Blog Deep Dive with Sherlock Holmes, Fairies, and the Devil Baby of Hull House

 

1. Conan Doyle gained fame by creating the world's foremost fictional detective in Sherlock Holmes, but in what ways did he fail to do good detective work himself when it came to the Case of the Cottingham Fairies?

Conan Doyle was known for his creation of the famous Sherlock Holmes. A detective who was known for his mystery solving and investigation abilities. Based on the fact Conan Doyle created Sherlock Holmes himself it would be asumible that Conan Doyle would also follow the critical steps and listen to the tedious methods of investigation. But unfortunately he fell short after the Case of the Cottingham Fairies investigation. The problem Conan Doyle had in the very beginning was he assumed that the girls were innocent souls who didn’t have the ability to alter such photos, in which case was true to an extent but still doesn’t stray from the fact he assumed and didn’t investigate the photographs deeper. He also trusted the words of others when he made clear in Sherlock Holmes that you have to find out the truth yourself. Not even going to investigate the scene, instead getting insight from another and trusting his word. These are only a few of the ways he failed to do good but they are main points which are important to Sherlock Holmes himself.

2. Conan Doyle had lost both his son and brother in World War I. Deep in grief, he found himself in spiritualism, the occult, and beliefs in fairies. In the next essay, "The Devil Baby of Hull House," hundreds of people, particularly women and mothers, come to visit Hull House (a settlement home for immigrant families) intent on seeing a devil baby that does not in fact exist. What does author Jane Addams discover that many of these women share in common? She listens to the stories of these women, fascinated. Share one of those stories that she uncovers by paraphrasing it here. When you consider Conan Doyle and the stories of these women who come to Hull House, what are some observations you have about why people might be drawn in to believing in things that don't exist? Try to draw connections between the essays. 

She was a mom of 11 yet only one of them survived childhood. The one child being the only daughter to survive named Liboucha. Through a tragic and troubling childhood Liboucha was never the same after witnessing the death of her father and her mother couldn’t bear seeing her this way. She wanted the best for her daughter. Unfortunately in her second year of high school Liboucha started acting differently. She started running away and acting strange which worried her mother gravely. The only thing her mother could think of to protect her was to send her to an asylum. She visited every week and started to enjoy and feel comfort in the fact she could see the one thing that belonged to her. But one day all of the sudden Liboucha dies of heart failure, leaving her mother all alone.

After I made many observations I believe that a reason for women being so drawn to the Devil Baby was because they had felt alone or lost something or someone in their life in the past. I think they visited the Devil baby for some kind of companionship and to feel comforted at the fact someone was there with them. “She would walk henceforth it’s a sense of companionship”(Jane Adams). Although they know the Devil isn’t real they feel relief in the thought that someone was there who was all alone with them, struggling and fighting through a lonely life.

3. "There is nothing scientifically impossible, so far as I can see, in some people seeing things that are invisible to others," Conan Doyle wrote. He conceded that, "Victorian science would have left the world hard and clean and bare, like a landscape in the moon" (qtd. in Losure 92-93). More than a hundred years later in what ways do you agree with Doyle? Is there a particular mystery that you think is beyond science? 

 

I agree with Doyle about the fact that if science was still as small and less developed like the Victorian era then our world wouldn’t be as corrupt. The problems of the climate due to new discoveries which have made it so humans have trashed the beautiful earth which could still be beautiful and untouched. But it isn't. Although the discoveries have consequences I’m not saying that the humans and developments made on earth are bad. It’s just stating that if they were never made then the earth would have stayed how it was. One mystery I do believe no one will ever be able to uncover is the mystery of Aliens. It’s a 50/50 conflict. Some people do and some don’t believe in them. There’s nothing to prove they are real but there also isn’t anything proving that they aren’t real. So where there is a possibility of discovering them I just don’t think they ever will, due to the catastrophe that news would bring to the entire world.

4. In a long paragraph, create a mystery for a reader of your blog. Choose one world mystery or urban legend or cryptid (often called cryptozoology) such as Bigfoot, chupacabras, ghosts, the Lochness monster, the Jersey Devil, the kraken, mermaids, Mothman, selkies, the Thunderbird, etc.—or any other creature you can think of. Or choose a psychic phenomenon such as telepathy or telekinesis. Using research, explore what evidence exists out there that might or might not prove the existence of such a being? Quote from at least one of your articles. What do you believe after your search?

Time travel. I’ve always dreamed about going back in time. I would do this, and this. Oh and I wouldn’t do that, etc. although it has been scientifically proven that time travel is and will never be possible. But after researching time travel I learned that time travel actually already exists and in many different ways. “the faster you travel, the slower you experience time”(spaceplace.nasa.gov). When you travel on an airplane have you noticed how the time changes? Let’s say you leave Minnesota at 8:00 in the morning and your eta to New York is about 11:00. You would actually be arriving at 12:00pm because there is a time zone difference. The east coast is 1 hour ahead of the Midwest so you're actually traveling into the future. Another example is GPS satellites. Can you believe you use a time traveling device everyday? “High up where the satellites orbit, Earth's gravity is much weaker. This causes the clocks on GPS satellites to run faster than clocks on the ground”(spaceplace.nasa.gov). Making time run faster for time in space so we can calculate our way around the world. There are many other examples but these are just a few proving that time travel does actually exist. It’s just not as exaggerated as it is in the movies or the books.