Scottish Literature Stevenson’s Message The well-known novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, describes a monster created by science. Dr. Jekyll concocts a potion in attempt to isolate the good and evil sides of human nature. When he drinks the concoction, he is transformed into his beastly nature. He becomes all that we can imagine as evil and physically appears just as misshapen. In the narrative we find the ghastly appearance a symbol for something more. This creature referred to as Mr. Hyde acts in ways that others consider monstrous. Mr. Hyde tramples a little girl and beats an old man to death with a wooden cane. At the end of the story, our main character is hunted down and found on the floor of his lab having committed suicide. In our narrative we find the creature, Mr. Hyde, described similarly by many people. These people who catch a glance of him notice unnatural features that can't quite be described. The figure is inexplicably unnatural looking. His face and body give the impression of being severely deformed. During conversation, one of the men investigating the mystery surrounding Dr. Hyde attempts to describe the man: "He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point. He's an extraordinary-looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can't describe him. And it's not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment" (11-12). This quote gives three main qual... ... middle of paper ... ...sen. The recommendation we take from this book is to always insure that our actions and thoughts are taking us in the direction we want to live. Works Cited Brantlinger, Patrick. "An Unconscious Allegory about the Masses and Mass Literacy." Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: an Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Performance Adaptations, Criticism. New York: Norton, 2003. Print. Gould, Stephan Jay. "Post-Darwinism Theories of the Ape Within." Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: an Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Performance Adaptations, Criticism. New York: Norton, 2003. Print. Stevenson, Robert Louis. "How I Came to Be Such a Student of Our Penny Press." Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: an Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Performance Adaptations, Criticism. New York: Norton, 2003. Print.
Within every being exists temptations, whether it be quiescent or dynamic, which fluctuates from one individual to another. Commonly negative, temptations ascend from lesser qualities of man and expose an individual to develop even more reprehensible ambitions. The story of a one man’s dark wishes is explored in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”. Properly termed, Stevenson perused the unnerving case of a respectable, proletariat-class doctor, who becomes associated and obsessed with Mr Hyde. It is this presence of the “duality of human nature that is created consistently throughout the Gothic Literature”.
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. New York: Dover Publishing, Inc., 1991.
Showalter, Elaine. "The Not So Strange Addiction of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." The Haunted Mind in Victorian Literature. Eds. Elton E. Smith and Robert Haas. Landham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 1999.
“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.
Robert, Stevenson L. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. New York: Dover Publications, 2013. Print.
In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde becomes Jekyll's demonic, monstrous alter ego. Certainly Stevenson presents him immediately as this from the outset. Hissing as he speaks, Hyde has "a kind of black sneering coolness . . . like Satan". He also strikes those who witness him as being "pale and dwarfish" and simian like. The Strange Case unfolds with the search by the men to uncover the secret of Hyde. As the narrator, Utterson, says, "If he be Mr. Hyde . . . I shall be Mr. Seek". Utterson begins his quest with a cursory search for his own demons. Fearing for Jekyll because the good doctor has so strangely altered his will in favor of Hyde, Utterson examines his own conscience, "and the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded a while in his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there" (SC, 42). Like so many eminent Victorians, Utterson lives a mildly double life and feels mildly apprehensive about it. An ugly dwarf like Hyde may jump out from his own boxed self, but for him such art unlikely creature is still envisioned as a toy. Although, from the beginning Hyde fills him with a distaste for life (SC, 40, not until the final, fatal night, after he storms the cabinet, can Utterson conceive of the enormity of Jekyll's second self. Only then does he realize that "he was looking on the body of a self-dcstroyer" (SC, 70); Jekyll and Hyde are one in death as they must have been in life.
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.
Benjamin Franklin once said, “It is much easier to suppress a first desire than it is to satisfy those that follow.” This is certainly true in the situation of Dr. Jekyll, as the temptation of becoming Mr. Hyde becomes stronger as he continually surrenders to the wickedness that is constantly misleading him. Mr. Hyde is never contented, even after murdering numerous innocents, but on the contrary, his depravity is further intensified. The significance of the repression of a desire is a prevalent theme throughout the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, as the inability to repress one’s curiosity can lead to a fatal end, whereas the repression of a desire that can no longer contain itself, or the repression of confronting a guilty conscience, will conclude in a tragic ending and in this case specifically,
appearances and reputations, and involves an individual who lives a double life of outward pity and secret corruption. Jekyll uses the ugly deformed Hyde as his body doubled’. The ‘Beast Within’ is studied in this book.
Stevenson’s most prominent character in the story is the mysterious Mr Hyde. Edward Hyde is introduced from the very first chapter when he tramples a young girl in the street, which brings the reader’s attention straight to his character. The reader will instantly know that this person is a very important part of this book and that he plays a key role in the story. This role is the one of a respectable old man named Dr Jekyll’s evil side or a ‘doppelganger’. This links in with the idea of duality. Dr Jekyll is described as being ‘handsome’, ‘well-made’ and ‘smooth-faced’. On the other hand, Mr Hyde is described as being ‘hardly human’, ‘pale and dwarfish’, giving of an impression of deformity and ‘so ugly that it brought out the sweat on (Mr Enfield) like running’! These words all go together to conjure up an image in the mind of an animal, beast or monster. During the novel...
The evil side, Edward Hyde, could enjoy all the wicked pleasures and execute all of Dr. Jekyll's angry, and vengeful wishes, yet, Dr. Jekyll does not have to be afraid of his conscience. Since Mr. Hyde was pure evil and was affected by science, Stevenson tells his readers that science is evil through Hyde's actions, and through the characters like Utterson whose descriptions of Hyde is immense horrifying. As he says, Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish; he gave an impression of deformity without any namable malformation, he had a displeasing smile,., and he spoke with a husky whispering and somewhat broken voice,. God bless methe man seems hardly human! (Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pg.20) Like Frankenstein, the words "evil, satan, and devilish" were all used to describe Mr. Hyde.
Mr. Hyde is the monstrous side of Dr. Jekyll from their book “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” In their story, Dr. Jekyll is a brilliant scientist who has created a formula that turns him into Mr. Hyde. It is stated that, at some point, Dr. Jekyll became addicted to the potion. Though it is unclear what would cause the addiction, since it would be Hyde who would experience the “high” and not Jekyll himself. Hyde is the contrast to Dr. Jekyll, and is considerably more brutal and immoral. Modern incarnations depict him as becoming incredibly muscular after the transformation, though in the original work it is only implied that Hyde is stronger, retaining his previous physique. It is consistent that Hyde is shown to be ugly, perhaps even deformed.
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.
Mr. Hyde is purely evil. He is described to be smaller, younger, ugly, and hairier; he is considered to be villainous and evil. Stevenson compares him to a monkey. The monkey symboliz...
Klin, Candyce. “Darwinism as A Cultural Issue” Cedar Crest College, 2 June 2001. Web. 17