But how can we perceive this? What is the aim of Conan Doyle? What the author tries to do is to build a link between one of the most important characters of the story and the topic I am talking about, the imperialism itself. This character is the Professor Challenger, essential to understand at least a half of the story. it must be said that most of the characters, as I explained before, were based on real people who Conan Doyle met. In this case, Challenger was a professor of physiology named William Rutherford, who had lectured at the University of Edinburgh while Conan Doyle studied …show more content…
CITA “His appearance made me gasp. I was prepared for something strange, but not for so overpowering a personality as this. It was his size, which took one's breath away – his size and his imposing presence. His head was enormous, the largest I have ever seen upon a human being. I am sure that his top hat, had I ventured to don it, would have slipped over me entirely and rested on my shoulders. He had the face and beard, which I associate with an Assyrian bull; the former florid, the latter so black as almost to have a suspicion of blue, spade-shaped and rippling down over his chest. The hair was peculiar, plastered down in front in a long, curving wisp over his massive forehead. The eyes were blue-grey under great black tufts, very clear, very critical, and very masterful. A huge spread of shoulders and a chest like a barrel were the other parts of him which appeared above the table, save for two enormous hands covered with long black hair. This and a bellowing, roaring, rumbling voice made up my first impression of the notorious Professor Challenger” After this, we could state that the Professor Callenguer is an aggressive and dominating figure. We could also assert his superiority’s though at the beginning, when referring …show more content…
The first villains turn out to be “Gomez and Manuel, the two half-breeds mentioned before. They were swarthy fellows, bearded and fierce. Roxton demonstrates his marksmanship by shooting one of them. Doyle thinks that descendants of Europeans and Indians or Africans seem inherently evil, cruel and deceitful. An example of Doyle's racism appears in his characterization of their heroically loyal African servant, the Negro named Zambo. Nothing in the narration requires such denigration.
On the other hand, the ape-men receive the Doyle's hardest description:
“They had been assembling' in the dark (…) until that great tree over our heads was heavy with them. I shot one of them through the belly, but before we knew where we were they had us spread-eagled on our backs. I call them apes, but they carried sticks and stones in their hands and jabbered talk to each other, and ended up by tying' our hands with creepers, so they are ahead of any beast that I have seen in my wandering’s. Ape-men—that's what they are—Missing' Links, and I wish they had stayed missing'. They carried off their wounded comrade—he was bleeding' like a pig—and then they sat around us, and if ever I saw frozen murder it was in their faces. They were big fellows, as big as a man and a deal stronger. Curious glassy gray eyes they have, under red tufts, and they just sat and gloated and