The supernatural in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Terror of Blue John Gap

of multiple isolation and entrapment, his rational certainty progres-
sively gives way to the undercurrents of uncertainty and incredulity.
Symbolically, his journeying the corridors of the Blue John Gap, which
is his desperate search for some empirical certainty, unfixes the firm
boundaries of his rationality and rational certainty.
Once the realm of the rational certainty is slightly unfixed or loos-
ened, the supernatural presses forward. For example, Mr Hardcastle
feels entrapped in the claustrophobic and shadowy realm of the under-
ground passages: “the black shadows which hemmed me in” (Doyle
2009: 27). By degrees, the realm of shadows gives way to the realm of
complete blackness and darkness as his candle goes out. Symbolically,
his rational certainty is dangerously blotted out and the natural verges
on the supernatural.
Confused and disoriented, he is horrified to hear some uncanny
sounds. He believes the sounds come from the creature/monster
and perceives them as an encroaching threat coming in his direction
“Beyond all doubt I had heard a sound – some sound very distinct from
the gurgling of the waters [...] There it was again! And again! Now it
had become continuous. It was a tread – yes, surely it was the tread of
some living creature. But what a tread it was! It gave one the impression
of enormous weight carried upon sponge-like feet, which gave forth a
muffled but ear-filling sound. The darkness was as complete as ever,
but the tread was regular and decisive. And it was coming beyond all
question in my direction” (Doyle 2009: 29). Gradually, the sounds turn
into “long sniffs and snorts of tremendous volume and energy” (Doyle
2009: 30) and leave him lying on a rock literally paralyzed. And this
is not only the moment of horror but also the moment of sheer terror
because his rational capacities seem hindered and encroached upon by
some indeterminate, unknowable forces:
“terror is characterized by ‘obscurity’ or indeterminacy in its treat-
ment of potentially horrible events [...] Terror thus creates an intan-
gible atmosphere of spiritual psychic dread, a certain superstitious
shudder at the other world” (Raškauskiené 2009: 21).

Put differently, “Terror occurs more in the minds of characters than in
reality” (Raškauskiené 2009: 21). What is emphasized is the narrator’s
psychological response to the terror-inspiring creature and the super-
natural. Expectedly, the scientist’s response is in the way of disturb-
ance, indefiniteness and undecidability due to the lack of any empirical
certainty. His reaction is in fact a kind of confusion of belief and dis-
belief, credulity and incredulity inside the scientist’s mind, resulting
from the steady encroachment of the fantastic or the supernatural
upon the real and the natural: “The combat between my reason, which
told me that such things could not be, and my senses, which told me
that they were, raged within me as I lay” (Doyle 2009: 30).
Even after the experience deep down in the Blue John Gap, Mr
Hardcastle lies restless in his bed at the farmhouse; he is so shocked
by the recent event, alternately referred to as terrific and incredible,
that he is irresolute and hesitant. One option is to inform the locals
about his uncanny experience and run the risk of either spreading the
false alarm or, in the worst of cases, of being hospitalized in an asylum.
The alternative, which he ultimately opts for, is to keep the mystery
unsolved.
Therefore, the vexing problem seems to be how to integrate the
supernatural into his deep-seated, scientifically-aligned rational sphere
and how to make the locals believe his version of the Blue John Gap
monster without declaring him mad. In other words, the most diffi-
cult moment for the protagonist is to find the best integrative strategy
for incorporating the two realms into a remotely believable, relatively
sustainable whole. Also, he is eager to find a way of overcoming the
brooding, ever-present terror of the Blue John Gap.
In an attempt to naturalize the supernatural and give the inexplic-
able rationally explicable outlines, he ventures to The Blue John Gap
once again. However, apart from the initial reality-corresponding
scene in which he positions himself at the mouth of the Blue John Gap
awaiting the monster’s appearance, everything else is likely to be a part
of Mr Hardcastle’s strange hallucination, a fantasy dream, far-fetched
imagining and wild fancy. His report of the alleged encounter with
the monster can, therefore, be justifiably ascribed the attribute of the
supernatural, especially if we take into account the facts which “point
to Dr. Hardcastle’s impaired health, and to the possibility of cere-
bral lesions of tubercular origin giving rise to strange hallucinations”
(Doyle 2009: 38).
By the end of the story, Dr James Hardcastle attempts to put for-
ward a theory which he claims is “wildly improbable, but at least no one
can venture to say that it is impossible” (Doyle 2009: 39). Against all the
odds, his theory undoubtedly supports the existence of a monster (a
cave-bear) and the eyewitness’s account, Dr Hardcastle’s, Interesting-
ly, what he propounds as facts are largely self-made and self-suited gen-
eralizations which are tailor-made to satiate his thirst, the scientist’s
thirst, for absolute knowledge.
Still, the whole incident or, to be more precise, incidents remain
beyond Mr Hardcastle’s absolute empirical certainty and the laws of
nature. Mr Hardcastle cannot provide himself with any definite, con-
clusive and finite answers which are absolute and unquestionable. And
despite his final written account of the scientifically remote probability
of the existence of the Blue John Gap bear-like creature, the narrator’s
empirical, rational certainty is largely contested. Bearing in mind that
the supernatural is “attributed to some force beyond scientific under-
standing or the laws of nature” (http://www.oxforddictionaries.com),
it is hardly surprising that his experience is classifiable as the super-
natural in literature.

Bibliography
1.Doyle, C. Arthur. “The Terror of Blue John Gap.” Jones, Ceri (ed.).
Macmillan Literature Collections: Horror Stories. Macmillan ELT.2009.
2.Raškauskiené Audroné. Gothic Fiction: The Beginnings. Vytauto
Didžiojo universitetas, Kaunas. 2009.

Online resources
1.http://www.oxforddictionaries.com