In the story there is a lot of competitiveness between the male characters. This is shown by the characters being secretive and hypocritical. One of the most secretive charaters is Mr Enfield as he is brief in the way he tells Mr Utterson about the little girl being killed. Mr Enfield tells Mr Utterson that he returned at ‘about three o’clock’ and it was from ‘some place at the end of the world’. This shows him being very ambiguous. Also Dr Jekyll is very secretive. He speaks to Utterson and says ‘I beg of you to let it sleep,’ this is in regerd to his will.
Dr Jekyll is also very weiry on talking about Mr Hyde. Mr Utterson brings it up and Dr Jekyll says ‘This is a matter I thought we had agreed to drop.’ So whenever someone talks to him about Hyde, he is very quick in trying to change the subject and not talk about him. This shows that he is hiding something and is being very careful in what he says (secretive).
Robert Louis Stevenson doesn’t mention anything about the charaters bringing up. The characters may have no parents and no friends and the story doesn’t back anything up. Throughout the story though we are given clues in weather the characters are well known, popular and sly. We are given a brief description of some characters when they are first introduced and pick up extra bits as the story persues. Mr Utterson’s description is, ‘Mr Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance, that was never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow lovable. At friendly meetings, and when the wine was to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye; something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life. He was austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintage; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove. "I incline to Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly: "I let my brother go to the devil in his own way." In this character, it was frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and the last good influence in the lives of down-going men. And to such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never marked a shade of change in his demeanour.
No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendships seemed to be founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature. It is the mark of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready made from the hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way. His friends were those of his own blood, or those whom he had known the longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they implied no aptness in the object. Hence, no doubt, the bond that united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the well-known man about town. It was a nut to crack for many, what these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find in common. It was reported by those who encountered them in their Sunday walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull, and would hail with obvious relief the appearance of a friend. For all that, the two men put the greatest store by these excursions, counted them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set aside occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business, that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.’
