The Motive of the Will

Author's Note: When reading chapter two of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I couldn't help but make a connection to the legality and lawyerly attributes that went along with the will -- it made me want to look closer at the reaction of Mr. Utterson and the decisions made by Dr. Jekyll in regards to the mysterious document. Alas, you have my analysis of the Motive of the Will. Enjoy.

What is a will? Is it recognition that one matter enough in another’s life to be listed in such a document or is it simply a monetary transaction between two parties granting one great benefit at another’s great loss, or better yet is it trust and free will being rewarded after time? One can only speculate as once they figure out that they have been written into a will, the answer is already six feet under. However when it comes to the last will and testament an answer lies in the hands of a third party, bound by the law to execute the will to its full extent.

Somewhere, a lawyer sits in an office reviewing every last detail on an eight and a half by fourteen page. As he sits he reconciles how that document came to be. Mr. Utterson, a character and lawyer in Robert Louis Stevenson’s, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, does just this but instead of letting it collect dust in his safe, he inquires further and furthermore to find the motive of the will, "[he] sat down with a clouded brow to study its contents" (45). Mr. Utterson clearly has no desire to execute this document when it becomes necessary for his friend has in his mind committed a disloyalty. Against every shred and whimper of lawyerly and friendly advice that Utterson had put forward, his dear friend Dr. Jekyll saw fit to disregard all of it causing Mr. Utterson to have, "refused to lend the least assistance in the making of it" (46). As a dear friend, Mr. Utterson has no choice to be offended and possibly insulted – he is a man of intelligence and intellect and a man of good and to be simply dismissed is absolutely unheard of. Dr. Jekyll obviously is conducting his will as an order of business, a monetary transaction between two parties. The motive of the will has been uncovered but Mr. Utterson is not satisfied, and with good reason, being a man of knowledge that he is, he has no choice but to address the head of the snake and so he goes to the good Dr. Jekyll in hopes to reveal the reason to the motive. However a distrust of such a degree is not to flee so quickly and it will pay its toll on their friendship in time.