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Literary analysis of dr jekyll and mr hyde
Literary analysis of dr jekyll and mr hyde
Literary analysis of dr jekyll and mr hyde
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In chapter 4 the assault by Hyde was a completely spontaneous and vicious attack on an innocent old man. Hyde’s assault on Carew can be vividly depicted in the text. The text on page 28 reads, “And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman.” This snippet of text allows the readers to fully understand the complete bizarreness of this unfortunate event. Robert Stevenson uses the phrase, “And then all of a sudden”, to capture the impulsiveness of Hyde. The maid describes Hyde as a “madman” before he has even committed the crime. This crime was based merely on unknown anger, but this text uses the word “brandish”, which gives the readers the idea that he may have bee trying to intimidate the old gentleman before his attack. …show more content…
Stevenson uses so many powerful words in this one sentence. He describes Hyde as having “ape-like fury”. Stevenson is trying to convey to the readers exactly how savage and animal like Hyde is. Stevenson uses the phrase “a storm of blows”, creating a merciless scene of continuous trauma to Carew’s head. The negative connotation that is connected to the word “trampling”, gives an image unlike any other. Hyde does not only club his victim with his cane, but also decides to step all over the body once Carew is on the ground. However, Stevenson doesn’t use the word “step” because it doesn’t show the full brutality of the crime. Then the most horrifying part of the sentence, “bones were audibly shattered”, giving readers not only a perfect visual of the crime scene but also an
The criticism by Vladimir Nabokov, supports the claim that Stevenson uses symbolisms to express ideas and to create suspense. Finally Stevenson’s certain tone when he describes Hyde or the evil things the Hyde commit allowed him to express Hyde’s evil and created an unusual atmosphere. When Hyde was described he was described as small and the facial expression of his was very odd and hard to explain “Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with some sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering somewhat broken voice” (Stevenson 16). After Utterson’s first encounter with Hyde, he is just amazed and shocked because of Hyde’s physical appearance. Also in their first encounter, the setting was very dark and gloomy which adds to the claim. Also the description of Hyde symbolizes Hyde’s evil. Hyde’s ugliness and his deformed face symbolizes his evil, his small size symbolize Jekyll’s evil side inside him that was repressed for so long along with the dark setting. Another symbolism used in the book is between Jekyll’s laboratory and his house. Jekyll’s house is described as a place of wealth and comfort but his laboratory is described as “a certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the streets” (Stevenson 6). The wealthy house represents the respectable man Jekyll and the laboratory represents the corrupt Hyde. Normal people will not see the two structures as one just like how they won’t be able to see the relationship between Hyde and
As specified, descriptions cannot be called descriptions. Moreover, in a extremely important moment, the transformation, when Mr. Hyde should appear in all his glory, words simply avoid his figure. Trying to find a reason for this strange way to proceed Sami Schalk wrote an interesting article: “What Makes Mr. Hyde So Scary?: Disability as a Result of Evil and Cause of Fear”. One of the main ideas of the text is that Stevenson takes advantage of Victorians’ mentality and uses this untraceable disability of Mr. Hyde in order to produce fear:
Stevenson's Depiction of the Murder of Sir Danvers Carew in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
The first scene consists of Mr. Richard Enfield's and Mr. Utterson walking along a street in London. Mr. Enfield has a recollection of a previous incident in which he witnessed an extremely unpleasant man trampling upon a small screaming girl while this man was running somewhere. A large crowd had gathered around and they saw the man, Edward Hyde. The crowd forced the man to give money to this girl for trampling over her. Hyde did not run over her for any reason. He just did it out of spite and evil. He represents all the evil in the world. The reaction of others to him is one of horror because while looking at him, others feel a desire to strike out at him and kill him. His physical appearance brings out the worst evil in other people. Since Hyde represents evil, he is symbolically represented as being much smaller than Dr. Jekyll.
“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.
Everything in this story has a Dual side, including the setting in London, London had streets that were respectable and others that were made of squalor and crime. In the story of Dr.Jekyll and Hyde characters hid their side and showed only one certain side, as a matter of fact a quote from the book that says “an ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy: but her manners were excellent..” (Stevenson Chapter 4 P 54). This quote is trying to convey a message of Mr.Hyde's keeper being oh so well mannered, but don't let her fool you she was an evil person. That quote was also trying to demonstrate good versus evil and how it is conveyed through the book. Hyde was taking control completely over Dr.Jekyll , Dr.Jekyll was sure that there was no way for him to regain his identity, and his only option was to flee. “I lingered but a moment at the mirror; the second and conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained to be seen if I lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee before daylight from a house.” (Stevenson Chapter 10 P 112) Dr.Jekyll’s
Throughout the thriller-mystery story of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Mr. Utterson, the friendly lawyer, tries to figure out the reason behind why Dr. Jekyll, his friend and client, gives all his money in his will to a strange man and murderer named Mr. Hyde. Readers learn from the ominous third person point of view the worries of Mr. Utterson and ride along for his search of Mr. Hyde. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, R.L. Stevenson employs characterization, imagery, and motifs of weather to construct complex characters and create eerie settings, which parallel with the mood of the characters.
Stevenson had already created suspense before the chapter had begun through the knowledge we have of Mr Hyde. His character we know of links in to the ideas of Darwin. “And this was more of a dwarf”, Hyde is described as a dwarfish and primitive person, this Links in to the ideas of Darwin of how cave men evolved from apes and how we evolved from cave men. The fear of the Victorians is that since man had evolved from animals he has the same lack of control over emotions as animals.
Stevenson’s novel shares the profile of women in the current era. Throughout the novel, the few women that are present are seen as figurative damsels in distress. On many occasions, Stevenson provides evidence that the woman's reaction to disturbing events often include screaming or fainting. During the first section of the novel, a little girl is trampled by Mr. Hyde and the note about her is the screaming emanating from her lips, “quote quote quote” (Stevenson ). She is pictured as helpless and in need of a strong figure to save her. Mr. Utterson comes to the rescue and
...ources of human nature, more faith, more sympathy with our frailty than you have done.... The scientific cast of the allegory will act as an incentive to moral self-murder with those who perceive the allegory's profundity." (qtd. in Steuart, II, 83) But Stevenson was nonetheless acting as a moralist. His "shilling shocker," conceived in a dream and written in a white heat, captured both his own deepest divisions and insights into the callous folly of late-Victorian hypocrisy. Stevenson had himself considered suicide at least three times and yet persisted through ill health to natural death.;(34) Far from counselling "moral self-murder," his dark story of monstrous alter egos was counselling integration. Far from starting another Werther-craze, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pioneered as a modern admonition of blind, self-destructive behavior. Stevenson's fictional lawyers and scientists show dangerous second sides because they have not persisted in self-knowledge. His fictional workers, like the butler, Poole, see masks in place of the "horrors" that their presumed betters have become because they have opted for distorted vision over clear-sightedness.
Stevenson firstly describes “The maid’s window overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon. It seems she was romantically given”, this is a juxtaposition of a good night, “never had she felt more at peace with all men or thought more kindly of the world. And as she so sat she became aware of an aged beautiful gentlemen with white hair”, at this point we can see that Stevenson is starting to contrast between the murder that the maid is about to witness. Then the maid noticed Mr. Hyde, as she remembered about Hyde visiting her master, which she had “conceived a dislike”, as the old man and Hyde meet, Stevenson described, “And then all of sudden he broke out in a great flame of anger”, this is also a good metaphor as a fire could spread and burn quickly having an immediate effect on the reader. Also, Stevenson uses simile to describe Hyde having an “ape-like fury” and “hailing down a storm of blows”, which states that the blows are so brutal as the metaphor of big pieces of ice falling and this replicates the brevity of the attack. Stevenson then conveys the image of the bones that were “audibly shattered”, creating the image of cruelty and violence which is forcing the reader to actually see the image of the bones shattering and the sound of the bones
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...
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a tale that everyone is familiar with, or at least heard of; one of the earliest fictions of a character with a split personality. Based on the 1886 novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the 2015 adaptation Jekyll and Hyde produced by ITV in the UK alters the main tale while retaining the theme of dual personalities.
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a scientist, Dr. Jekyll, creates an alter ego using a draught in order to escape the harsh views of society. As Mr. Hyde, he commits heinous crimes against citizens and becomes addicted to the perception of freedom from Victorian laws. Best stated by Norman Kerr about addiction, “there is an inebriety derangement of the mental faculties, so that the consciousness, perception, reasoning, power, and conscience are impaired” (Kerr 138). The character Dr. Jekyll illustrates the condition of addiction in the Victorian era through the motifs of the obsession with appearance and duality.
This book report is about the book “Prophecy’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by the author Stephen Bohr. The book starts out laying down the foundation for all of its main points by taking a look at the prophecies in Revelation and Daniel. Bohr compares the two, listing the sequence of events leading to the enforcement of the mark of the beast and the “little horn” being restored to power. The author describes Papal Rome’s four stages and when they each come to power, by carefully comparing scripture and finding patterns in real life that match prophecy. After making these connections and teaching basic concepts about Bible prophecy, Bohr states seven “Crucial Questions” to be answered by the end