Extravagance

CONTINUED

Is Dr. Hardcastle “the last man”?

by Gareth Reeves

Hardcastle’s weak bicycle lamp, his candles, and his matches together represent humanity’s discovery and subsequent harnessing of fire. As well, his daring and solitary nature herald him as a future lone geologist judging the ancient caves—the very figure of the last man, of Thomas Babington Macaulay’s conceit of the “New Zealander,” later vividly reconceptualised in a painting by Gustave Doré: a lone figure contemplating the ruins of London, the smashed dome of St Paul’s Cathedral surrounded by crumbling buildings and lush vegetation a reminder of the fragility of empire and the vanity of human endeavour in the face of nature. Conan Doyle’s story goes beyond the personal: Hardcastle is not just an ill doctor but humanity facing its own ancient past (the Romans) and a nonhuman, possibly prehistoric lifeform that has found a way to adapt below ground. The references to the Romans and their Blue John mine recall the Roman Empire and, naturally, its decline, as most famously described by Edward Gibbon, on whom Conan Doyle had lectured in October 1908.

The claustrophobic atmosphere of the cavern is intensified by the solitariness of the protagonist, itself reflected in the solitary nature of the bear-like beast within. Three aspects of the story confirm Hardcastle’s loneliness: Firstly, he is an educated person among mostly uneducated local people, a man apart in a lonely region of the country. Secondly, he records his thoughts in a diary, the most individual and personal of narrative forms, normally written with the knowledge that others will not read it. Thirdly, he neglects to tell anyone when he fully descends into the cavern.

He is comparable to the underground ursine monster, who may be the last of its kind. Thus, through the last man trope, Conan Doyle establishes a parallel between the human animal and the nonhuman animal, between the past and the present, in this story.

Sources:

Reeves, Gareth. “Examining Trace Fossils in ‘The Terror of Blue John Gap.’” The Magic Door, Vol. 23, Issue 4. Friends of the Arthur Conan Doyle Collection, Winter 2024.

Stashower, Daniel, et al. ed. Conan Doyle, Arthur. A Life in Letters. Harper Press, 2007.

Macfarlane, Robert. Underland: A Deep Time Journey. Hamish Hamilton, 2019.

WHO IS GARETH?

Gareth A. Reeves, a PhD candidate at Durham University whose viva is looming like a giant cave-dwelling creature, first encountered Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet over twenty years ago but only developed a keen interest in Conan Doyle’s work after reading The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Lost World.