Duror Characterisation Challenge



Duror Characterisation Challenge

Duror is one of the most tragic characters in the novel and he also causes tragedy for others. Your task is to produce a poster that tracks the development of Duror’s evil.

Your poster should include:

• Six key quotes that analyse Duror’s characteristics and deterioration (these should be related to themes and your focus should be on analysing the language)

• An image of Duror

• A timeline illustrating how his evil nature progresses in the novel

You should consider the following:

• Chapter 1: We are given an insight in Duror’s problem with Calum

• Chapter 2: We learn at least partly why Duror is so bitter – he talks of punishment and mercy

• Chapter 3: He plans to discredit the cone-gatherers – he lies to Mrs Effie Morton

• Chapters 4-6: He involves the cone gatherers in the Deer drive. His deterioration illustrated in the killing of the deer

• Chapters 8-10: Duror’s developing hatred of Calum – he tells Roderick he is evil, he lies to the doctor about Callum masturbating, he thinks of himself as a poisoned tree, he realises he must rid himself of Callum to ease his own suffering

• Chapter 13-15: The Doll – Duror lies to many characters about the doll and suggests he was being perverse

• Chapter 16: The Death of Duror and Calum

This is not an exhaustive list but you may wish to consider the following for analysis:

• “In an icy sweat of hatred, with his gun aimed all the time at the feeble minded hunchback grovelling over the rabbit. To pull the trigger, requiring far less force than to break the rabbit’s neck, and then to hear simultaneously the clean report of the gun and the last obscene squeal of the killed dwarf would have been for him, he thought, release too, from the noose of disgust and despair drawn, these past few days, so much tighter.” (p9)

• “But now the wood was invaded and defiled; its cleansing and reviving virtues were gone. Into it crept this hunchback, himself one of nature’s freaks.” (p10)

• “Since childhood Duror had been repelled by anything living that had an imperfection or deformity or lack: a cat with three legs had roused pity in other, in him an ungovernable disgust.” (p10/11)

• “He had read that the Germans were putting idiots and cripples to death in gas chambers. Outwardly, as everybody expected, he condemned such barbarity; inwardly, ….he had profoundly approved.” (p12)

• “He described it briefly, enjoying her fascinated embarrassment.” (p38)

• “It astonished Duror that she, so genuinely good, should be helping him in his evil plan.” (p49)

• “He was like a tree, still showing green leaves; but underground death was creeping along the roots.” (p59)

• “Rushing upon the stricken deer and the frantic hunchback, he threw the latter off with furious force, and then, seizing the former’s head with one hand cut its throat savagely with the other. Blood spouted.” (p70)

• “Duror had the appearance of a drunk man, unshaven, slack-mouthed, mumbling, rather glaikit.” (p71)

• “…there by the dead deer he understood…why he hated the hunchback so profoundly and yet was so fascinated by him. For many years his life had been stunted, mishappen, obscene, and hideous; and this misbegotten creature was its personification. (p73)

• “But the hunchback in some dreadful way had become necessary to him…His going therefore had to become a destruction, an agony, a crucifixion.” (p78)

• “You see, I know that the little one is an evil person” (p94)

• “…he smiled at the rawness of the boy who still saw evil as dwelling only in certain men and women, and not as a presence like air, infecting everyone.” (p94)

• “Suddenly over the whole scene had dropped darkness…he was as powerless as the elm beside him; and for those two or three minutes he had felt his sap, poisoned, flowing out of him into the dark earth.” (p95)

• “The result was a revulsion against the Dr’s reiterated philosophy of endurance…he felt in a mood for murder, rape, or suicide’ (p104)

• “He felt cold and frightened and sick at heart. Here at the very hut was the most evil presence of all, and it was visible.” (Roderick observes Duror outside the cone gatherers’ hut p118)

• “…the gamekeeper was unkempt, with the neck of his shirt grubby. His tie askew with the knot low, as if, choking, he had wrenched it loose.” (p156)

• “Duror with the naked doll in his fist and the obscene accusations so lusciously on his lips.” (p179)

• “He was walking away among the pine trees so infinite a desolation in his every step that it was the memory of him, rather than that of the little hunchback…which was to torment her sleep for months.” (p180)

• “Another gunshot rang out…she knew that somewhere, on her beloved promontory, Duror, with his face shattered and bloody, lay dead.” (p181)

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