Mrs. McConkey
ENG3UE
5 December 2011
At first, choosing my novel for the ISU seemed to be most difficult part since I am familiar with many of the novels, but I still had not read many of them. Honestly, The Hound of the Baskervilles was a shot in the twilight. I had known what novels I would have liked to read but since class was nearing an end, I quickly selected a novel to begin reading. And it was good.
Reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Hound the Baskerville was a great experience and I do not regret a single moment of it. After watching lots of Scooby Doo as a child, going back and reading the classic novel that it is structured around was nostalgic and interesting to me. Reading this novel has definitely increased my understanding of the mystery genre and writing concisely in general. It has taught me to write without fluffing up my work to appeal to the highly educated but it has also taught me not to leave any essential details out of my writing. In addition, this novel has also given me insight on the complexity of novels. Cartoons such as Scooby Doo have simple plots and characters but they are definitely not representative of the mystery genre as a whole. There is much more subtle feel of Doyle’s writing compared to Scooby Doo where the protagonists are often seen running up and down hallways, entering and leaving every other door.
Furthermore, the analysis and reading of The Hound of the Baskervilles has taught me to be less gullible and to never accept the truth without proof or evidence. The survival of a human will be severed if a human allows themselves to trust and believe everything they see.
Some of my strengths during this project were the ability to write on universal as well as specific topics. I was able to expand these topics into digestible text for the reader while supporting my claims. In addition, I also felt that I was beginning to expand from the typical five paragraph essay and diverge into deductive toned writing rather than inductive. This project also helped my critical thinking skills by allowing me to analyze text more closely than I have previously. By doing this, I have begun to see the nuances of Doyle and I hope to continue to see patterns in the writing of other authors. While the work I done was completed well, I would have liked to go back and question my discussions themselves to create a deeper understanding of the topics I chose for discussion.
Finally, the classic novel study has taught me how to be objective rather than subjective. It has helped me to separate my emotions towards novels to helping me to write logically about novels. I have realized that subjective writing is elementary and it usually has little to say in the context of analyzing novels. This ability to separate emotions from work will prove to be useful in the future in ENG4U and the university level.
By the end of the classic novel study, I have a greater understanding of the classic novel and of course, why it is considered a classic!
