At the end of the movie, Mr. Edwin Drood Senior returns home after a long absence. In search for Edwin, he visits the cathedral but he finds Jasper, instead. Enraged by the lack of affection with which his father treats him and the feeling of inferiority he had to deal with his whole life; Jasper strangles the old man with a scarf. After a year, he finally remembers the murder, but in his madness he is convinced that his victim was Edwin, the brother, rather than Edwin, the father. Consequently the guilt he feels makes him jump from the cathedral tower and kill himself.
It is important to realize that status and respect of the community are very important to Jasper. The most compelling evidence of that are all the caution measures that he
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To emphasize Dickens had Mr. Sapsea, the auctioneer and, later mayor of Cloisterham, on receiving Jasper in his premises, great him in this wise: "Glad to see you, sir. I congratulate myself on having the honour of receiving you here for the first time." And a few moments later, insisting on Jasper’s respectability, he adds: “…I do assure you that it is a satisfaction to me to receive you in my humble home. And that is what I would not say to everybody (22)." When Jasper laments about his life, Edwin tries to boost his spirits by listing many great qualities and achievements of his …show more content…
When in the eighth chapter the two young men fight on the street, Jasper wants them to reconcile and invites them to his place for a glass of wine. What strikes us here as unusual is the fact that he says: "All over then! Now, my bachelor gate-house is a few yards from here, and the heater is on the fire, and the wine and glasses are on the table (Dickens, The Mystery of Edwin Drood 49)” Why should there be wine and glasses on the table if Jasper did not plan this gathering initially? At his place, after drinking the wine the two young men fight vigorously, which again, just like in Durdles’s case, might be the result of Jasper drugging the wine. As Henry Jackson puts it “Jasper had next thought to use Neville as his catspaw for the destruction of Edwin (Jackson 17).” The loving uncle did not only think out a plan to kill the nephew but also to cast the suspicion for the murder on an innocent