The main story is about a lawyer named Gabriel Utterson who investigates strange occurrences between his old friend Doctor Henry Jekyll and his friend Mr. Edward Hyde.
Utterson receives Jekyll's will and doesn't like the fact that he leaves everything to Hyde and thinks that he may be getting blackmailed by Hyde. So he investigates and finds out that Hyde was involved with a number of crimes and so wants to confront Jekyll about the whole situation.
Jekyll claims he has stopped all contact with Hyde and begins to act like his normal self until he begins to refuse visitors. It's only on Lanyon's dead (who is a friend of Jekyll and Utterson) that Utterson seeks to find out what is actually wrong with Dr Jekyll.
The truth is revealed when Utterson finds a diseased Hyde wearing Jekyll's clothes and a note explaining everything that Jekyll had been hiding, including how he had been turning into Hyde using a special potion he created in order to separate his good side from his darker side. But because Hyde (the darker side) started to become too strong for Jekyll to handle, he ended up killing Hyde and himself in the process.
The main themes in this novel include; inner strength between good and evil; friendship; depression; reputation; religion and science.
When researching, I looked at adaptations of the novel and found an ITV series called "Jekyll & Hyde" which aired from the 25th of October 2015 to the 27th December 2015. However although the main characters are Jekyll and Hyde, it is not based on the original book characters and instead the Jekyll & Hyde in the programme is actually the grandson of Dr Henry Jekyll. He inherits his grandfathers abilities which is what the whole programme is based on. In the TV series, he doesn't look as pre-human when turning into Hyde as he is described as in the book but does in fact look particularly evil. 
I also found a film called "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" which was released in October 2003. Jekyll/Hyde in this film is portrayed much more like a monster character and has a hulk-like build, which to me is more imaginary and unrealistic in comparison to the TV series. His features are a lot more prominent and large which is something I want to investigate further. His face really stands out.
Overall I chose to use Jekyll and Hyde because it was something I had never heard of before and I thought it sounded really interesting. Also, because there is a lot of ways in which I can present my chosen character and I look forward to doing so.
No comments:
Post a Comment