Deception By Appearances

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Deception by Appearances

What you see is not always what you get. Appearances can be deceiving. If one does not logically think about another’s appearance, they can end up with misinterpretations far from the truth. Arthur Conan Doyle noticed this and tries to prove in his story “The Hound of the Baskervilles” how appearances can be misleading. Appearances can cause someone to overlook the obvious truth.
Sneaky behavior confuses logical understanding. The secretive night meetings of Barrymore cloud Watson’s mind with assumptions. Early in the morning, Watson hears footsteps out in the hall and decides to follow the noise. “A long black shadow was trailing down the corridor… [and] the height told me it was Barrymore, [the caretaker]. There was something indescribably guilty and furtive in his whole appearance” (Doyle 390). Watson watches Barrymore walk to the window and look for someone signaling to him out on the moor and suspects some secretive business happening in the house. When confronted, Barrymore at first denies everything. However, later he bluntly says he will not tell the truth of what is happening because he feels it is not his business to tell. After his wife appears, the truth comes out that her brother is the escaped convict and that they take him food every night. The Barrymore’s insist the men not turn her brother in because they believe the convict to be of no harm to the community anymore and because they have made arrangements for her brother to reach freedom in South America. Watson further assumes the Barrymore’s being guilty when he finds out that the couple receives a great sum of money from the late Charles Baskerville. The Barrymore’s are removed from the suspect list after the truth is explained and Watson is left with no leads. Watson must learn that in order to solve the case, it will “require a mind free from assumptions of comfortable, law-abiding people” (Claus...