Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Analysis

Written just four years apart, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) are both examples of Victorian gothic literature, written in response to changing ideas about the human psychology and the hypocrisies of Victorian England, with particular reference to its capital, London, a city that reflects the internal contradictions of the novels’ protagonists. These contradictions are explored through the idea of the doppelgänger, “an apparition or double of a living person.” The divided self was a classic motif of Gothic literature, because it highlighted that appearances could be deceiving and that within us all there is a struggle between good and evil. For Stevenson and Wilde, this produced a schism between the repressive

Dorian’s divided self is explored through the competing characters of Lord Henry, and the artist Basil Hallward who paints Dorian’s portrait. Both are engaged in a struggle over Dorian’s soul. Lord Henry projects onto Dorian the view that “all influence is immoral— immoral from the scientific point of view,” and admonishes him about the dangers of adhering to conventions and morals; while Basil, despite his declared fascination with Dorian’s outward beauty, reminds him of the need to nurture his sense of common humanity. In Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde, degradation and immorality is also equated with a lack of evolution. Published after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and during the rise of ideas of Social Darwinism, Stevenson attributes primal, almost subhuman characteristics to Mr Hyde, referring to his “ape-like fury,” with Mr Utterson, the narrator, noting that he “seems hardly human.” Hyde is thus constructed as bestial in appearance and character. Through him Stevenson suggests the importance of evolution and refinement for human society, while also proposing that within us all is a trace of our animal origins. The motif of the physical appearance of evil is also explored in Dorian Gray: “Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man’s face. (...) If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the

The structure of Dorian Gray is similar to that of a play, chronological, but effectively split into two acts, connected with a short bridge. Stevenson’s novella, similarly, is split into a number of distinct parts, a first person, chronologic narrative recount of events, narrated by Mr Utterson, followed by a letter, written by secondary character Dr Lanyon and a testimony by Dr Jekyll, where all is revealed in a climactic denouement. The splits in structure, and use of different perspectives in both cases, reflect the double lives of their protagonists. The first part of Dorian Gray is an ode to Dorian’s beauty and innocence, and introduces Dorian’s impressionability, growing narcissism and his belief that “the gods have been good to [him].” Tonally, the first part of Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde is detached and straightforward, simply an account of Hyde’s crimes and Jekyll’s social respectability as a man “known for charities,” spanning a period of two years, with time jumps separating chapters. A similar, but much longer time shift is used in the bridge section of Wilde’s novel. This section, outlining Dorian’s descent into hedonism and debauchery, and his final, complete rejection of Victorian morality, lasts twenty years and serves to highlight just how youthful Dorian has remained, despite no longer being young and “cherubic.” And while in the first part of the novel the reader feels some connection