I Survived

In a book series entitled “I Survived” there was once a book written where a summary would sound ridiculous. This summary would be along the lines of, once there was a family of four including a father, mother, sister, and brother. The sister a mere six years old had been a genius in finance and accounting. Her brother, around eleven years older than her, had however not been a genius. The events of this book were as follows; first there was a family vacation with a hotel under construction, next an earthquake, after that an aftershock, consequently a fire in the hotel, following that a tsunami, and finally after two kids survive all of this they are reunited with their now somewhat useless parents. This book, even being an extreme exaggeration
of how most books are, will help the reader realize that in most books there are a series of chain events that help develop characters or a character's relationship with another character. In the book this report is on this is not true. Because sometimes the most significant problems, excitement, and questions in a story are internal. This is true in the case of The Hound of The Baskervilles, for the rising action, climax and conclusion all involved the thoughts of the two main characters more so than they did actual events.

The first parts of the book are mostly about the internal thoughts of John, and the conversations between him and Sherlock.
The whole first half of the book could really be considered front matter, since no conflict occurs besides the confusion of the previous death of Sir Charles Baskervilles. The reader is introduced to a Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and his partner, Dr. John Watson. After receiving and accepting the case of the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskervilles, John travels to Baskerville to meet the people of the moor and solve the case. The rest of the first few chapters of the book could be described as exactly that, seeing as though nothing else happens. Sir Charles does not die in the book, but before the book starts and the only true conflict in the book is the attempt to solve the case of how he died. He did die in an undoubtedly unique way, but this is still not a huge problem because the main characters would not be affected by the outcome of the case. Mr. Holmes only took the case in the first place because of how oddly it was presented to him. In London Dr. Mortimer, a friend of Sir Charles, sought the help of Mr. Holmes and went to him with great appeal, “‘ Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!’”. Intrigued, Sherlock set John on the case, only to write to him back in London about all the people he will have talked to and his impression of them. These letters, along with the present thoughts of John, make up the first eight chapters of the
book.

Finally, towards the middle of the book, a few small events start to take place. John catches Mr. and Mrs. Barrymore signaling to a criminal in hiding on the moor. This causes a mild conflict, but the only significant outcome is the Barrymore’s revelation of a letter addressed to Sir Charles the night before his death. This leads to a better understanding of what happened the night of Sir Charles death. Another mini conflict is John hearing moaning and howling upon the moor at night. Even though a few conflicts like these start up in the middle of the book, the middle of the book is still mostly about the thoughts of John and Sherlock, and how they plan to solve the case. For example, even when John learns there is an escaped convict on the moor he simply investigates this man. This has nothing to do with the main problem, but John feels he needs to investigate something when it appears. This is true due to the fact, there is not much for John to investigate.

The main problem in this book is the fight to understand what happened to Sir Charles and to protect Sir Henry. This problem has no developmental effects on the main characters, since the main characters have no personal attachment to neither Sir Charles, nor Sir Henry. In truth the main problem isn’t really much of a problem, when in fact a true, “Conflict refers to some form of friction, disagreement, or discord arising within a group when the beliefs or actions of one or more members of the group are either resisted by or unacceptable to one or more members of another group.” In this book there is no disagreement and only once is a character’s belief resisted by another. This occurs in the very beginning of the book where Dr. Mortimer is convinced a supernatural beast is responsible for the death of Sir Charles. Sherlock with a mind of logic obviously disagrees with this, but this is the main reason he takes the case as mentioned earlier. The point at stake here is that although there are many small, yet very odd events, in this book the problems are hard to consider problems because no major character development occurs. Mr. Sherlock Holmes, after solving the big case, the main problem and the climax, simply says to John, “And now, my dear Watson...I think, we may turn our thoughts into more pleasant channels….Might I trouble you then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at Marchini’s for a little dinner…” (Doyle 243). This practically proves that Sherlock and John are completely unaffected by this entire experience and that there is no true conflict in this book. The only thing gained for the two investigators is knowledge.
This book has tiny events that although tend to be very bizzare, can not account for the excitement or suspense of external conflicts. This in turn makes it nearly impossible to write an essay on the conflicts and theme of this book, and if one were to read this book, the writer would find it quite remarkable if one were able to do so. In this book the writer has found no evidence of a major change in the characters, a big climax or anything of the sort. The only thing that could come even remotely close to this would be the discovery of the truth behind Sir Charles death.