Plot: Dr Henry Jekyll, an upstanding surgeon in Victorian England, is frustrated in his desire to marry his beloved, Muriel Carew, by her pompous father who insists that he must wait eight months so as to marry on the same date that he married his wife. However Jekyll perfects a formula that allows him to let the animal side of his nature free. Taking the formula, Jekyll physically transforms into a bestial creature that he calls Hyde. Hyde roams the disreputable areas of London where he makes an innocent showgirl/prostitute his and keeps her in mortal terror. However Jekyll soon finds that he is unable to control Hyde’s appearances.
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This is one of around 20+ adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) – which makes it the horror genre’s most ever adapted story. (That’s not counting various sequels featuring sons and daughters of Dr Jekyll, X-rated versions, musical versions, parodies, and versions where Dr Jekyll turns into a woman). Whatever the case, this is the best of all the adaptations. It came out New Year’s Eve of 1931, the same year that also brought us other classics such as the Boris Karloff Frankenstein (1931) and the Bela Lugosi Dracula (1931). Frankenstein, Dracula and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are like a triumvirate of horror stories. They are, as Stephen King argued, the templates for most other horror stories. And in turn all three of these films have cast giant shadows over horror cinema in their formative treatment of the respective monsters, shadows that continue to influence the genre to this day.
The Robert Louis Stevenson story is a work of psychological conjecture that predates what Freud would later hypothesize about the individual’s struggle between responsibility toward socialization (superego) and humanity’s baser drives (the id). What makes this version of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde most interesting is the addition of clearly sexual undercurrents. Dr Jekyll is plainly frustrated in his love for Muriel by her father’s absurd insistence that he wait eight months for their marriage. To the story has now been added the character of a dancehall girl (which the film all but comes out and says is a hooker) with whom Hyde takes up. Throughout, the film maintains a bad girl/good girl polarity between the dancehall girl and Jekyll’s fiancee as a kind of sexual objectification of the dual divide of Jekyll’s two natures – one girl represents virtue, the other represents wanton sexuality.
Robert Louis Stevenson in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is telling people that they fear the knowledge of their duality so they keep silent. That everyday people are silent they fight a "war" within their bodies and minds. People are afraid of the truth, about themselves, so they stay quiet. Everybody has a part of himself or herself that they don't reveal to anyone. People are afraid to show it, but when it comes out they would rather not talk about it. People cannot do this, it is essential that one be capable of good and evil to be in existence.
“The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde” is a novella written in the Victorian era, more specifically in 1886 by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. When the novella was first published it had caused a lot of public outrage as it clashed with many of the views regarding the duality of the soul and science itself. The audience can relate many of the themes of the story with Stevenson’s personal life. Due to the fact that Stevenson started out as a sick child, moving from hospital to hospital, and continued on that track as an adult, a lot of the medical influence of the story and the fact that Jekyll’s situation was described as an “fateful illness” is most likely due to Stevenson’s unfortunate and diseased-riddled life. Furthermore the author had been known to dabble in various drugs, this again can be linked to Jekyll’s desperate need and desire to give in to his darker side by changing into Mr Hyde.
The stigmatization and discrimination that goes hand and hand with a positive diagnosis of HIV/AIDS is overwhelming. FreeDictonary.com defines discrimination as the “treatment or consideration based on class or category rather than individual merit; partiality or prejudice.” In essence, discrimination is about actions and stigma relates to beliefs and attitudes. Both however are built up on negative views of a person just because they are apart of a specific group. All over the world, there are well-documented cases of people living with HIV that are being denied the right to health- care, work, education, and freedom of movement, among others. (UNAIDS 2005) This stigma and discrimination exist globally, although it appears differently...
CDA looks to disclose the ways discourses are produced and distributed (Halliday, 1985), as well as how they work symbolically to disguise power (Thompson, 1990) and control others
... man. Society in the Victorian era was consisted of two classes, trashy and wealthy. Jekyll was expected to be a gentleman, but he wanted to have fun. This was the reason he created Hyde, so he could both be respected and have fun. He was delighted at the freedom he now had. Lanyon was overly contolled, but Utterson knew all men had both good and bad within them and could control it. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, the dual nature of man is a main theme.
In this essay on the story of Jekyll and Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson I will try to unravel the true meaning of the book and get inside the characters in the story created by Stevenson. A story of a man battling with his double personality.
Jekyll does deserve his final miserable fate because he commits several selfish deeds to the point where he brings his miserable fate upon himself. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson uses Jekyll to represent how man prioritizes by putting himself over others. Throughout the book, Jekyll’s two different sides are used to show that man is consistently selfish and will usually think of himself before others. Even though Jekyll has a good side and an evil side, both sides of him are selfish. Jekyll originally takes the potion for selfish reasons, Jekyll uses Hyde to conquer his own evil temptations, and in the end Jekyll gives into Hyde and completely gives up.
Despite being published in 1886, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson remains to be recognized and referred to as one of the initial studies of the duality of human nature and mans struggle between two natural forces – good and evil. The story takes place during the Victorian Era in which society is already somewhat constrained and cruel and explores the human struggle between being civilized and facing the more primitive aspects to our being. According to author Irving S Saposnik, “Henry Jekyll’s experiment to free himself from the burden of duality results in failure because of his moral myopia, because he is a victim of society’s standards even while he would be free of them.” Henry Jekyll, an English doctor faces duality when he comes into battle with his darker side. Creating a personification under the name of Edward Hyde in order to fulfill his desires, Dr. Jekyll feels as if he will be able to control the face that he wants seen to public vs. the one in which he wants to keep more private. “Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me, and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life.” (10.1) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story about how people are scared to acknowledge personal duality so they keep silent and in this case, create a personification in order to fulfill evil desires without thinking through the consequences of such actions.
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll, in grave danger, writes a letter to his good friend Lanyon. With Jekyll’s fate in Lanyon’s hands, he requests the completion of a task, laying out specific directions for Lanyon to address the urgency of the matter. In desperation, Jekyll reveals the possible consequences of not completing this task through the use of emotional appeals, drawing from his longtime friendship with Lanyon, to the fear and guilt he might feel if he fails at succeeding at this task. Through Jekyll’s serious and urgent tone, it is revealed that his situation is a matter of life and death in which only Lanyon can determine the outcome.
McCree, D. H., Jones, K., & O'Leary, A. (2010). African Americans and HIV/AIDS Understanding and Addressing the Epidemic. New York: Springer.
I chose to explore the concept of stigma in the context of Frank’s illness experience because I felt that this theme was strong in the narrative At the Will of The Body. Bananno and Esmaeli (2012) defined stigma as a classification that is caused by specific disfigurements, separating those who have them from the perceived normal members of society. For Frank, this stigma was a sign on his body, which marked him as an unclean and threatening entity (Frank, 2002).
During the time when the general public believes the only way to contract HIV/AIDS is to be homosexual, an addict, or prostitute, Fisher being a white, heterosexual, married mother of two from an upper-class family who contracted the virus from her husband is herself the certifying ethos of this speech (1). She tactfully uses her own circumstances and diagnosis to embody the plight of all in the AIDS community and shows that no one is exempt from this deadly disease. She emphatically states that HIV does not care about race, age, gender, sexual orientation, or political affiliation; all that it asks is “Are you human?” (2). She ceases to be the exception and gains the attention and respect of the American people when she aligns herself with others with HIV/AIDS with her statement:
The story takes place during the Victorian age, a time when there were only two categories of people: good people and bad people. There was no way that one man could be considered acceptable without suppressing his evil side almost entirely. The reason that Jekyll restrained his evil side for so long was because of this dichotomous Victorian society. Most people, including Jekyll’s friends, Lanyon and Utterson, are content to stay molded in this ideal. However, Dr. Jekyll soon became tired of this hypocritical mindset and stated that he “it was rather the exacting nature of my aspirations.
Dr. Jekyll is a symbol of both the good and the bad in mankind, while Mr. Hyde represents pure evil. For instance, when Dr. Jekyll is himself, he is seen as a respectable man who is adored by his colleagues: “he became once more their familiar quest and entertainer; and whilst he had always been known for his charities, he was now no less distinguished for religion” (Stevenson 29). However, when Dr. Jekyll transforms to Mr. Hyde his morals are quickly disregarded. An example of this occurs when Mr. Hyde murders Sir Danvers, shortly after Dr. Jekyll submits to the temptation of changing to Mr. Hyde: “instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me…with a transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight from every blow” (Stevenson 56). Even though the carnal side of Dr. Jekyll enjoys the incident, this event also illustrates the conscience side of Dr. Jekyll because in the mist of this brutal murder, he begins to feel guilty for committing the crime.
...xperiences of HIV stigma: the role of visible symptoms, HIV centrality and community attachment for people living with HIV. AIDS Care: Psychological and Socio-medical Aspects of AIDS/HIV, 25(9).