The novella, ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ was written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886. The author was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1850. His family included engineers, scientists, a professor of philosophy, and a religious minister. The scientific and religious sides of Stevenson's family reflected in both his personal life and in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (disapproval between Dr Lanyon and Dr Jekyll). In 1859 Charles Darwin published his famous book called the ‘Origin of Species’ which highly opposed the religious beliefs at the time; the novella itself was also published at such a time when there was extreme controversy between religious and scientific principles. The sense of conflict being created through disapproval portrays duality that the Victorians had at the period; it is almost as if they were in a dilemma and confusion in deciding which element of sanity to maintain. Stevenson wrote the story to articulate his idea of the duality of human nature sharing the mixture good and evil that lies within every human being. In the novel Mr Hyde represents the evil ...
“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.
As an introduction, Jekyll and Hyde,published in 1886 by Robert Louis Stevenson, introduces the idea of the composite hero through the the mysterious Dr. Jekyll. Interestingly, in Dr. Jekyll’s confession letter, readers discover the villainous character Hyde is indeed Jekyll. Knowingly, Jekyll discovered his time as Dr. Jekyll was running out.
What is human nature? In almost every century someone has asked this question to try and find the answer. Each individual had a specific way of debating the matter. One specific author, Robert Louis Stevenson, described the duality of human nature in his book, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the novella Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde. He was interested in what made up a person's character, how they could be good and evil at the same time. He had a nightmare, and,within three days you had the story. In this novel, Stevenson uses imagery, diction and details to create an overall mysterious mood.
“Just as we have two eyes and two feet, duality is part of life.” - Carlos Santana. In the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, Jekyll and Hyde are the same person, yet they are completely different. The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde was written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886 and was published on december 5, 1886 by Longmans, Green & co. in England. Every person has two faces. In this book Stevenson develops the theme of duality by using characters, dialogue and setting.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde cannot be understood without first studying the cultural views of the period in which the story occurs. The obsession with morality in Victorian England was a reactionary response to the rise of secularism and atheism, and the newly popular philosophy of utilitarianism significantly influenced the attitudes of the times. When Henry VIII split from the papacy in the sixteenth century and created the Anglican Church, subsequently resulting in civil wars between Protestant and Catholic monarchs, like Edward VI and Mary I (Bloody Mary), he created a longstanding tradition of tying the country’s national identity to its religion. Therefore, when the world was increasingly turning away from religion, Queen Victoria reacted strongly against this and reinforced the importance of religion in Britain. Furthermore, utilitarianism greatly shaped the Victorian elites’ views on morality and the role of mystery in society. Ironically, many famous Victorians like “Carlyle, Tennyson, Macaulay, Thomas Arnold…and [Charles] Dickens” actively opposed utilitarianism, yet the moral views of the philosophy permeated their worldview and shaped their outlook on life (Madden 460). These thinkers and Queen Victoria viewed “mystery” with “widespread hostility,” viewing it as “daemonic,” sharing a strikingly similar view on the issue with their Utilitarian counterparts (Madden 460). Therefore, when Jekyll was secretly attempting to create a potion to separate himself from Mr. Hyde, his “scientific studies” were leading towards “the mystic and transcendental,” two things vehemently opposed by Victorian England (Stevenson 42). Jekyll was operating on the fringes of society and took great lengths to conceal his works because he knew the dire consequences if others were to discover his mystic experiments. Dr. Lanyon, one of Jekyll’s closest friends, represents the traditional rational, moral, and honorable Victorian man. Upon witnessing
...t around societal “rules”. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson proves; through his exploration of Dr. Henry Jekyll, and his evil other half, Mr. Hyde; that society plays a large role in keeping most peoples’ true selves restrained. Moreover, the book reveals that underneath the superficial disguise of all people, there lies a latent evil within all of us, as illustrated by Hyde. The only difference between other people and Jekyll is that this inner nature may or may not emerge. The fact that all of humanity has a dual nature goes to show how potentially frightening this inherent evil may be. By reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, there is a realization of the importance that society plays in keeping order, and if this structure collapses, our world may be on the same “dreadful shipwreck” that Jekyll and Hyde faced.
Within the text of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson portrays a complex power struggle between Dr. Jekyll, a respected individual within Victorian London society, and Mr. Hyde a villainous man tempted with criminal urges, fighting to take total control of their shared body. While Dr. Jekyll is shown to be well-liked by his colleagues, Mr. Hyde is openly disliked by the grand majority of those who encounter him, terrified of his frightful nature and cruel actions. Throughout Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson portrays the wealthy side of London, including Mr. Utterson and Dr. Jekyll, as respected and well-liked, while showing the impoverish side as either non-existent or cruel.
How Robert Louis Stevenson Represents Evil in Jekyll and Hyde? Robert Louis Stevenson intended this tale of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a penny numbers story, which gave us the sense that this was a simple and cheap novel, yet, it is far more. sophisticated than its audience expected. Robert Louis Stevenson - "The 'Ro captive audience were the Victorians. They were zealots, repressed and highly moral but living through an age of change.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, follows the story of good versus evil. In this case, Dr. Henry Jekyll represents the good, with Mr. Hyde representing the evil. Religion is a main theme in this story.
A major theme in the novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the duality of good versus evil. A character in the novel by the name of Dr. Jekyll believes in the dual nature of human beings, for he states, “With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.”. Dr. Jekyll is a respectable and well mannered man that gains an urge to set free his “wild side” from his
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a story based in the eighteenth-century, displays the tension of science vs. religion and the fear of technology spiralling out of control. Dr. Jekyll throughout the novel combines science and the supernatural, which is regarded by those of traditional science as nonsense (Stevenson 12). An example of this is highlighted within a conversation between Mr. Utterson and Mr. Lanyon over the types of radical science Dr. Jekyll was pursuing. Lanyon calls Jekyll’s scientific methods “unscientific balderdash” (Stevenson 12) revealing that there is a divide between the two scientists. Lanyon is the embodiment of the traditional, as he places extreme importance on honesty and truth, whereas Dr. Jekyll can be looked at as the supernatural, someone who experiments with what is uncanny. This is important when understanding the fear of one’s morality or of one’s self as we see newer science separating from traditional science. However, the outcome of this is that Jekyll is unable to control the darker, supernatural side of his modern scientific methods, leading to death and
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are two horrific tales of science gone terribly wrong. Shelley?s novel eloquently tells the story of a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who creates a living monster out of decomposed body parts, while Stevenson?s novel describes the account of one, Henry Jekyll, who creates a potion to bring out the pure evil side to himself. Although the two scientists differ in their initial response and action to their creations, there are strong similarities between their raging curiosity to surpass human limitation, as well as their lack of responsibility concerning their actions. These similarities raise an awareness of human limitation in the realm of science: the further the two scientists go in their experiments, the more trouble and pain they cause to themselves and to others.
Stevenson, Robert L. "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." The Norton Anthology of
The article that I have chosen to analyze is entitled “Challenging the Biological: The Fantasy of Male Birth as a Nineteenth Century Narrative of Ethical Failure”. The author of this article is Galia Benziman. Benziman states her main thesis as “I will discuss four nineteenth century works that examine such possibilities, emerging in an era that offers a particularly rich treatment of the theme. With the rise of the belief in, and anxiety about, the supremacy of science, we witness in nineteenth-century fictional works a recurrent staging of the male subject’s attempt to harness technology for the purpose of overcoming the biological limitation of his sex and procreating a new being.” This is a rather extensive thesis but really works well