Activity: Role play

I. Instructions: Groupwork

3 groups (of 6 students each) will prepare a role play and present it infront of the class.

Last group will wrap up the whole activity,

II. Preparation time: 5 mins

III. Presentation time: 5 mins

IV. Hints:

Narrator Title

The Detective The Setting (characters / places) The Crime / The Victim(s) / The Suspects The Clues The Capture The Solution

Title:The Detective

{usually someone intellectually superior to the ordinary person who uses logic and keen observation to see what others do not}

The Setting

{usually a “closed society” of some kind—a train, an isolated house—so that the criminal must be one of the people already in the setting, not an outsider; the atmosphere is tense or frightening}

The Crime

The Victim(s)

The Suspects

{a limited group, each with motive, means, and opportunity}

The Clues

{some, perhaps, will turn out

to be false to mislead the audience or detective}

The Capture

{how the criminal is caught}

The Solution

{an explanation that brings all of the clues together}

Novel to Film

Since it was first published in 1901, Arthur Conan Doyle's adventure has been translated into scripts and screenplays and reinterpreted as films and stage plays numerous times. What choices do screenwriters and directors need to make? How do their choices impact the meaning and interpretation of a scene?

In this scene from Masterpiece Theatre's The Hound of the Baskervilles, Dr. Watson visits Merripit House for the first time and meets the enigmatic Beryl Stapleton.

Story Synopsis

One morning, Dr. James Mortimer pays a visit to consulting detective Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John H. Watson at 221B Baker Street. Mortimer is concerned by the mysterious death of his old friend Sir Charles Baskerville, which local folk attribute to the 200-year-old family curse: a gigantic phantom hound, a monstrous black beast with dripping jaws and glowing eyes reputed to have savaged his ancestors to death. Sir Charles lived in fear of the legend and died with a look of abject terror on his face. There was evidence of a desperate dash for safety, but far more frightening were the distinct footprints of an enormous hound close to the corpse.

Mortimer is also afraid for the new heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, who has been located in Canada and is coming to claim his inheritance. From the moment he arrives in London, odd things start to happen. Two of his boots go missing, anonymous warnings are delivered to his hotel and a bearded man is following him. It is beginning to look as if Sir Henry's life may be in danger too.

Sir Henry is about to take up residence at his ancestral home, Baskerville Hall on Dartmoor. Unable to leave London for the present, Holmes sends Watson down to Devon as his agent, with instructions to keep him fully informed of events, however trivial. The men have learned that a violent convict has escaped from the nearby prison and is still missing upon the moor. At Baskerville Hall, Watson encounters the bearded butler Barrymore and his wife, while the sound of a woman sobbing and the creak of aged floorboards rob him of his sleep.

The next day while out walking on the moor, he meets the eccentric archaeologist Stapleton, who lives at Merripit House with his beautiful sister, Beryl -- a love interest for Sir Henry. Stapleton points out the Grimpen Mire, a treacherous bog so deep it can devour a horse. Nearby are ruins of prehistoric stone dwellings. Then comes the sound of the baying of a hound.

An increasingly alarmed Watson and Sir Henry stalk a prowler who disappears into thin air at Baskerville Hall. Intruder or ghost? Finding false paneling, they entrap a startled Barrymore as he signals across the moor. He claims to be signalling his lover.

Watson and Sir Henry join Dr. and Mrs. Mortimer for dinner at Merripet House with the Stapletons. Dr. Mortimer's wife, who is fascinated by the occult, agrees to lead a séance; a

terrifying vision of the Hound appears. Badly shaken, Watson and Sir Henry return to Baskerville Hall. The escaped convict Selden -- starved and desperate -- has broken into the kitchen. As Watson and Sir Henry give chase, they hear the eerie howling of a distant hound. Watson sees the outline of a stranger standing on the distant Tor, framed against the moon.

Alone but armed, Watson tracks the stranger to a circle of Neolithic huts, where he discovers to his fury that the stranger is none other than Sherlock Holmes. A cry of terror interrupts them. They race towards the sound and discover the body of Sir Henry, horribly mutilated, face downward on the moor. He has been savaged by an unknown beast. But, upon closer inspection, they realize it is not Sir Henry; it is the convict Selden, dressed in Sir Henry's clothes.

Back at Baskerville Hall, Holmes tells Mrs. Barrymore that her brother, Selden, is dead. She breaks down and confesses that she had been feeding him (hence Barrymore's signaling) and that she had given him Sir Henry's discarded clothes. It is obvious that he had been assumed to be Sir Henry in the attack.

Through a masterly combination of detection and deduction, Holmes tells Watson that he has identified the murderer as Stapleton, who is out to avenge his father, a disinherited Baskerville who died in poverty. However, they need to catch Stapleton red-handed if they are to deliver him to the hangman. Holmes also reveals that Beryl is not Stapleton's sister but his wife. Stapleton found it useful to use her as romantic bait to ensnare both Sir Henry and Sir Charles.

Together with Inspector Lestrade, Holmes and Watson stake out Stapleton's home as he entertains Sir Henry, who has no idea of Holmes's suspicions. He is disappointed to discover that Beryl is not at home. After dinner, Sir Henry leaves Merripit House and makes his way home on foot across the moor. In the gathering mist Stapleton releases the Hound, priming it with the scent of Sir Henry's stolen boot. The sight of the great demonic creature, eyes ablaze, is so terrifying that their nerve momentarily fails them and the animal streaks after its prey. A desperate chase ensues as Holmes and Watson race to save the unsuspecting Sir Henry. They almost arrive too late. The hound has attacked but before it goes in for the kill, they shoot it dead.

Back at Merripit House, Lestrade has detained a defiant and unrepentant Stapleton, who refuses to confess. Watson finds Beryl, bound and beaten to death. In the resultant furor, Stapleton shoots the angry Watson and makes a desperate escape. Holmes pursues Stapleton across the midnight moor, but Stapleton uses his knowledge of the treacherous terrain to lure the detective into the infamous Grimpen Mire. As Holmes is sucked into the bog, Stapleton gloats and is about to kill him when the wounded Watson lurches out of the fog and shoots him dead. Watson drags Holmes to safety.

Sir Henry will survive, Watson's wounds will heal and Holmes has solved his most difficult case yet.

Plot Summary

The Hound of the Baskervilles is one of the most famous and admired detective stories ever written. Published in 1901 and 1902, it originally appeared in nine monthly installments in The Strand magazine. Like Dickens's serialized novels of the same era, each installment ended with a suspenseful "cliff-hanger" that kept author Arthur Conan Doyle's audience clamoring for more. (For more information about the rise of the serial novel, see "Stay Tuned for our Next Episode...".

In the story, the old and noble Baskerville family is threatened by a curse: "A great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye has rested upon" terrorizes and kills any family member who comes to live at the Baskerville estate. As the story opens, the hound seems to have claimed his latest victim, Sir Charles Baskerville. Sir Charles's nephew, Henry, the new heir to the estate, is poised to take up residence the next day. A friend of the family, Dr. Mortimer, comes to consult the famous Sherlock Holmes in his rooms at 221b Baker Street, though he confesses he doesn't know if the case is more suitable "for a detective or a priest." The first installment of the novel originally ended as Dr. Mortimer explains:

"...One false statement was made by Barrymore at the inquest. He said that there were no traces upon the ground round the body. He did not observe any. But I did -- some little distance off, but fresh and clear."

"Footprints?"

"Footprints."

"A man's or a woman's?"

Dr. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered: "Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!"

Into this atmosphere of lonely moors, ancient secrets, deadly threats, and ghostly apparitions comes the supremely rational Sherlock Holmes -- a man described by his friend Watson as "the most perfect reasoning and observing machine the world has ever seen." Piece by piece Holmes and Watson solve the mystery and find the culprit. In the end, they reassure the characters in the novel (as well as Conan Doyle's Victorian readers), that behind the threat of a supernatural "hound of hell" is a perfectly scientific explanation.

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Before Viewing: Questions and Activities

1. Some of the best-known skills of Sherlock Holmes are his powers of observation and deduction. (For example, have students read Chapter One of The Hound of the Baskervilles and note what Holmes discovers about Dr. Mortimer just from his walking stick.) To demonstrate, ask a staff member to stop by your classroom. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, turn your back. At that moment, have the visitor borrow something from your desk (set this up ahead of time). A few minutes later, ask students where the missing item is. When students identify the visitor as the borrower, ask them to write a physical description of him or her. Have students read their descriptions aloud. As a class, compare and contrast the variations in what each one observed.

2. The essential plot of The Hound of the Baskervilles forms a classic story line that can be found in countless other works of fiction: Someone new comes to stay in an isolated place with which legends and mysteries are associated. This person's life and/or sanity is threatened by increasingly frightening events until a perpetrator is caught. As a class, brainstorm a list of books, films, television shows, legends, myths, ghost stories, or other stories that share this same basic setup. Ask students, Why do you think this is such an enduring premise for a story?

3. The detective is a staple of popular culture. Have students list fictional detectives, from movies, television, books, cartoons, or any other source. Then, looking over the list, have them write a paragraph describing how the "typical" -- there may be more than one -- fictional detective looks, talks, and acts as well as what he or she does and says. As a class, compare and contrast the characteristics. After watching the film, have students revisit their descriptions. How closely does it describe Sherlock Holmes? Would you agree with the scholar Ian Ousby who wrote, "Modern detective fiction abounds in direct and indirect tribute to Sherlock Holmes, in pale imitations of Doyle's formula, and in desperate attempts to break from it?" What "direct or indirect" tributes do students see on their original list of detectives?

4. In a well-constructed detective story, nothing is wasted; each scene adds suspense and clues to the hunt for "whodunit." Watch the first six minutes of The Hound of the Baskervilles. (Note: The very first scene briefly shows an autopsy. Be sure to preview the film to make sure it is appropriate for your class.) What elements of mystery and suspense are already in play before we even meet Sherlock Holmes? Have students use the Detective's Log to begin compiling clues and making predictions about what they've already seen. Have them continue the log as they watch, stopping at the end of each viewing day to share their ideas and make predictions about what will come next.

Before Viewing: Questions and Activities

1. The Hound of the Baskervilles is marked by the constant juxtaposition of the rational and scientific with the irrational and supernatural. (For example, the film begins with rapid

cuts between the "civilized" setting of a courtroom and chaotic and frightening scenes of the wild moors and an escaped convict.) To investigate how much the tension of the story depends on this interplay, have students write the words "Rationalism, Civilization, Science" on one side of a piece of paper, and on the other write "Superstition, Wilderness, the Supernatural." (You may want to help the class define these terms first.) Ask students to make a list of all the people, places, things, scenes, and ideas in The Hound of the Baskervilles that seem to fit in one category or another. On which side does the hound itself seem to belong? Which of the two forces triumphs at the end? Review the last scene of the film and re-read the last few paragraphs of the novel to determine how Conan Doyle informs his Victorian audience which side has the "last word."

2. Who is Sherlock Holmes? No single story describes him completely. This film version of The Hound of the Baskervilles attempts to give viewers a more rounded picture of the great detective by borrowing traits and scenes from several of the stories. Ask students to describe the Holmes of the film by listing as many adjectives as they can to describe him, then listing scenes, lines of dialogue, or anything else they observe in the film that supports each adjective. Do students find his traits consistent or contradictory? What do they make of his drug use? How does he represent the rational/ irrational split that the story explores?

3. The moors in The Hound of the Baskervilles are so central to the plot that they could be considered as a character in the story. If you were to describe them the way you'd describe a human character, what would you say about them? Which human character in the story do they most resemble? How?

4. Giving Holmes a very ordinary sidekick, Watson, from whose point of view the tales can be told, is noted by historians of the detective story as one of Conan Doyle's most important contributions. How does the fact that Watson, as Holmes says in A Scandal in Bohemia, "sees but does not observe" make him a useful narrator? Ask students to consider the second segment of the film, from when Watson arrives in Dartmoor to his discovery of Holmes on the moor. How would that segment be different if Holmes were present?

5. Richard Roxburgh, who plays Holmes, comments that Holmes and Watson, "offset one another, and complement one another, perfectly. The deficits in one are covered by the pluses in the other." How so? What other famous fictional pairings can students name (in detective fiction or any other genre)? Do the roles in any of these other pairings complement one another in the same way? How?

6. Have students pretend they are part of an advertising team that wants to interest a new generation -- today's teens -- in The Hound of the Baskervilles. The team believes that the way to get teens to watch or read a "classic" is to show them how it relates to contemporary works they already enjoy. Ask students to create a print, television, or radio ad for either the film or the novel that uses quotes from the piece, compares it to other works, and highlights the aspects of it they believe their peers will most enjoy.

The Mystery Genre

This section is designed to be used with any mystery or detective novel, story, film, or television show. The first section briefly traces the history of the detective novel and Conan Doyle's contribution to it. It then lists questions and activities designed to help students think about the genre and about formulaic literature in general. "Fun with Mysteries" invites students' creative response to the mystery stories they read. The Detective's Log helps students understand the basic elements of a classic mystery while keeping track of them as they read or watch.

A Brief History of the Detective NovelCrime stories have been with us at least since Cain killed Abel in the Bible, yet Sherlock Holmes is considered the father of what is known as the classic "Golden Age" of English murder mystery. Writers such as Agatha Christie, Ellery Queen, and P.D. James went on to emulate this form, and today even a cursory glance at a mystery section in a book or video store will reveal the vigorous lineage of the great detective. Although Edgar Allen Poe, Wilkie Collins, and others had written mysteries before him, somehow, in the persons of Sherlock Holmes and his humble helper, Dr. John Watson, Arthur Conan Doyle captured the public imagination as no detective writer ever has.

The formula Conan Doyle helped establish for the classic English mystery usually involves several predictable elements: a "closed setting" such as an isolated house or a train; a corpse; a small circle of people who are all suspects; and an investigating detective with extraordinary reasoning powers. As each character in the setting begins to suspect the others and the suspense mounts, it comes to light that nearly all had the means, motive, and opportunity to commit the crime. Clues accumulate, and are often revealed to the reader through a narrator like Watson, who is a loyal companion to the brilliant detective. The detective grasps the solution to the crime long before anyone else, and explains it all to the "Watson" at the end.

At about the same time as the English murder mystery was establishing itself, a distinctly different school of detective fiction emerged in America. This "hard-boiled" style of fiction took hold in the 1920s, the era of American prohibition and gangster violence. Popularized through the accessibility of the "pulps" -- cheaply produced, gaudy magazines that featured short, violent crime stories -- the hard-boiled American detective contrasts distinctly with the classic English version. This detective is not a gentleman hero, but a hard-drinking, tough-talking "private eye," often an outsider to the world of upper- and middle-class values. The classic setting is not a country house but the brutal and corrupt city, and the suspects might be anyone at all in such a vast and anonymous place. The action does not move in a series of orderly steps toward a logical solution, but, instead, careens from place to place and scene to scene. As Dashiell Hammett, one of the originators of the genre, explained it, "Your private detective does not want to be an erudite solver of riddles in

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WORKSHEETQ1: Change the sentences below to the active voice.

a. The house is a mess, the cat is lost, and the car has been stolen by Justin.b. Unfortunately, my plan was ruined by Gerald, the building superintendent.c. The roof was leaking. It had been leaking all week.d. The ball was thrown by Lucy, who had been hiding in the bushes.e. Francesca was placed on the first flight tof. Boston. Her father put her there.g. I was taught by my brother the principles of barbecuing. h. My father was given the title by the former head chief.i. The house was wrecked by the party and the cat was let loose by the guests.

Q2: Write A in the blanks before the number if the sentence is active and P if passive.

__A____1. Rommel presented an interesting report.__A____2. He submitted the annual report of the organization.__P____3. The town was destroyed by fire.__P____4. That skyscraper was built in 1934__P____5. The new product design has been finished.

Q3: Rewrite each sentence changing the verb from active to passive.

11. He wrote a novel. 1. A novel was written by her.12. Many people admired Ninoy Aquino. 2. Ninoy Aquino was admired by

many People.

13. He repaired the dripping faucet 3. The dripping faucet was repaired by

Him.14. The doctor examined the patient. 4. The patient was examined by the

Doctor.15. She sponsored the education of many 5. The education of many poor

students

Search

Poor students. Was sponsored by her.16. My boss made the decision yesterday. 6. The decision was made by my

Boss yesterday.17. We proposed the change last week. 7. The change was proposed(by us)

Last week.18. John delivered the message. 8. The message was delivered by

this afternoon. John this afternoon.19. Doug coordinated the meeting in Paul’s 9. The meeting was coordinated by

Absence. Doug in Paul’s absence.20. James collected the shells. 10. The shells was collected by

Q1: Answers:

1. My brother taught me the principles of barbecuing.

2. The former head chief gave the title to my father.

3. The party wrecked the house and the guests let the cat loose.

4. The house is a mess, the cat is lost, and Justin has stolen the car.

5. Unfortunately, Gerald, the building superintendent, ruined my plan.

6. No change.

7. Lucy, who had been hiding in the bushes, threw the ball.

8. Francesca’s father placed her on the first flight to Boston.

9. No change.

10. A feast had been created from nothing. This astounded me.

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