This time I will not pick the main character from this
Robert Louis Stevenson’s gothic story. Dr. Jekyll’s (or Mr. Hyde’s)
personalities had been explained quite clearly in the story itself, left almost
nothing to analyze. Instead, I will pick Mr. Utterson—the lawyer, one of Dr.
Jekyll’s trusted friends. Mr. Utterson’s personalities were more intriguing,
for me, than Dr. Jekyll’s; the first passage of the story was about him.
Mr. Utterson was pictured as a “cold, scanty and embarrassed
in discourse, backward in sentiment, and dreary; yet he is somehow loveable”.
See a bit of contradiction here? Other than that, Mr. Utterson was austere with
him self, strict to a humble and simple life style; yet he had an approved
tolerance for others in their misdeeds. These, I guess, were human’s typical
dual side in their personality, the kind and the evil, the good and the bad. As
we realize our bad side, we try hard to suppress it by pushing on healthy
habits. That was a good practice, but sometimes…under certain circumstances
(good taste wine in the case of Mr. Utterson), we loosen our strict discipline
and let us wonder a bit on our wild side.
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| Mr. Utterson & Mr. Hyde |
It’s interesting what Mr. Utterson has said about himself,
“I incline to Cain’s heresy… I let my brother go to the devil in his own way.”
As if Stevenson put the opening situation for the strange case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde here. It indeed one of human’s weaknesses (from the beginning with
Adam & Eve), to see our limits in the battle between good and bad. We know
that if we nurture our bad side, the bad side will take over our life control.
The question is, to which point we could let our selves until we cross that
line of our bad side? We like to play on
this, just like what Mr. Utterson did, although he perhaps didn’t play on
himself but on others (by ‘letting his brother go to the devil in his own way).
An interesting character of Mr. Utterson, and fortunately,
he never got too far from the limit, until the end of the story.
That is my Character Thursday of this week, an analysis of
book character of my choice, who is yours?... Just put your post URL in the
linky below. Do you like to join us in discussing characters from books you
read? See the details of Character Thursday first.
what are two more contradictions about Mr. Utterson?
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