Reflective Essay

I can barely remember what life was like back ten years ago.  I had no worries about school, health, or even my future.  I could just sit down infront of the T.V. while eating a bowl of mac and cheese and life was good. I used to see the world as being innocent and full of hope.  I knew nothing of murder or child abductions except for the occasional "Stranger Danger!" phrase.  Now a days my view of the world has changed.  You have to worry about your future and education. Every little thing has a consequence whether you choose not to do your homework or if you don't plan ahead.  The worst of it all is the news, we hear about kids commiting suicide due to cyberbullying on facebook and other horrible things like that, that I have to worry about.  I really do wish I could go back to my childhood.
           Whenever you see a little kid they're always smiling unless of course they're having a temper tantrum for something as unimportant as an ice cream.  They're so happy for seemingly no reason at all. I mean they're walking in a store, what's so happy about that?  It's amazing to think that we were once all like that, just loving life.  Then something happens to us as we grow up whether its because we're introduced to the seriousness of life or our minds just become more developed.  We lose our general happiness and are only happy for reasons like winning a competition or recieving a gift.
           Although you can't really have a world where everyone can be as carefree and happy as a child.  Just to see it would be kind of funny, wherever you go everyone is smiling and happy, you almost can't even see it in your head.  Practically jobs would never get done and buildings would never be built, maybe medicenes would never be discovered.  Since the people would never worry or care about anything. At least it's nice to be happy and carefree at least for a little time in your life.

In Hyde's Defense

          My client Mr.Hyde, is of nothing but the highest of morals. The witness must have not paying attention at all, she even admits to her fainting. Although that is irrelevant since the only logical explanation is the murder is none other than Henry Jekyll. Aren't they the same person I heard someone ask, if you say that then you are suffering a mental illness and should go to an insane asylum ; since that is quite impossible.  As we all know Hyde and Jekyll have a close relationship, they share a key to Jekyll's house,the will. For all we know Jekyll could have been using Hyde to take the murder for him.  As I have shown you before, the check from Hyde that was actually from Jekyll to pay off the blackmail of him trampling a little girl.  But obviously Jekyll had set it up that way to give Hyde some bad rep so to easily pin the murder on him later. 
         In Conclusion my client Edward Hyde is not guilty, but instead we should have a testimony from Henry Jekyll on where he was on the night of the murder. Which we can't do since Jekyll is missing which clearly makes Hyde innocent since there's not evidence on the contrary.

Theme Through Character: Utterson

The character that I feel I'm most drawn to is Mr.Utterson.  He is unlike most main characters in stories: he's a little anti social, plain, and tolerant to insane or abnormal behavior.  All these traits give him the occupation of a lawyer and even a dectective as he investigates the Jekyll and Hyde problem.  He's a intresting man as he is friends with Enfield, Jekyll, and Lanyon in the most proper way, with seemingly little actual excitement in there previous encounters except with wine.  I respect him, even against all odds he doesn't even suspect Jekyll of any wrong doing accept when he thinks he forged for Hyde. He even tries to unite Lanyon and Jekyll as friends again even though that will  never happen even if Lanyon wasn't dead. 

                 Mr.Utterson represents more than just friendship, he represents the good of man kind, even though he's not very fun or socialble.  Compared to Mr.Hyde, Utterson is like an angel he, instead of looking the other way when a person does something unreasonable or evil he tries to help or investigate the problem.  Lanyon wanted nothing to do with Jekyll after he started to have "unscientific heresies", while Utterson even agrees to help Hyde if Jekyll dissapears.  To make Utterson even more of the better of society he doesn't open up Lanyon's letter when he dies, but is honorable and waits. As I said with Good and Evil if Hyde is Yin than Utterson is Yang.

           

A memorable moment: The Story of the Door

             Within the first chapter of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde  there are many memorable moments for me.  The one that sticks in my head is the instance when Hyde "calmly" trampled over the girl and then preceded to go on his way until Enfield grabbed him.  Hyde has committed the worst type of crime in the victorian age,since  a hit and run crime isn't quite mannerly.

           What makes this memorable is after the family threatens to stink his name, he insists on blackmail.  The family didn't even ask which shows how important reputation was in that age even for a horrible man like Mr. Hyde.  After Mr.Hyde  had payed for his crime in cash and cheque, it seemed liked all was well.
            
            I doubt Mr.Hyde would trample over a girl on purpose, but after doing it and not even caring it makes me think about the good and evil article I have read last week. In this case I do think of Mr. Hyde as evil, especially in the Victorian age with his lacks of manners.  Although I don't think the family and
Enfield are truly good since they took Hyde's bribe,but I do think Enfield deserves some recognition for his kindness to the family.  In the article, it also said that we need evil to balance out the good.  In their society  I agree that you do need evil, since their form of evil is simply not having high manners.

           As for the themes in this part  I was little unclear about.  One could be that having money can solve your problems with crimes. Another could be that you should be careful on the street and not run over little girls. I know there's a deeper theme but at the moment I can't seem to see it.  Never the less this was still the most memorable part in the whole chapter.          
            

          

The philosophy of good and evil in humanity

        The article the I read states theories on the beliefs of the of evil in humanity.  Some state that evil will never leave this world, others say that evil can be removed since it wasn't on Earth from the beginning of time. There's a lot of controversy on the subject. The best idea of evil to me in modern society is what i'm going to call the ying-yang theory.  It's that there needs to be evil in the world to keep in balance with the good and complement it.  As the author says without evil in the world we would never see the good.  This is true since if everyone was good and never did an "evil" thing it would just be plain normal and have no extra name for it.  Although the interesting part of the article is it seems to keep stressing the fact that the world needs evil, but with millions of death to innocent people, I would go with society being cleansed.  What is evil though, as the article is about it's part in society, but never does it actually describe what being evil is.  If you steal is that an evil action? Is murder or anarchy it either?  This really makes me think about life and how anyone could have traits of evil with in themselves.  In my opinion while I don't believe it's possible to get rid of evil in their thoughts, they can control their actions to be good and if more people did this humanity would at least have the illusion of goodness.