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Miss-Dreamerkat

Miss-Dreamerkat

@DreamerArtist 2 years ago

I'm getting straight to the point, I would like some help. I'm currently writing a Evaluation paper for my english class and I've chosen to do (you guessed it since I'm posting it here) The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. My two criteria I'm evaluating the novella on are the Characters and the plot. But I would like some help with the characters personalities as I will need to describe them in my essay. And since it is going to be due next Friday I don't have time to reread the book a few times with all my other classes and whatever they might assign. I would like to hear what you guys believe and think as I can miss some things from the text or are unable to think of anything to say for it.

I'm only evaluating/ describing Jekyll, Hyde, Utterson, and Lanyon. Any help you could give will be very appreciated!

Here's my character notes so far: John Utterson: He’s quiet, doesn’t like speaking unless he needs to or sees it necessary. He enjoys others company over actually speaking and relishes in spending his free time just with the presence of another. He rarely smiles, having a serious expression usually. He can tolerate others quite well and wonders often about the actions of others. He’d also ‘in any extremity inclined to help rather than reprove. ‘I incline to heresy,” he used to say quaintly: ‘I let my brother go to the devil in his own way’” (1, Stevenson). He often doesn’t change his demeanor, quite undemonstrative and quite modest. He prefers friendships with individuals that are his family or friends he has known for a long time. He is a curious man as well, discreetly trying to find information in the subtlest ways especially when they deal with his friends. He is quite rational and is quite a determined man when he sets his mind to something and will chose to act to meet his goals. He is quite liked for his silence at parties for he seemed to have calming aura about him. He is quick thinking and is quite clever. He is a social man and enjoys the company of his friends

Edward Hyde: He can keep a serious expression and demeanor even under dangerous circumstances. He is cold, but in ways a gentleman despite his violence and cruelty, stopping to speak to someone or going with Mr. Einsfield back to the little girl’s family after he trampled on over her. He paid the family a check as to not avoid the scandal of which they’d make of it. He seems calm and also has an air of hatred about him. No matter who someone is whenever they look at him: “There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something down right detestable. I never saw I man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why” (8). He also fearful and paranoid in a way, more often than not acting on fear more than anything. He can also seem defiant and arrogant at times, and timid yet bold.

Dr. Hastie Lanyon: Dr. Lanyon is quite theatrical and is also a boisterous person, a gentleman, and has a decided manner. “The geniality as was the way of the man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine feeling” (10). He also holds on to important events/ turning points in his relationships unable to get over a clash of scientific believes with Dr. Jekyll.

Dr. Henry Jekyll: He is a kind man, and is quite intelligent his many years making him wise with age, and yet he was still curious. A secretive man, yet polite and quite the gentleman.

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Wizardblizzard • 2 years ago • edited

Well, what have you got so far? (very roughly?) Then we can see if we can think of any other possibilities you didn't think of. Or if there's any area that you can't think of anything at all for. (and that way, we can feel sure we're not in fact writing the thing for you from scratch :-D I'm sure you wouldn't of course.) Sounds an interesting assignment!

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Miss-Dreamerkat  Wizardblizzard • 2 years ago • edited

I updated the discussion to show the character notes I had but I stopped adding to them when I get to the Last Night chapter of the original book.

But do you still need to see my essay so far?

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Wizardblizzard  Miss-Dreamerkat • 2 years ago • edited

Nah, never mind the essay, just wanted some idea what you've already got.

Utterson, you've left a word out of the quote: "I incline to Cain's heresy." I suppose that refers to Cain saying "Am I my brother's keeper?" This, of course, the most enormous irony in Utterson's case; Utterson's "heresy" is that he will stick to his friend no matter what that friend may have done.

It's interesting to compare Lanyon and Utterson. You could see them as representing two different kinds of morality - one who sticks to his principles even at the cost of his friends, the other who sticks to his friends even if they don't live up to his principles. Lanyon seems to me to be a rather inflexible type. Even when Utterson tells him he's worried about Jekyll he refuses to budge from his determination not to speak to a fellow who talks such "unscientific balderdash". And when he finds out the truth, he abandons him completely and declares that he never wants to hear his name again. Utterson sticks faithfully to Jekyll no matter how unhelpful Jekyll is being; he never judges anybody. In fact, his failing may be that he's TOO adaptable; he gives in too easily. I doubt if trying harder to get an explanation out of Jekyll would have got him anywhere, but he could have tried. For that matter, it might have (at least before the murder); Utterson is possibly the one man alive who Jekyll might seriously expect to keep his secret. Even when he thinks that Jekyll is in serious danger of being murdered by Hyde (end of chapter 2), if Jekyll insists on him dropping the subject, he drops it.

Mind you, Utterson never actually sees the transformation in person, so we have no proof that he would have taken it any better than Lanyon, if he'd found it out under such very shattering circumstances. But I rather think he would.

Hyde: You're right about Hyde being also more fearful about some things. (In Dr Lanyon's chapter he's described as almost crying with fear that he won't be able to get the drug.) I think it's because he is so selfish and doesn't care about anything but himself, and because the thing about him is that he has no self-control, except in the one superficial way of putting on an act of not caring about anything. When he wants to do something he does it, fearlessly; but when he is frightened he has nothing to fall back on. Animal instincts, kind of thing. That's just my opinion.

Jekyll: Don't forget his other side, such as it is. (It isn't, very, until he starts messing about with it.) It's mentioned that Jekyll was "wild" as a young man (medical students are proverbial...) and the trouble is, as he explains in the last chapter, that however old and respectable he gets, he still can't quite bring himself to settle down. I suppose if the idea is that you're discussing the book's merits as a book, though, the relevant thing might be Jekyll's character as the reader sees it during most of the book (i.e. before we get to the revelation)?

In that case, I think the only bits before then where we see any other side to him than what the public sees are Utterson's comment about "He was wild when he was young" (end of chapter 2) and his behaviour in chapter 3 (and 7 of course) - until then, we've seen him described as this very grown-up and celebrated man who no mud could stick to, but in chapter 3, he suddenly comes across as vulnerable and badly frightened, and he's described as "pleading" with Utterson.

Any good? These are just ideas you might play with if you need more stuff to put in!

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Miss-Dreamerkat  Wizardblizzard • 2 years ago • edited

My copy didn't have that word in it, It didn't say Cain at all.

And yes these are quite good and helpful. Thank you! And those notes where old and have changed in the essay. I just listed some key traits in my essay paragraph because I'm sure my english teacher doesn't want to read a twenty page essay from me.

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Wizardblizzard  Miss-Dreamerkat • 2 years ago • edited

Really? How odd!

Glad to help, got rather carried away there, like most of us do when we get nattering about this book! Good luck!

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Miss-Dreamerkat  Wizardblizzard • 2 years ago

Yeah also so true

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