Madness, Mayhem, Malevolence

Madness, Mayhem, Malevolence

Many books that were read this semester had madness, mayhem, and malevolence in the stories. One in particular was, Lord of the Flies, which was about a group of boys who were stranded on an island and forced to be the adults in the situation. All the boys turned into savages by the end of the book and three boys never even made it off the island. The act of killing became no problem for the boys due to their levels of intelligence and humanity decreasing as the story progressed.

            Another book was, And Then There Were None, and it consisted of premeditated murder of people on Indian Island. A group of people go invited to the island for one reason or another, but none of them knew the real reason; except one. People started dying one by one after their crimes had been announced on an anonymous record in the beginning of the book. By the middle of the story they knew the killer was one of them, but they did not know who it was yet. Everyone starts going a little crazy trying to watch their backs in order to stay alive.

Towards the end, everyone is dead but you find out that Justice Wargrave was behind it all. He pretended to be dead and killed Dr. Armstrong and Mr. Blore, but no one suspected him because they thought he was dead. The last two remained and Vera Claythorn killed Phillip Lombard because she thought he was the killer. Wargrave stated in the epilogue that he could have killed Vera on his own, but he wanted to stick to the rhyme that all the other deaths had followed. Therefore, instead of killing her, he played on her guilt for her crime and made her delusional to the point that she committed suicide.

The book, Jekyll and Hyde, contained mystery and malevolence throughout the story. From beginning to end there is a mystery only to be solved by death. One day Mr. Utterson, who is Mr. Jekyll’s lawyer, and hears some disturbing news concerning his client and dear friend. He confronted him but only got pushed away which in return caused him to become even more curious about the matter. In the will he drew up for his friend it states that if Mr. Jekyll dies or disappears, all of his property should be given to Mr. Hyde. Considering that Mr. Utterson has just found out about the incident with Mr. Hyde trampling the little girl without concern and mysteriously coming up with hush money for the family with Mr. Jekyll’s name on the check, he is very worried about his friend.

He tries to find out some information from Mr. Jekyll and his mutual friend, Mr. Lanyon. However, Mr. Lanyon is no longer a fan of Mr. Jekyll and does not wish to speak of the matter. So yet again, Mr. Utterson is left without answers to his questions. A year later Mr. Hyde murders a gentleman murders a man and only increases the mystery when he vanishes. Mr. Utterson is deeply confused and wants to get to the bottom of this. Mr. Lanyon has been sick so he ends up dying, but leaves Mr. Utterson a letter that says he can’t open it until Mr. Lanyon and Mr. Jekyll die. The madness of this situation never ends for Mr. Utterson.

Mr. Jekyll’s butler visits Mr. Utterson late at night because he is worried about his master deeply. When they go to the house to see what is wrong they are even more confused; the voice they hear in the locked room is not Mr. Jekyll’s, it is Mr. Hyde’s. When they finally get the door open they find a body in the floor holding a vial of poison. The body is wearing Mr. Jekyll’s suit, but the body is Mr. Hyde’s. Mr. Utterson finds a letter from Mr. Jekyll and it is his confession on the matter. When both letters are read Mr. Utterson starts to understand that Jekyll figured out how to spilt his two personalities and that is how Mr. Hyde exists. He learns that Mr. Jekyll could not control the switch anymore and the only way to fix it was to kill himself and Mr. Hyde. 

Wargrave, like a madman, felt it was his duty to kill those people for their crimes since the justice system could not catch them. The boys on the island could not think past the immediate present and killed without a care. Mr. Utterson had to lose two friends to get to the bottom of the mysterious Mr. Hyde. In all the books people were killed in cold blood, just for different reasons. The variances of these books are what make the mayhem in the books.