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Character development introduction
An essay on character development
Character development introduction
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Some individual characters do not typically exhibit a clear perception of their intentions and sometimes their selections and behavior do not naturally reflect their prearranged moral compass. In that event, these characters are assumed morally ambiguous. Their morals are not clearly depicted as they stray the reader from labeling them as solely good or solely evil. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there are two opposing identities striving for superiority in existence. Dr. Jekyll justifies that “man is not truly one, but truly two,” as he envisions people’s conscience as the realm for an “angle” and a “fiend,” each competing for dexterity. By looking at the two split identities of Jekyll and Hyde, and seeing how they reflect …show more content…
Hyde, I will be Mr. Seek” (chapter 2). While Jekyll is known as “large, well-made, smooth-face man of fifty with something of a slyish cast,” Hyde is commonly portrayed as a younger, more active man who is shorter than Jekyll, and depressed with an abnormality. However, Jekyll’s enjoyment of Hyde’s actions grants Hyde to grow in stature, and of the two men, Hyde is gradually securing the dominance over Jekyll. When Mr. Hyde is first encountered, he is seen running over a young girl, simply trampling her. Throughout the year, it is unknown to what Hyde has been doing, what atrocities he has committed and what degradations he has stooped to. In Jekyll’s Full Statement, he reveals that Hyde had been caged for so long that when he was let out, he came out roaring and one of his first actions was to savagely murder Sir Danvers Carew. Obviously, there has been numerous devilish actions from Hyde, because he has moved from being a creature who tramples on a child to where he commits an unprovoked murder. However, Hyde is only one half of the man that portrays as an ambiguous …show more content…
Jekyll developed a formula that separated the two, turning him into a violent hoodlum, Mr. Hyde. He was aware from day one that he himself was “tenfold more wicked [and] evil.” It is unknown what horror Hyde has committed and what depravities he stoop to, but after a year of his turpitude, Jekyll had had enough of it. He vowed to give up the “liberty, the comparative youth, the light step, leaping impulses, and secret pleasures I had enjoyed in the disguise of Hyde,” the utmost satisfaction he received as Hyde is basically why Jekyll cannot put Hyde to rest. Although Jekyll did attempt for several months to lead a “life of such severity,” the bad in Jekyll was continually fighting for dispensation. Inhibited for so long, when Hyde finally surfaced, he “came out roaring.” Jekyll now has to vie with his “lust of evil,” with the “ugly face of iniquity” which peered into his ego. Hyde’s violent tendencies demonstrated throughout the novel offers a dichotomy with Dr. Jekyll’s reserved actions. While Jekyll is reasonable, Hyde is impetuous; while Jekyll is humble, Hyde is arrogant; throughout the time Jekyll was once an open socialite, Hyde was a standoffish hermit. Ultimately, Hyde is an intense portrayal of Jekyll’s restrained side and darker penchant. This is what, in the end, makes Henry Jekyll a morally ambiguous
For this reason I’ll be explaining Jekyll’s mental health. Jekyll has as what we now call Multiple Personality Disorder; “I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could be rightly said to be either, it was only because I was radically both,” Stevenson 57.) The disease was first discovered by Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot. He would ask patients symptoms that he found common in MPD. Many patients know about their alternate personality but refuse to acknowledge it’s existence. In some cases they may even refer to it as a separate person entirely. In this case Jekyll is very much aware of his alternate personality, going as to so far as to willingly change into him. However despite this he also categorizes Hyde into a separate being. For example when Hyde does something unappealing or distasteful he blames it on a separate person. Consciously though he is aware that he is Hyde and Hyde is him. (MD, Arnold Lieber. "Multiple Personality Disorder / Dissociative Identity Disorder." PsyCom.net - Mental Health Treatment Resource Since 1986. Vertical Health LLC, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2016).
Jekyll. Hyde commits acts of murder and assault yet can be seen as Dr. Jekyll’s id or deep desires. By trying to separate good and bad . Dr. Jekyll passed scientific and social borders to isolate his personality. In doing so, he lost control of who he wanted to be. As a last resort he created a poisonous potion that Hyde drank and died through act of suicide. Dr. Jekyll although not working with anyone took matters in his own hands which makes him seem like an outlaw hero. He did not turn himself into the police when he had control. However, Dr. Jekyll seems to have qualities of a official hero in his maturity in handling the situation. He knows how evil his alter ego is, so he isolates himself from others as a safety precaution. Jekyll tries to live a normal life, but is unable to. His status as a well distinguished doctor and sociability skills with his
Jekyll was a lower class citizen, like Mr. Hyde. Unlike Jekyll, Hyde has the sole privilege of being dismissed and unnoticed because he is of a lower class. According to Martin Danahay, author of “Dr. Jekyll’s Two Bodies”, Jekyll wears the body of Hyde “as if Mr. Hyde were a pair of pajamas that he would wear while sleeping in one location, but not the other” (23). Essentially, he could take a nap as Jekyll, wake up as Hyde, and spend the evening in opium den after opium den, experiencing different forbidden pleasures other than sodomy. Dr. Jekyll enjoys his new found freedom through Hyde at first, but soon grows weary of it when Mr. Hyde takes over whenever he wants. As Hyde grows into more power, he becomes reckless and starts leaving messes for Jekyll to clean up. More messes means a greater chance of being exposed, and having his gentlemanly reputation ruined. It makes sense as to why Dr. Jekyll kills himself and Hyde in the end. According to Sanna, Jekyll is “no longer able to revert to his good and distinguished aspect and personality” and commits suicide to avoid social condemnation (36). Jekyll kills himself because he can no longer control Hyde’s lust for wickedness, and he is tired of trying to keep up the appearance of someone he is not in a society where men having a need for certain pleasures is frowned upon. And, because Jekyll cannot control his need for these pleasures, he would rather die than be made a fool
Jekyll is respectable man with a very good career. He is a doctor that is highly regarded in his community for what he does as far as charity and his manners. As young man growing up, he was secretly involved in weird behaviors that made him a bit questionable. Dr. Jekyll finds his other side to be quite bothersome and he decides to experiment so he could try a separate the good from the evil. He creates potions and other things that really do not help. After so many attempts of trying to restrain his evil side, he brings forth Hyde through his failed experimentation. Therefore, he only accentuates his evil self to come forth. Hyde is an extremely ugly creature that no one could stand the sight of. He is deformed, violent, and very evil. Throughout the story, he fights against Jekyll to take over his life eventually causing Jekyll to murder one of his good friends, Mr.
Though Hyde is pure evil, Jekyll is not pure goodness; he is still the same old conflicted mix of both good and evil. To cover his tracks, Jekyll rented a room for Hyde, opened a bank account in his name, and explained to his household servants that Hyde was to be allowed to freely come and go through the house. Hyde was even made Jekyll’s sole heir. At first, Jekyll delights in having his alter ego. Through Hyde, he can live out his fantasies of doing whatever he pleases, with no consequences, seeing as how he has but to drink the potion to make Hyde disappear. No accountability for Hyde’s
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.
Jekyll was originally more evil than good because when he created the potion he was concerned about pleasing himself than actually thinking the consequences that would happen by the creation of his experiment. The argument of reputation dealing with the novel of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde it is able to bring pros to it because would be able to describe the characters and show what they are good at. Based on the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde centers upon a conception of humanity as the deal of nature. Later on, Dr. Jekyll states that "men is not the truly one, but truly two", he also imagines that the human soul as the battleground for an angel and the fiend struggling for their own mastery. (Sparknotes Editors "Sparknote on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" Sparknotes.com LLL.2003 Web 03 May 2016) Maria M Struzziero states that Dr. Jekyll is hiding a dark mysterious for emerging for the first time in Enfield 's words. It also shows that he admits that is not easy to describe adding that there is something wrong with his appearance something displeasing, downright and detestable. (Struzziero, Maria M "Dualism and Dualities- Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Themes." Dualism and Dualities – Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Themes N.P ND wed 04 May 2016) Another description could be that Mike Arnzen said A lot of emphases was put on "credit" or the reputation of the characters of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Also said that "If each, I told myself, could but be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all the unbearable, and the unjust might go away" (Arnzen, Mike "The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" Swe nightingale. N.P...11 Aug 2009. Web 04 May 2016) The analysis of data its ability to describe how the reputation of Jekyll and Hyde is. Shows that it 's allowing the readers to understand the insides of what they as being the protagonist and the antagonist. They are differing opinions that say that the angel gives ways permanently to Dr. Jekyll 's
Every story has two sides. In the novel Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde duality is represented by the good and evil in Dr. Jekyll. His dual personalities demonstrate how each story is two-sided. Because of Dr. Jekyll’s forbidden impulses, there are multiple factors that can affect his complexion. He does not try to intentionally be evil, but he can not help his need to be Mr.
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).
Henry Jekyll’s innermost vices, but since he held himself to an extremely high standard of moral excellence, he needed to find another way of releasing. He creates Hyde as his way of getting these primal urges out. During this time period, the focus on reputation and credibility was huge, and this is how men were judged. He had many urges that he was internally repressing, as a result of existing in the Victorian era, which was well known for how incredibly stuffy and repressed it was. Jekyll was widely respected in the community as a doctor and he had many friends, so it is understandable that he didn’t want to lose his reputation, which came first for men of his social standing in this time period. He went to great lengths to create and cover for Hyde, including renting a place for Hyde to live, and making a bank account for his alter ego. The creation of Hyde turns out to be way more sinister than Jekyll initially imagined. Hyde’s own name is a pun, as he is the part of Jekyll that he must keep hidden away for fear of
Jekyll unveils his story, it becomes evident that Dr. Jekyll’s efforts to keep Mr. Hyde, his immoral outlet, reticent are in vain. Dr. Jekyll succumbs to Mr. Hyde once and eventually the pull of his worse self overpowers Dr. Jekyll completely. His futile attempts to contain Mr. Hyde were more damaging than auspicious, as Mr. Hyde would only gain a stronger grip on Dr. Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll writes, “I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught… My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring” (115). Dr. Jekyll’s inevitable passion for debauchery is only further invigorated by his repression of Mr. Hyde. By restraining a desire that is so deeply rooted within Dr. Jekyll, he destroys himself, even after his desires are appeased. Like a drug, when Dr. Jekyll first allowed himself to concede to Mr. Hyde, he is no longer able to abstain, as his initial submission to depravity resulted in the loss of Dr. Jekyll and the reign of Mr.
wrong, a lot like the way Mr Hyde was thought of. So to Mr Utterson,
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a little different then Frankenstein in a way that the monster isn’t identified as a monster as much for his appearance as he is for his actions. Dr. Jekyll was a scientist and as a scientist he had to keep and good name but he didn’t want to be good he want to be bad. So, he decided he would have two personalities. Thinking that if he had two personalities he could be good and evil. He made a potion that transforms himself into a man without a conscience. So, He could do all those bad things that he wanted to do but then had a way to cover it up by saying it was someone else. But, eventually this plan got out of hand yes, he had two personalities of Dr. Jekyll being the good doctor and then Mr. Hyde being the murder, but he started no being able to control when he was Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. He fears that he will turn into Jekyll permanently. Society doesn’t except this because your not supposed to be two different people. Trying to be two different people is monstrous because that just doesn’t happen and him to think that is okay is monstrous. Also, for him to murder people makes him a monster. By Dr. Jekyll’s friend starting to get suspicious about this situation drive Dr. Jekyll to worry then, he turns back to Mr. Hyde and thinks it’s a good idea to kill himself. So, society drove his monstrosity to kill himself, which made him to continue to be a
A major theme in the novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the duality of good versus evil. A character in the novel by the name of Dr. Jekyll believes in the dual nature of human beings, for he states, “With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.”. Dr. Jekyll is a respectable and well mannered man that gains an urge to set free his “wild side” from his
Hyde chooses to kill an innocent man towards the middle of the novel. Dr.Jekyll says in his letter, “Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged. With a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delighted from every blow; and it was not till weariness had begun to succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top of my delirium, struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror” (Stevenson 87). I don’t think there was no real motive behind this act, but Dr.Jekyll felt really guilty and shocked by what happened. Another incident occurs when Mr.Hyde knocks over a child. He ends up deciding to pay the people under Dr.Jekyll’s name which becomes suspicious to Utterson. I feel bad that at times Dr.Jekyll has to pay the consequences for Mr.Hyde’s