The Cask in the Catacomb
The Cask in the Catacomb: Poe and Conan Doyle Again is an article written by Robert F. Fleissner published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 3, 1992).
This article argues that "The New Catacomb" shows clear indebtedness to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado," tracing parallels in setting, entombment motif, atmosphere, characterization, and thematic elements. While acknowledging Conan Doyle's originality, it contends that Poe's claustrophobic Gothic pattern significantly shaped the later tale.
The Cask in the Catacomb
Illustration for "The New Catacomb" from the 1978 Pan edition of ACD's Tales of Terror and Mystery.
Poe and Conan Doyle Again
- Poe's tale 'The Cask of Amontillado offered a pattern for Conan Doyle's copying in 'The New Catacomb'.
- Michael Harrison. A Study in Surmise
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's use of Poe's short stories is a commonplace in scholarship. In Through the Magic Door, Conan Doyle called his American model 'the supreme short story writer of all time', and in one of the special prefaces to the twelve-volume Author's Edition of his own work, he wrote, '... On this narrow path the writer must walk, and he sees the footmarks of Poe always in front of him.'
(1)
Although the Poe-Conan Doyle correlation is especially evident in the Holmes canon, something can also be said once more for ACD's use of 'The Cask of Amontillado' in his bone-chilling entombment tale The New Catacomb. While other stories by both Poe and Conan Doyle may not be especially germane here. owing to the clear-cut borrowing from 'The Murders in the Rue Morgue' in 'The Speckled Band' (both of which entailed the so-called locked-room convention) (2), a similar enough link in terms of this mode between Poe's 'Cask' and Conan Doyle's 'Catacomb' appears particularly apropos and not accidental or on a merely alliterative, titular level. Seclusion in a sealed chamber has, after all, its own special mystification, probably related, on the existential or mythic level, to the essential loneliness or frustration of the human animal. Although many others have employed this macabre subgenre, Conan Doyle took enough interest in Poe's use of the claustrophobic gambit to warrant this source study.
To begin, the setting is basically the same in both tales: the Italian peninsula. Two companions are the focus in each. The motive for murder in both stories is retaliation, whereby the narrators resort to the reader's being haunted by the ancient past and resonances of mediaeval and Renaissance times. It is more noteworthy, however, to consider the so-called Italianate penchant for poisoning during the time of the Medicis and Borgias (as brought out in Browning's well-known dramatic monologue 'My Last Duchess'), and the Germanic love of the Gothic (as in the tales of E. T. A. Hoffman, but more fundamentally as related to the spookiness of ancient cathedrals with their tapering spires and gargoylish effects). Indeed, both narratives have a catching, detective-like quality, though an official sleuth as such is not mentioned, and the Poe story is more pedagogically related to a whodunit in that it makes the reader investigate more closely what is going on. (3)
The plots of the two adventures are rather similar. In Poe's haunting tale the narrator, Montresor. lures his victim. Fortunato, into the vaults to taste his rare wine, then eventually seals him up in a room which symbolises Fortunato's hedonistic undoing. In Conan Doyle's tale Julius Burger tempts his subject, Kennedy, into a newly discovered catacomb and then ensures that he loses his way therein. The names in both stories are telling enough. Poe's scapegoat is obviously, and ironically, named after Good Luck, while Conan Doyle's villain takes his forename from the Roman dictator Gaius Julius Caesar and his last name from the German Burg- (or Berg-), and the victim has an Irish name, one possibly derivative of the author's family's own 'unfortunate' Irish background. What is of particular connotative interest here is that the German Berg means mountain, and is, therefore, most probably descended from Poe's villain's name Montresor, if only because the first letters, Mont-, again mean mountain, this time in French. It would also relate to the Italian monte. Granted, Montresor could also be broken down into Mon and tresor, but that etymology is less germane. Likewise Burger might connote simply a citizen of a burgh, but that sounds rather too pedestrian.
These (possibly unconscious) onomastic considerations aside, various other clues in the stories suggest closer parallells. The main one is that the speaker in Poe's tale describes his crypt in a manner which clearly looks forward to Conan Doyle: 'Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris. (4) This reference to catacombs is then repeated several times. (5) Evidently the image inspired Conan Doyle. In both tales emphasis is clearly placed on the catacombs as containing appropriate remnants of bodies. Whereas Poe tells of walls being 'lined with human remains', his literary follower speaks of the newly discovered catacomb as 'reserved for the burial of the highest Christians.' (6) Almost the same literary graveyard?
That connection is, however, one so expected nowadays in this subgenre even as mummies may be that it helps to have other, more curious clues to go by. Some of these are weird ones like the use of eerie laughter. Even as Fortunato indulges in bloodcurdling merriment at the end, reminiscent of the grin on the common skull itself, so Julius 'began to laugh, and in that circular room the sound seemed to come from every side at once. In this macabre respect the wild laughter is transferred from the victim to the egotistic protagonist. Obviously Montresor could not so easily express himself in this way in Poe's narrative, as he was telling the story. Still another curious effect worth mentioning in passing is the use of the sudden foreign expression to lend apt atmosphere. Hence the learned Montresor introduces a heraldic motto, Nemo me impune lacessit (No-one provokes me with impunity), as well as the well-known standard burial apophthegm In pace requiescat (May he rest in peace). In turn, in Conan Doyle's adventure much is made of members of the ancient, mediaeval church speaking in Latin and a pointed foreign phrase is likewise used, again by the protagonist: Mein Gott (My God), which can be compared to Montresor's 'For the love of God.' As with Montresor's wish that his victim rest peacefully in the grave, Julius Burger's seemingly prayerful ejaculation has its similar, if ironic, effect.
Does a parallel light enter the darkness in the two mysteries? Yes, but only in the sense that, in Poe, the illumination is caused by two flambeaux (torchlights), while in Conan Doyle reference is made to 'matches and candles' and then to a 'lantern'. Thereafter, however, Kennedy turns out not to have any matches, and that causes his fateful incarceration. As for light in the moral sense, this symbolism is notably absent in the two sketches, interest being placed rather on horror for its own sake. Thus the adventures hardly reach the highest aesthetic plain cathartically, but their technical correlation may ultimately be of more concern than the plots themselves. Hence this comparison.
Another inter-connection is worth dwelling on, if only because in Conan Doyle's case it points ahead somewhat to the Sherlock Holmes tales, and in Poe's reflects on his own familiar problems. This problem has to do with the allurement of a drug. In The Cask of Amontillado' the real villain, it would seem, is alcohol, or excess of it: whereas in 'The New Catacomb' the comparable, though hardly as dangerous, drug is tobacco. In itself such a seemingly innocuous, complementary correlation may appear absurd were it not for the curious addictive point that Conan Doyle's nicotine may actually have derived non-chemically from Poe's alcohol. What is meant is that the wine is described as coming in the form of a pipe, namely a cask holding many gallons. It is true that Burger himself does not smoke a pipe, but he indulges in considerable cigar-smoking, and specific mention is made of his being duly under the influence of tobacco. Conan Doyle describes the casual activity of smoking in detail in order to promote the notion of his villain's suavity. Thus, he 'very deliberately lit a cigar; he was 'puffing a blue tree of cigar smoke into the air': he smiled thoughtfully over his cigar'; he politely requested another cigar'; and nonchalantly remarked, 'I never smoke when I work, but I enjoy a chat much more when I am under the influence of tobacco. This same kind of effect was used later by Richard Connell in his popular modern horror tale The Most Dangerous Game". during which the villain goes so far as to create a perfect smoke ring during a crucial moment in the story. (Elsewhere I have shown that Connell was indebted to Conan Doyle).
Much is made of novelty in the two stories. The focal interest in Poe's revolves around a rare Italian wine, while in Conan Doyle's it centres on a unique discovery. The catacomb is described as 'the earliest and finest', and a body buried therein is apparently one of a kind: 'As far as my experience goes, it is unique.' Furthermore, one of the archaeological fascinations to be found in the catacomb is a Christian altar probably the first one in existence. It is ironic that two stories which deal so much with the unusual have so close a Gothic resemblance; at least one near enough to provide plausible evidence of indebtedness.
Does Conan Doyle's debt to Poe here detract from his own popular achievement? Hardly so. for although the Poe story is now anthologised and thereby better known in general. Conan Doyle's is clearly more objective and superior. The deficiencies in Poe's account result from too much adherence to the stereotypical. As, for example, a teacher's vade mecum indicates (7), the reader is bound to summon up Machiavelli and his famous (or infamous), though sometimes misinterpreted, view that 'the end justifies the means' politically. The Italianate villain had become such a commonplace on the stage, from Shakespeare's time onwards, that Poe's very setting almost conjures up villainy to follow. In contrast, Conan Doyle's accoutrements do not predict the outcome in this way. Although the villain is partly German, Teutonic people were known mainly for being Gothic, not for villainy. Conan Doyle himself had some Germanic or Austrian training, but this predilection does not inherently reveal itself in 'The New Catacomb'.
Furthermore, Poe's tale has very little plot at all, and no real suspense; the very first line is a giveaway of what is bound to happen. Conan Doyle, on the other hand, gives the reader no inkling of the outcome until Kennedy cannot find his matches. Moreover, Conan Doyle cleverly provides much more incentive for the villainy by including a love plot. True, Poe's narration is fairly intense while Conan Doyle's is largely straightforward, and told in the third rather than the first person. The trouble with Poe's intensity, however, is that it also conjures up his own self-involvement, making the reader deliberate as well on the author's (or narrator's) addiction to alcohol — an obsession found so much in other tales (such as 'The Masque of the Red Death') and in the hammering, repetitive effects in the poetry (notably 'The Bells'). Clearly, then, whereas Poe was Impressionistic, Conan Doyle was Realistic, although both were Romantic.
It is not the purpose of this article, though, to conclude that the Conan Doyle tale of terror is superior per se to Poe's; only to suggest that the two should now be studied together so that the reader can make up his or her own mind — perhaps in a private locked room. (8) And after all, Edith Wharton borrowed from Poe's story when she wrote 'The Duchess at Prayer' (9) — so why not Conan Doyle?
Some final supportive information can be added. In his noted biography Conan Doyle, Pierre Nordon concluded that 'The New Catacomb' is related to the confluence of five things: the influence of Collins; the influence of Stevenson; a particular theme already treated by the author (in 'The Engineer's Thumb', which appeared in 1892, six years before the catacomb tale); an incident from his own life; and, last but not least, 'The Cask of Amontillado'. This information is not readily available to English-reading scholars, for although it appeared in the original French edition in 1964 it was, for some reason, excised from the English translation. (10) Now, because an author can be stimulated more by a personal experience than by what he happens to read, let us take into consideration the account of the personal incident as originally recorded in Norman Douglas' Looking Backwards (11) and then recorded in J. E. Holroyd's Baker Street By-ways (12). According to the latter, Douglas told of how Conan Doyle 'was trapped after crawling into a Roman drain he wished to investigate near Douglas' home in Italy', adding that here was a chance for some enemy to brick him up according to the recipe in his story 'The New Catacomb' which, by the way, was inspired by Poe's 'Cask of Amontillado'. But how seriously should this anecdote be taken? Noted Sherlockian scholar Peter Blau questions whether Conan Doyle had made a visit to Italy before 1898. What is more, in a letter dated 26 February 1991, the general editor of the new Collected Writings of Edgar Allan Poe, Burton R. Pollin, wrote that "'The New Catacomb' sounds as though it uses, in some way, 'The Cask of Amontillado'". It appears from this that at least two or three noted Conan Doyle authorities, and the major Poe specialist, have already intuited their subject's debt to Poe's story even when, in one account, the influence of the maestro's personal life was also given its plausible due. Hence it appears safe enough to conclude that a veritable 'Cask' was in this 'Catacomb'.
A final coda is in order. After this paper was prepared, an article came to my notice which claimed that Poe's story 'capitalises on the fact that subconsciously, man erects walls between his conscious self and those things his conscious self no longer wants to deal with.' (13) The paper ended on this intriguing note:
- In writing stories on this theme, Conan Doyle and others have yet to answer the primal question: in those dark hours when we are conscious of our secrets behind the wall, what is it we hear? The sound of our secrets trying to get out? Or do we hear the hammering of our conscious mind trying to get in?
Perhaps in the case of Conan Doyle's debt to Poe in 'The New Catacomb', both sounds are operative. (14)
References
1. Cited by Green. R. L.: 'A Study in Scarlet: A symposium on its origins'. Baker Street Miscellanea. Northeastern Illinois University. No. 49, 1987. pp. 2-9 (especially 6-7).
2. Cf. Dove. G. N.: 'The Locked Room Mystique'. Clues: A Journal of Detection, Bowling Green University. Vol. 7, No. 2. 1986, pp. 33-47 (especially 33).
3. On the analogy between the Cask story and the detective tale, see The Classroom Guide to the Norton Introduction to Literature. 3rd. ed., Ed. Carl E. Bain et al (New York: Norton, 1981), from which references to the text of the story are taken. For a more accessible text, see Edgar Allan Poe. Tales of Mystery and Imagination (Cutchogue, New York: Buccaneer Books, 1986). An accessible modern text of 'The New Catacomb' may be found in The Conan Doyle Stories (Leicester: W.H. Smith, 1988).
4. Norton Introduction to Literature: p. 22.
5. This repetitiveness not only looks ahead to Conan Doyle but gives a superficial Christian context for the horror story, hardly a moral one. Poe believed that literature should be like music. not like a homily, as in his famous essay 'The Poetic Principle'. Conan Doyle's own attachment to Christian subject-matter was not in itself formally 'Christian'.
6. The Conan Doyle Stories.
7. See note 3 above. The pedagogue is advised thus: You might want to bring up Machiavelli. (Classroom Guide. p. 5).
8. Let us not rule out the possible influence of other Gothic effects. Because of Conan Doyle's interest in Arthurian legends, he could also have been somewhat indebted, for example, to entombment in Malory, for this is the destiny of the magician Merlin.
9. See Dwight. E., Edith Wharton and 'The Cask of Amontillado', Poe and Our Times: Influences and Affinities; Ed. Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV (Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society. 1986), pp. 49-57.
10. I owe this information to a private communication from Peter Blau, BSI, former editor of The Baker Street Journal.
11. Douglas, N.: Looking Backwards: An Autobiographical Excursion; New York, Harcourt Brace, 1933, pp. 306-7.
12. London, George Allen and Unwin, 1959.
13. Rogers. D. M.: 'Crypts, Secret Rooms and Subterranean Passageways: Entombment as a Motif in the Canon'. Baker Street Miscellanea; No. 61, 1990, pp. 19-23.
14. A version of this paper entitled 'The Cask and the Catacomb: Entombment in Poe and Conan Doyle' was presented at the tenth annual Conan Doyle conference associated with Wright State University, 9 March 1991. Since then I have also received correspondence from another noted Poe specialist. Benjamin Fisher, who likewise corroborates this Poe-Conan Doyle affinity.
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
