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Character development recitatif
An essay on character development
Character development recitatif
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Statistics shows that there are many people battling with different personalities. “A personality disorder is a type of mental disorder in which you have a rigid and unhealthy pattern of thinking, functioning and behaving. A person with a personality disorder has trouble perceiving and relating to situations and people.” Throughout reading “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, it was very noticeable that Dr. Jekyll was battling with a personality disorder. Before reading this proportion of literature, it seemed like it was going to be the regular superhero/supervillain story. The story starts off introducing us to a Mr. Utterson character. Mr. Utterson was a lawyer who was in charged with the deceased Mr. Jekyll. As we read along, we come to realized that Dr. Jekyll may not be dead though. …show more content…
Utterson was very curious in Dr. Jekyll’s will, that states “This will stipulate that in the event of Jekyll’s death, all of his wealth will go to a man named Edward Hyde.” Mr. Richard Enfield, who is Utterson cousin, was the first to mention Hyde. He tells the story of Hyde being a psychotic man that knocks over a small child through a doorway. After reviewing Jekyll’s will, Mr. Utterson knew that he must find Dr. Hyde to see if he was the same man his cousin told him about. Utterson finds Hyde, and to his surprise gets the door slammed in his face. Since that trip was a waste, he goes to visit Jekyll. Again, Utterson does not get an answer, and begins to explain that his will must be followed as stated. At this point, Utterson beings making speculations on the matter. “Utterson fears that Hyde is an extortionist who is after Jekyll’s money and will eventually murder the doctor.” At this point, Robert Louis Stevenson, who is the author, leaves us curious and eager to find out what happens
Stevenson starts the novella by introducing us to Mr. Utterson who is a discrete lawyer who is ‘never lighted by a smile’ and his enigmatic friend Mr. Enfield. He does this because he is using the technique of foreshadowing when the authors put in little hints to then explore in further detail later in the story. Further on we can see that Utterson is microcosm of the rest of the story; however this isn’t the only reason that Utterson is in the story because soon after this he starts to become the narrator along with Enfield. While they are talking to each other the audience is finding out what is happening. Next, later in the novella we find out that Utterson is actually representing schizophrenia and duality that is in the personality of Jekyll.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a classic story published in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson. It is about a man who transforms between two personae: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This novel focuses on Mr. Utterson, a lawyer and friend of Dr. Jekyll’s. The novel starts with John Utterson talking with his other friend who has just witnessed an odd situation. A man identified as Hyde run over a girl, only to pay off her family later with a check from Dr. Jekyll. This situation is made even stranger since Jekyll’s will has recently been changed. Mr. Hyde now stands to inherit everything. Mr. Utterson believing that the two men are separate people, thinks that the cruel Mr. Hyde is some how blackmailing Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Utterson questions Dr. Jekyll about Hyde, but Jekyll tells him to mind his own business. Unfortunately, Mr. Utterson cannot do that. A year later, Mr. Hyde attacks someone else: he beats a man with a cane, causing the man’s death. The police involve Mr. Utterson because he knew the victim. Mr. Utterson takes them to Mr. Hyde’s apartment, where they find the murder weapon, which is a gift that Mr. Utterson himself gave to Dr. Jekyll. Mr.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hyde was an evil being it was slowly starting to take over and Dr. Jekyll knew that was happening. By shutting him out self off more and more he was helping everyone around him. Since he did not have any control over Mr. Hyde he had to stop Mr. Hyde from hurting anyone else and couldn’t tell anyone of these issues. In the book where Hyde and Jekyll are struggling, it says “ I was so far in my reflections” (53). This was Dr. Jekylls note for his struggles when he was finally telling people. He was deep in reflection and hiding them self off because he knew it was too late. It also states in this section of the book: “When Jekyll locks himself in his library” (61). Everyone was worried about him even though sometimes he does do this like in the beginning when he’s in solitude to work on his research. Dr. Jekyll had finally shut himself off from the word completely due to him knowing it was his final moments. He knew that since his potion was out and he could not find more materials it was over so he made a backup plan for when Hyde has taken over. This brutal plan was to kill himself and ultimately this is what he did. He had put all the other parts of the plan into effect and left a note to explain what truly happened, thus signifying the end of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, helping others but only helping him at the
Hyde’s character doesn’t seem to be liked by Mr. Utterson and most likely will be a theme throughout the entire story. Most characters in novels are first described on a physical level to get the reader to have an image in his or her head on what the character might look like. Mr. Utterson doesn’t really give us any physical attributes on Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde seems to be a broken down individual emotionally or spiritually because Mr. Utterson describes Mr. Hyde as deformed somewhere when it isn’t on his body. In the next sentence, Mr. Utterson describes Mr. Hyde as an extraordinary looking man so, Mr. Hyde may look normal on the outside, but may have a dark character that may foreshadow future events coming to Mr. Hyde and his relations with Doctor
... chapter to find out what is says in the letter which creates tension. Utterson does not call the police straight away to cover up for Dr Jekyll so he doesn’t get accused of Hyde’s murder. He is trying to sort it out without implicating Jekyll. The ending of the chapter also confounds our expectations: we expected an answer, but we don’t get one.
Lanyon replied that he had not done all that in order not to know the end. Then, Hyde ingested the mixture and after a while of having painful reactions, that person became Henry Jekyll. For the first time in the novel, the readers prove what they have suspicious about. The letter opens a single possibility that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are two opposite sides of the same person or Mr. Hyde is the bad side of Dr.
Within the text of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson portrays a complex power struggle between Dr. Jekyll, a respected individual within Victorian London society, and Mr. Hyde a villainous man tempted with criminal urges, fighting to take total control of their shared body. While Dr. Jekyll is shown to be well-liked by his colleagues, Mr. Hyde is openly disliked by the grand majority of those who encounter him, terrified of his frightful nature and cruel actions. Throughout Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson portrays the wealthy side of London, including Mr. Utterson and Dr. Jekyll, as respected and well-liked, while showing the impoverish side as either non-existent or cruel.
The will’s wording itself is disquieting to Utterson, as it states that Hyde inherits Jekyll’s
Throughout the thriller-mystery story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mr. Utterson, the friendly lawyer, tries to figure out the reason behind why Dr. Jekyll, his friend and client, gives all his money to a strange man and murderer named Mr. Hyde in his will. Readers learn from the ominous third person point of view the worries of Mr. Utterson and ride along in his search for Mr. Hyde. In R. L. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he employs characterization, imagery, and weather motifs to construct complex characters and create eerie settings, which parallel the mood of the characters. Throughout the story, Stevenson characterizes Mr. Hyde as a strange man with odd features who nobody seems to like.
Within the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde you will find the theme duality is used quite frequently by each character. Both Mr. Utterson and Dr. Jekyll come across dilemmas in the third, fourth, and fifth chapters. These dilemmas foreshadow the rest of the story and develop the character's behavior and motives. In the first two chapters, Mr. Utterson hears the first story of Mr. Hyde that negatively influences his perspective on his friend Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde is also mentioned in Dr. Jekyll's will which concerns Mr. Utterson; he tries to question Dr. Jekyll, but Dr. Jekyll appears to avoid any conversations about Mr. Hyde.
In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde becomes Jekyll's demonic, monstrous alter ego. Certainly Stevenson presents him immediately as this from the outset. Hissing as he speaks, Hyde has "a kind of black sneering coolness . . . like Satan". He also strikes those who witness him as being "pale and dwarfish" and simian like. The Strange Case unfolds with the search by the men to uncover the secret of Hyde. As the narrator, Utterson, says, "If he be Mr. Hyde . . . I shall be Mr. Seek". Utterson begins his quest with a cursory search for his own demons. Fearing for Jekyll because the good doctor has so strangely altered his will in favor of Hyde, Utterson examines his own conscience, "and the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded a while in his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there" (SC, 42). Like so many eminent Victorians, Utterson lives a mildly double life and feels mildly apprehensive about it. An ugly dwarf like Hyde may jump out from his own boxed self, but for him such art unlikely creature is still envisioned as a toy. Although, from the beginning Hyde fills him with a distaste for life (SC, 40, not until the final, fatal night, after he storms the cabinet, can Utterson conceive of the enormity of Jekyll's second self. Only then does he realize that "he was looking on the body of a self-dcstroyer" (SC, 70); Jekyll and Hyde are one in death as they must have been in life.
As Jekyll reached adult hood, he found himself living a dual life. He had become more curious in discovering his other side. Jekyll insists, “Man is not truly one, but truly two” (125). This eventually led Jekyll into the scientific interests of separating his good and evil side, and he finds a chemical concoction that transforms him into a more wicked man, Edward Hyde. At first, Hyde was of pure impulse, but in the end, he became dominate and took control over Jekyll. Jekyll had never intended to hurt anyone, but he was aware that something could potentially go wrong. Jekyll presumes, “I knew well that I risked death, for any drug that so potently shook the very fortress of identity… utterly blot that immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change” (127-129). One could say this makes Jekyll equally as menacing as Hyde. Jekyll couldn’t control the imbalance between the two natures. Jekyll foolishly allowed his evil side to flourish and become stronger. This is shown when Jekyll has awoken to find that he has turned into Hyde without taking the solution. Jekyll says, “But the hand in which I now saw, clearly enough in the yellow light of a mid- London morning…It was the hand of Edward Hyde” (139).
Many mysterious events occur throughout this novel. Stevenson foreshadows the imminent end of Dr. Jekyll in the very beginning. As Utterson reads the will of Dr. Jekyll, he is perplexed by the statement that “in the case of Dr. Jekyll’s disappearance” (6), all of his money will go to Mr. Hyde. This questionable intent of Dr. Jekyll leads the reader to assume that there is something for complex connecting Mr. Hyde with Dr. Jekyll. Utterson not only tries to protect Dr. Jekyll from Mr. Hyde, but Utterson wishes to solve Jekyll’s entire problem. In the first description of Mr. Utterson, the reader learns that he is “inclined to help rather than to reprove” (1). This simple description implies that Utterson will be helping to solve a problem in this novel, though it is not identified whose problem he will try to solve. This also foreshadows a problem in the book; Utterson leads the reader to believe that a horrid situation will arise between Jekyll and Hyde. Mr. Hyde is driven purely by the temptations of evil; the urges that Dr. Jekyll is unable to act on. This temptation causes Mr. Hyde to murder Sir Carew with the wal...
Hyde is being of pure evil, he sprang from Jekyll’s head like Athena came out of Zeus’, as a result of a potion, and thus Jekyll denies responsibility for Hyde’s actions for large section of the narrative. Despite this, it ultimately is Jekyll’s fault in manner, he is responsible for unleashing a weapon, Jekyll pulled the trigger on Hyde, and encouraged him to act. Stevenson outlines that crime is choice through several examples. First, chronologically, is the description of Utterson’s character. “But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than reprove.”
These connections will allow me to interpret how the creation of Hyde is a factor which plays towards the eventual death of Jekyll. Finally, I will apply Freud’s theory derived from Oedipus Rex to the character of Hyde, as both characters display strong emotions towards their parental figures. This analysis will be used to further deepen my argument that the fate of Jekyll is ultimately derived from Hyde. I can use my findings, along with Freud’s deductions, to uncover the impact Hyde had on Jekyll’s fate. By applying Freudian logic to the case of Jekyll and Hyde, I hope to further examine the effects that repressed desires may have on one’s