Percival Glyde is the main antagonist of the 1860 book The Woman in White, he is a baronet who locked away the Woman in White, Anne Catherick, to hide his grim secret.
What Makes Him Pathetic?[]
- He forged his owns fathers wedding certificate and this is the secret that he desperately wants to get hidden.
- He regularly acts like an actual child, walking off on his own and drawing figures in the sand with a stick, and randomly lashing with his whip while going on evil monologue.
- He ordered every stray dog on his property to get shot.
- He locks up the mentally disabled like Anne Catherick when she was but a girl, only because he thought she might know his secret, leaving her to rot away and be driven mad. The thing is Anne never knew about the secret, She just knew there was a secret, and glyde panicked and did this horrible thing to this poor girl this just shows how much of a coward he is.
- Blackmailed Anne’s mother into silently wasting away under this secret all her life, by threatening her to have her hanged.
- Married Laura, but he wasn’t a good husband not even remotely close as he abused her for over six months, bruising her, locked her in her room, and sadistically threatens her to make both of her romantic interests suffer “till the last hour of their lives”.
- Orchestrated a very disturbing plan with his friend Count Fosco, the plan was to cause Anne's death by a trauma-induced aneurysm, disguise Laura as her and lock her in her place in the asylum, telling that she's Anne trying to steal Laura's identity, and planning to leave her there for the rest of her life, with her sanity and sense of self slowly wasting away.
- Even if his plans might sound strategic the real planning wasn’t even done by him as Glyde knew that Fosco was way more component than him so he mace fosco the guy to make plans for him, so Glyde isn’t really smart at all and just simply goes along with the plans Fosco himself thinks up.
What Makes Him a Pinhead?[]
- He has gotten quite a considerable amount debt over the years due to his financial irresponsibility.
- At one point, he lets out a hugely evil laugh at one of his few remaining servants, Mrs. Michelson, and reveals to her his deception of Laura. When Mrs. Michelson says she'd like to resign in response, Glyde thrusts his hands in his pockets and asks why. The fact that he thought she will still work for him as if nothing happened and also that he was surprised that she resigned just shows how truly airheaded this man is.
- He drinks large amounts of alcohol thinking that it will somehow calm his nerves.
- He goes on rants about practically nothing like him saying “ Do you suppose there are any secrets going on here? There are none—there is nothing underhand, nothing kept from you or from any one” to say that this is a nothing burger would be an understatement.
- Glyde completely destroys his own life, as once again Anne never knew about the secret, but Glyde was to paranoid and cowardly to see that so he just captured her for her life, When Anne breaks out and begins communicating with Laura, Glyde frenetically assumes Laura now knows the full secret, and not only that, but she's told it to Walter too, and Glyde instantly decides to silence them all. This becomes his undoing: his rash and deplorable actions to hide a secret that was never even in danger of getting uncovered, ironically, leads to people looking into his secret. Finally, Glyde goes to the church in old Welmingham in which he forged his dad's marriage certificate, in an attempt to get rid of the evidence he sets fire to the registry but ends up getting locked in and burning himself alive, in a final demonstration to show us how stupid this guy is.