"who Is Your Favourite Villain In Literature And Why?", A Study Into Jefferson Hope From Arthur Conan Doyle`s "a Study In Scarlet"

In A Study in Scarlet Conan Doyle presents a prima facie case of cold-blooded murder. As the investigations progress, it becomes uncertain that Holmes is dealing with unjustifiable homicide, as the narrative, due to the word form, reveals the motivations behind the murders.

At the end of Part One of A Study in Scarlet , Holmes tricks Jefferson Hope into revealing himself as the perpetrator of the first murder. Holmes only knows Jefferson Hope, at the time of his capture, for his crime and doesn t learn his story until later. Conan Doyle initially portrays the American killer as manipulative and deceitful. The contorted face of the first of Jefferson Hope s murder victims shows the killing was shocking- malignant and terrible contortion and the second murder is even more brutal- The cause of death was a deep stab in the left side, which must have penetrated the heart . This emphasises the apparent callousness of the crime and therefore, we assume that of the perpetrator. Conan Doyle introduced a completely new character in Sherlock Holmes to discover this criminal A Study in Scarlet was the first novel that featured the detective who had "a passion for definite and exact knowledge' and who sought to understand "the many-sidedness of the human mind." This is our first exposure of Holmes` "exact science" of his detection. His powers are marvelled at by everyone around him and Holmes is aware of this- With which Parthian shot he walked away, leaving the two rivals open-mouthed behind him . A Parthian shot refers to a military tactic used by Parthian archers who would turn their bodies back on the enemy and shoot whilst retreating. Arguably, this is used by Holmes to show his superiority over the pick of the bad lot" of Scotland Yard equally this device works against the murderer who wrote the single word , "RACHE", scrawled in blood red letters as a misleading reference to a past crime committed in New York. But instead of misleading Holmes, the murderer gives him a clue as to his own origins. We are fascinated by Holmes unorthodox methods, particularly shown when Holmes is "beating the subjects" post-mortem. As this is still true of the modern reader, exposed to countless murder mysteries since the late 19^th Century, we must imagine the greater impact on the contemporaneous reader when the story was first published in 1887, when Gothic novels such as "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" focussing on scientific endeavours were hugely popular. Already at this stage, the reader is inclined to trust that Holmes has caught the right man and that Hope deserves his fate. As a simple murder mystery, Part One could stand alone without the need for further justification as "the scarlet thread of murder running through the colourless skein of life". This is not the case as the novel progresses through to Part Two.

Sebastian Faulks said that "Villains often have not only the power of knowledge and sex but of language, too" (Faulks, 2011) and this cannot be more true when looking at cleverness is seen in the "savage" Jefferson Hope when using an anonymous accomplice to retrieve Lucy`s wedding ring. But can Jefferson really be presented as a pure villain?

Conan Doyle, writing in this relatively new genre, clearly understood that there was a more compelling human element to explore which makes Jefferson Hope a particularly fascinating villain. Rather than a cold-blooded killer , Hope is shown to be a character of complex motivation. In Part Two of "A Study in Scarlet", Conan Doyle departs from the device of John Watson s first-person narrative and shifts to the omniscient authorial voice in the third person. This allows the narrative to fully explore the background to Jefferson Hope before he became a relentless killer. The novel is suited to the rise of the detective genre as through manipulating the structure, the author is able to conceal dramatic details.

Jefferson Hope is an American, but we are not told where he was born. This could suggest we are meant to see him as an American Everyman , in comparison to the fundamentally undemocratic ( Taylor, 1965) isolated and specifically identified society of the Mormons in their own State of Utah: When the Lamanites are about, you will keep your gates closed, and not admit them within the walls (Mullen, 1967). The two antagonists of Hope s backstory are specified as sons of the Elders from this state. The reader is soon to learn that Jefferson Hope will be the protagonist of Part Two, and as perhaps his name suggests, he represents the truer, freer spirit of the Founding Fathers. We may, in this distinction, be seeing Conan Doyle s own disapproval of the narrow and intolerant confines of Mormon culture, particularly when most Americans regarded with suspicion the Mormon political and economic principles and practices (Taylor, 1965). An example of this is the persecuted Mormons becoming persecutors themselves, especially in the Mountain Meadows Massacre where some 120 persons were killed by Mormon militiamen (Arrington and Bitton, 1980). Conan Doyle took further inspiration from real life events in the unforgiving and murderous Danites, a secret, unsanctioned paramilitary force (Arrington and Bitton, 1980) (also known as the Avenging Angels who are named thus in the novel) who killed many men considered Gentiles to the Mormons.

Having last seen Jefferson Hope, the double murderer, captured like a savage beast "with an inarticulate roar of fury" when "Gregson, Lestrade, and Holmes sprang upon him like so many stag-hounds" at the end of Part One, we first see him in Part Two in a different light when he saves the young woman, Lucy, from a stampede of cattle. They are strangers to each other at this point. Although Jefferson appears first as a man of the wild, "a tall, savage-looking fellow, mounted on a powerful roan horse, and clad in the rough dress of a hunter with a long rifle slung over his shoulders", his first remark shows a natural civility "`You`re not hurt, I hope, Miss,` said her preserver, respectfully." By this sudden contrast, we begin to review our opinion of him. We next learn that he has an association with Lucy`s father- When you see him," he tells her, "ask him if he remembers the Jefferson Hopes of St Louis. If he s the same Ferrier, my father and he were pretty thick . Eventually Jefferson falls in love with Lucy and she accepts him as her suitor. The tone of the narrative at this stage is entirely sympathetic to Jefferson. We learn that The sight of the fair young girl, as frank and wholesome as the Sierra breezes, had stirred his volcanic, untamed heart to its very depths and "the love which had sprung up in his heart was not the sudden, changeable fancy of a boy, but rather the wild, fierce passion of a man of strong will and imperious temper." The language of natural violence is used to emphasise his love and distress. In this way, Conan Doyle shows Jefferson`s love for Lucy as a taming influence on the wildness at his core and so we are prepared to accept that her death is what causes his savage heart to become enraged. Feeling his heartbreak, we follow Jefferson as he mercilessly tracks down Drebber and Stangerson, the men he holds responsible for his loss. Once more, we see this as "natural justice" running its course.

The attraction and appeal of Jefferson Hope at this stage in the story derives from his conversion from the wild frontiersman to a tender and loving suitor which humanises him from what we initially assumed was the cold blooded killer . We have learnt as readers that our initial judgement of this man was shallow and not fully informed. The pathos and depth of Jefferson Hope s backstory lends an equal pathos and depth to his character. He is not to be fully exonerated from his crimes - or our new detective hero, Holmes, would not allow it but our new understanding of what led him to commit his crimes persuades us that his motivation is not without a certain compelling human appeal. His motives rely strictly on avenging the deaths of the people he held most dear. It could be argued that he is an anti-hero, taking justice into his own hands, which may fit into the readers` view of a man in the stereotypical Wild West, where the rule of law was partial at best. Jefferson`s skills of the hunter, horsemanship and "intimate knowledge of the mountains" are initially what save Lucy and her father from the Mormons. After Lucy and her father die, these same skills are what he uses to track down the same two men, particularly driving a cab in London. Interestingly, the elderly female accomplice who collects Lucy s wedding ring from Holmes then enters a cab, is a character devised by Jefferson to throw Holmes off the plot and as a "red herring" from Conan Doyle to confuse the reader. It could be argued that this method of deception is merely a simple way out for the author. However, its simplicity is misleading as it builds the drama and keeps the omniscient detective elevated intellectually causing the reader to keep reading.

The qualities in a fictional murder or murderer must be attractive to the reader, where in real life, they would naturally be repellent. They must be put up against an equally attractive protagonist detective to build up tensions in the narrative. Only a great crime is worthy of a great detective. Attraction, however, can take negative forms. Readers can be drawn to manipulative, secretive and persuasive antagonists as the mystery behind their true origins remains hidden. It is somewhat atypical, therefore, in "A Study in Scarlet" to have blurred lines in the rights and wrongs of each case. This makes the attractiveness of the murderer become paradoxical, encompassing both positive and negative features of attraction: the broken-hearted hunter tracking down his quarry. This combination of contrasting yet compelling qualities has allowed Conan Doyle to give birth to a truly compelling villain and certainly one of the best in a wide genre of Literature.