The story’s Gothic setting and imagery creates a particular mood, which is dreary, dark, and ominous. This is established early on through the telling of the titular legend in Chapter 2:
Standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon. And even as they looked the thing tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with fear and rode for dear life, still screaming, across the moor.
The Gothic is often characterized by an atmosphere of fear, the presence of supernatural forces or events, and the influence of the past. These are all present in the legend of the hound—in the gigantic, otherworldy hound itself, the murders it commits, and the profound fear it instills in those who encounter it. Baskerville Hall, where the legend originates, is shrouded in mystery and murder.
The novella’s mood becomes melancholy in Chapter 6 as Watson, Sir Henry Baskerville, and Dr. Mortimer leave London for Baskerville Hall:
Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a grey, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream.
The image of the hill where Baskerville Hall lies is dark and picturesque. As Watson observes the change in scenery, the colors of the landscape literally darken, a change that creates a sense of dread and gloom. The Hall itself appears unreal, like an apparition or vision. When they finally arrive, the Hall appears isolated and overgrown, a relic of the past:
The whole front was draped in ivy [...] A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke.
Everything about Baskerville Hall is murky: the smoke rising from the chimneys, the soft light seen from outside. Later on, the story uses auditory imagery that heightens the story’s somber mood. In Chapter 6, Watson hears “two copses of trees moan” and “the muffled, strangling gasp of one who is torn by an uncontrollable sorrow,” sounds that are ghostlike and mournful.
The mood darkens in Chapter 9 when Watson and Sir Henry Baskerville make their way through the Moor in pursuit of Selden:
We hurried through the dark shrubbery, amid the dull moaning of the autumn wind and the rustle of the falling leaves. The night-air was heavy with the smell of damp and decay. Now and again the moon peeped out for an instant, but clouds were driving over the face of the sky, and just as we came out on the moor a thin rain began to fall. The light still burned steadily in front.
The Moor, like Baskerville Hall, is an ominous, unruly place. Its sounds and sights are mysterious, and Watson and Sir Henry must navigate through tricky natural elements—shrubbery, leaves, rain. All of this chaos and mystery make the Moors the perfect background to the Baskerville murders, a place where the ancient, primitive, and supernatural appear to reside.
The story’s Gothic setting and imagery creates a particular mood, which is dreary, dark, and ominous. This is established early on through the telling of the titular legend in Chapter 2:
Standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon. And even as they looked the thing tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with fear and rode for dear life, still screaming, across the moor.
The Gothic is often characterized by an atmosphere of fear, the presence of supernatural forces or events, and the influence of the past. These are all present in the legend of the hound—in the gigantic, otherworldy hound itself, the murders it commits, and the profound fear it instills in those who encounter it. Baskerville Hall, where the legend originates, is shrouded in mystery and murder.
The novella’s mood becomes melancholy in Chapter 6 as Watson, Sir Henry Baskerville, and Dr. Mortimer leave London for Baskerville Hall:
Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a grey, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream.
The image of the hill where Baskerville Hall lies is dark and picturesque. As Watson observes the change in scenery, the colors of the landscape literally darken, a change that creates a sense of dread and gloom. The Hall itself appears unreal, like an apparition or vision. When they finally arrive, the Hall appears isolated and overgrown, a relic of the past:
The whole front was draped in ivy [...] A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke.
Everything about Baskerville Hall is murky: the smoke rising from the chimneys, the soft light seen from outside. Later on, the story uses auditory imagery that heightens the story’s somber mood. In Chapter 6, Watson hears “two copses of trees moan” and “the muffled, strangling gasp of one who is torn by an uncontrollable sorrow,” sounds that are ghostlike and mournful.
The mood darkens in Chapter 9 when Watson and Sir Henry Baskerville make their way through the Moor in pursuit of Selden:
We hurried through the dark shrubbery, amid the dull moaning of the autumn wind and the rustle of the falling leaves. The night-air was heavy with the smell of damp and decay. Now and again the moon peeped out for an instant, but clouds were driving over the face of the sky, and just as we came out on the moor a thin rain began to fall. The light still burned steadily in front.
The Moor, like Baskerville Hall, is an ominous, unruly place. Its sounds and sights are mysterious, and Watson and Sir Henry must navigate through tricky natural elements—shrubbery, leaves, rain. All of this chaos and mystery make the Moors the perfect background to the Baskerville murders, a place where the ancient, primitive, and supernatural appear to reside.
The story’s Gothic setting and imagery creates a particular mood, which is dreary, dark, and ominous. This is established early on through the telling of the titular legend in Chapter 2:
Standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon. And even as they looked the thing tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with fear and rode for dear life, still screaming, across the moor.
The Gothic is often characterized by an atmosphere of fear, the presence of supernatural forces or events, and the influence of the past. These are all present in the legend of the hound—in the gigantic, otherworldy hound itself, the murders it commits, and the profound fear it instills in those who encounter it. Baskerville Hall, where the legend originates, is shrouded in mystery and murder.
The novella’s mood becomes melancholy in Chapter 6 as Watson, Sir Henry Baskerville, and Dr. Mortimer leave London for Baskerville Hall:
Over the green squares of the fields and the low curve of a wood there rose in the distance a grey, melancholy hill, with a strange jagged summit, dim and vague in the distance, like some fantastic landscape in a dream.
The image of the hill where Baskerville Hall lies is dark and picturesque. As Watson observes the change in scenery, the colors of the landscape literally darken, a change that creates a sense of dread and gloom. The Hall itself appears unreal, like an apparition or vision. When they finally arrive, the Hall appears isolated and overgrown, a relic of the past:
The whole front was draped in ivy [...] A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke.
Everything about Baskerville Hall is murky: the smoke rising from the chimneys, the soft light seen from outside. Later on, the story uses auditory imagery that heightens the story’s somber mood. In Chapter 6, Watson hears “two copses of trees moan” and “the muffled, strangling gasp of one who is torn by an uncontrollable sorrow,” sounds that are ghostlike and mournful.
The mood darkens in Chapter 9 when Watson and Sir Henry Baskerville make their way through the Moor in pursuit of Selden:
We hurried through the dark shrubbery, amid the dull moaning of the autumn wind and the rustle of the falling leaves. The night-air was heavy with the smell of damp and decay. Now and again the moon peeped out for an instant, but clouds were driving over the face of the sky, and just as we came out on the moor a thin rain began to fall. The light still burned steadily in front.
The Moor, like Baskerville Hall, is an ominous, unruly place. Its sounds and sights are mysterious, and Watson and Sir Henry must navigate through tricky natural elements—shrubbery, leaves, rain. All of this chaos and mystery make the Moors the perfect background to the Baskerville murders, a place where the ancient, primitive, and supernatural appear to reside.
