In the book The Hound of the Baskervilles, the character Jack Stapleton plots to deceive others through the use of the legend of a hound. This reveals humanity will deceive others in order to get ahead of others.
Jack Stapleton attempts to deceive others for fortune and wealth in ths book. In the book, there is a legend of a ghostly hound that is going around and killing people. Detectives Sherlock Holmes and John Watson investigate the crime scenes after being informed of the details by the people of the town. The Baskerville family is a wealthy family with a huge estate that everyone would dream of. The whole Baskerville family fears the hound and believes that it is a superstitious beast sent out to kill their whole family. In reality, it is Jack Stapleton running around with a vicious hound that has been painted to appear like a sinister Beast. Sherlock Holmes realizes this, and realizes the deaths in the Baskerville family have not been caused by a ghostly hound attacking them, but rather fear from the superstitions. In the end, Stapleton is caught by Sherlock Holmes, who is in the act of trying to kill Henry Baskerville to finally obtain the Baskerville estate. Jack Stapleton fleas and is believed to have been engulfed in the Grimpen Mire.
Throughout the book, Jack Stapleton attempts to deceive others for his personal gain. This leads the characters to make irrational decisions and have irrational thoughts. Stapleton’s only goal was to achieve the Baskerville estate, and he realized he couldn’t obtain that without misleading the Baskervilles.
Stapleton was a perfect example of a character deceiving others to carry out a crime. Stapleton misguided the Baskerville family into believing a ghostly hound was haunting them in order for them to become paranoid and afraid. Stapleton demonstrated how characters may attempt to deceive others in order to help get ahead of others through deception and fraud.