Religion in a murder mystery

 

First edition of the novel, 1887
From Wikipedia

The first Sherlock Holmes novel, A Study in Scarlet, has a religion at its centre: Mormonism. A wealthy American Enoch Drebber and his secretary Joseph Stangerson are both murdered in quick succession in London. Sherlock Holmes soon identifies the murderer Jefferson Hope. The murders were acts of revenge. Drebber and Stangerson had caused the untimely death of Lucy Ferrier whom Hope was to marry. They had also killed Lucy’s father, John.

Both Drebber and Stangerson are top leaders of the Mormon religion followed by all the settlers in Salt Lake City. John Ferrier was not a Mormon but lived like one because he had no choice. He detested certain practices of the religious sect like polygamy and the authoritarianism of the religious leaders called prophets. Both Drebber and Stangerson wish to marry Lucy though they already have many wives. John and Lucy run away from the place with Jefferson’s help. They were being guarded heavily and so the escape was a tough job indeed.

They don’t make it, however. They are overtaken, John is killed and Lucy is taken away by force while Jefferson is on a quest for food. All early efforts by the young Jefferson to wreak vengeance fail. But his fury does not subside. It takes him 20 years to overtake his enemies and kill them in London.

The novel is divided into two parts. The entire second part, titled The Country of the Saints, is about the exodus of the Mormons under the leadership of Brigham Young to the “arid and repulsive desert” that eventually became Salt Lake City. The starving John Ferrier and little Lucy are rescued by these Mormon immigrants who demand absolute loyalty from the father and the daughter to their religion. Faced with possible death due to starvation, John agrees to all the terms conditions laid by the religious people.

Arthur Conan Doyle

Religion is quite a terrible thing. This is what we see in this section of the novel. God and spirituality are not the real purposes of religion. God and spirituality are only potent tools wielded by certain people who set themselves up as the leaders. These leaders use God and rituals to impose their will on other people. When Lucy grows up she cannot even choose her own husband. The religious leaders will make even such personal choices for you.

Religion may impose a lot of things on you. Your dress, your food, your spouse, anything can be imposed on you by a couple of people who claim to be God’s representatives. This is what Arthur Conan Doyle shows us in the second part of his first detective novel.

The Mormons were not quite chuffed with the novel when it was published. But the author stuck to what he wrote and even claimed historicity for many of the events in the novel like the founding of Salt Lake City, practice of polygamy, and the rigidity of rules. People who questioned the leaders just disappeared. Some were killed brutally.

Certain things happening in my country now, under the leadership of so-called religious people, reminded me of Conan Doyle’s Mormons.