A Study in Scarlet (Part Two): Chapter 5 {Sunday Midnight Book Club #7}
Hello, Internet, and good mornight to you all!
My name is Taffryne, shoppekeeper of Midnight on Memory Lane, and it is my absolute delight to welcome you to the second of two posts for this week's gathering of Sunday Midnight Book Club!
'Tis a pleasure, 'tis a pleasure indeed.
As the title of this post says, we're going to be talking about the fifth chapter of part two of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first-ever Sherlock Holmes story, A Study in Scarlet. I humbly present my thoughts for your enjoyment and consideration. Accordingly, please mind that there will be spoilers ahead!
Page Bound Link: click here!
Disclaimer: All of the original Sherlock Holmes books were written by a well-off, white gentleman in the late 1800s. Unfortunately, there potentially will be relics of their time, be it terminology or depictions, at varying levels of offensiveness. I mean no disrespect to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, nor his legacy; I merely want to make it clear that they were wrong during his time, they are wrong now, and I am wholeheartedly in no way endorsing them on this blog. Everyone has different levels of acceptability, so please advise and feel no judgement if you'd rather not take the risk yourself this time around.
Trigger Warnings: Discussions of Mormonism, References to Polygamy, Forced Marriages, Hunting, Murder, Vows for Revenge, Death
Chapter 5 ~ The Avenging Angels
Recollection
- Jefferson, John, and Lucy make their way along the trails while stopping to sleep as little as possible to get as far away as quickly as possible
- Since rations are running short, Jefferson sets up a camp for John and Lucy to wait at while he goes out hunting for meat
- Jefferson successfully hunts, but gets lost and takes a while to finally return back to the makeshift camp
- Jefferson returns back to the camp to find the mule, horse, and Lucy gone; John lies dead in a shallow grave with a piece of paper on a stick for a tombstone
- Jefferson travels for 6 days back to Eagle Canon to find Lucy and learns that she was wed to Drebber's son (apparently Strangerson shooting her father didn't win over the council's favor)
- Lucy dies a month later and Jefferson steals the wedding ring so she won't be buried in it before disappearing into the canyon wilds
- After many failed assassination attemps (by Jefferson) and respective capture-to-kill attempts (by the Elders), Jefferson goes back to the gold mines for 5 years to recover and amass a wealth for revenge
- Jefferson returns and finds out that Drebber and Strangerson had rebelled the church authorities and went off to who-knows-where, but remains steadfast in his need for revenge
- Jefferson travels around until he finds them in Cleveland, Ohio, but gets detained after Drebber reports him to the police as a threat
- Drebber and Strangerson then fled to Europe and continue to travel about, while Jefferson saves up enough money to travel himself and hunt them down
- After many a "you just missed them", Jefferson finally corners them in London (where we are now back to Jefferson the Cabbie being at Sherlock and Watson's apartment)
"He little knew how far that iron grasp could reach, or how soon it was to close upon them and crush them" (Pg. 57)
This...good grief. Just...jeez.
If I were Jefferson, the sheer weight of the guilt I would carry with me every day would be immeasurable. They were on the freedom path. They were making good progress. All because they needed to eat did he leave them at camp to hunt and lose it all from there. The fact that they went so far as to murder John in front of Lucy, bury him and mark the grave for Jefferson to find, and then still force Lucy into a marriage that kills her later because of property purposes...no wonder he became a "human bloodhound".
Legitimately, if gaining John's property was the driving factor of the marriage, then why didn't they just let them leave and claim his property for themselves??? They already have 4 and 7 wives, respectively, and the three of them abandoning town with no intention to return means that the house and fields are just sitting there! Ripe for the taking!!! I know, I know. It's about power and their entitlement and what have you but just...it's so senseless and infuriating.
Perhaps not the most moral of me, but since this is the sanctity of fiction, I'm glad that Jefferson got to play cat-and-mouse with them. Sure, it's not the immediate revenge he might've wanted, but it gave him a better gift...the gift of retribution torture. They wanted to act all high and mighty by leaving those numbers in John's house? Now they get to be herded around Europe where every face in a crowd, every knock on a door, could be Jefferson's. I hope it made them lose every sense of power and security and any other confidence they had.
Well...I mean, ultimately he did take their lives, but...
May Lucy and John Rest in Peace in Fiction.
The Questioning Queries
- What's Jefferson's perspective of their murders?
- How did Jefferson get/make the pills?
- What's him being a Cabbie got to do with it?
- Why was Drebber in an abandoned house but Strangerson in his hotel room?
- What happens with him now? Arrest or Death Sentence? Neither?
Thanks for Reading!
I hope you've been able to read and experience the story for yourself!
If you haven't, that's okay too! My thoughts are here to keep you updated and entertained in the meantime.
This caps off this week's gathering for Sunday Midnight Book Club, so off into the nighttime we go in preparation for tomorrow!
I hope you'll come back for tomorrow's Manga Monday! We'll be discussing volume 7 of The Legend of Zelda - Twilight Princess.
May we meet again at Midnight!