countryside of Dartmoor in Devon. The location of the story offers a perfect setting for such a tale with its foggy atmosphere as well as its eerie and sinister feelings of terror and doom where it is easy to conjure images of the supernatural.

I have maintained the personalities of the two main characters as they are in the original work. However, I have modified the character of the antagonist Jack Stapleton to fit into the dark tone of the tale’s events, by making him a Devil worshipper in order to give more emphasis to the sinister qualities of the Hound so that the tale delves further into the darkness and savage tone and character that the Hound brings with him. The character of Sherlock Holmes continues to be the classic, logical detective maintaining the qualities that enable him to keep on the case. One of the main reasons that the character of Holmes remains the same is that my rewrite is giving more focus to the inspiration for the original tale and thus would require a sort of supernatural change in the character of Stapleton so that the hound who is used by him is as devilish as himself. In fact, what is appealing about the original tale is more its origins than the fact that it is part of the Sherlock Holmes series. The serious and logical tone of Sherlock Holmes as we know him gives a balance to the sinister overtones of the rewrite.

The climax of the story is something that was not revealed in the original tale. The original tale opens with a story relating to what are thought to be some of the first known ancestors of the Baskerville Family. Hugo Baskerville was obsessively in love with the daughter of a farmer. He captured her, only for her to escape and the love-crazed Baskerville proclaimed that his soul would be the Devil’s if he could recapture her. Aided by his companions, he pursued the girl out onto the moor and raced ahead of the others. He and the girl were later found dead. She had died from fright, while a giant spectral hound was seen standing over Baskerville's body and tearing at his throat, before vanishing into the night. I decided to connect this prologue to my rewrite in order to make things simpler for the reader. Because it is not directly referenced in the original tale, I decided that I would make a direct link between Stapleton and the farmer as being related to one another with the farmer being the ancestor of Stapleton.

The story relates to post-colonial theories in three of its aspects.

a. Gap in the lifestyle between the wealthy and the working class. This is much like when the colonialists were living a large and luxurious lifestyle in secluded houses with servants and objects of luxury for their pleasure whereas the natives lived far away from the main house, leading a simple and sometimes difficult lifestyle.

In the re-write, the Stapleton family were of a lower social status than the Baskerville family and lived away from Baskerville Hall in a simple home as did the other people who lived on the estate. This shows a clear divide/gap between the wealthy Baskervilles and the people who lived on their estate. This is quite similar to the way the colonialists separated themselves due to their power and wealth from their local natives.

b. Pagan or heathen practices of the natives which are considered savage or unchristian by the colonialists.

The practice of Devil-worshipping by Stapleton in the rewrite is a theme that symbolizes the pagan or heathen cultural tradition of natives in colonies which were looked down by the colonists as savage or unchristian. This is in turn repelled by the use of Christianity and Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I have created an original character, the Priest Father Robert who is the representation of those opposed to savage and unchristian practice and helps Holmes and his team to confront the practices of the occult with his Christian faith.

Us vs. Them – The clear distinction between the ways of the colonists and the natives which set them apart from each other and in a way caused the natives to almost dislike the colonists for having what the natives did not have. There may have been an ambition on the part of the natives to acquire the wealth that the colonialists had.

This is evident in the rewrite when Stapleton reveals his family’s desire to take over Baskerville Hall and their wealth at the time that he is being questioned about his motive. Due to their experience with Hugo Baskerville in the past, the Baskervilles are hated by the Stapletons and that gradually turned into an ambition for the Stapletons to seize the wealth of the Baskerville family.

Although my rewrite is unusual in that it is not set outside Europe where most post-colonial stories and theories would be evident, it is set in the English countryside where social classes were differentiated and myths/legends and beliefs of the occult were prevalent. This has helped me to delve further into the English way of life during the colonial period in England which is quite similar to what was being practiced in colonies outside of Europe. Just in the same way as the wealthy English were living and treating the ordinary and not-so-wealthy folk around them, the European colonists were also doing the same to the natives in the countries that they had colonised. Also simple folk in the English Countryside believed in myths and legends to do with the supernatural and the wealthy and educated class would look at these beliefs with disdain; it was the same with the beliefs of the natives in colonies where the colonists considered the native practices as pagan