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The role of media in modern day society
Role of media in modern society
The role of media in modern day society
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In a similar way, Maupassant again plays with imagery and contrast to establish strong class distinctions and attitudes towards each class by illustrating the physical realities of her current life of Madame Loisel versus the less tangible lifestyle she longs for. Madame Loisel always wanted to be a part of the upper class as she “fantasized about elegant dinners, about shiny silverware, about tapestries filling the wall” (Maupassant, 4). However, stricken by fate, Maupassant contrasts her grand desires with the harsh reality that “she had no wardrobe, no jewels nothing” emphasizing her lack of status (Maupassant, 4). Her admiration of the upper class’s fancy lifestyle is contrasted with her disgust of the deficiencies of the lower class; …show more content…
Although the ending of the story is largely known by even those who have not read the story, it is still an unexpected ending for readers unfamiliar with the story and regardless, the twist enhances the important role of transformation because, in this moment, conflicting aspects of human nature are seen at the same time. Even in the moment of transformation, Stevenson continues to present contrasting details that parallel the complex nature of Jekyll and Hyde. While he experienced “grinding in the bones, deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded at the hour of birth or death,” he, at the same time, felt “incredibly sweet” and “younger, lighter, happier in body” (Stevenson, 79). In the moment that civilized Jekyll transforms into the mad Hyde, Stevenson emphasizes the threat of degeneration and the fear of bad human impulses by emphasizing the painful, yet freeing results of his actions. He also begins to raise questions of ethics and morality, questioning the role of humans in preventing or controlling degeneration and treatment of class in response to these fears. By bringing in the role of science with degeneration, Stevenson class into question human involvement in the course of human nature and again calls into light the role of class in these devolutionary theories. As social …show more content…
Transformation plays a critical role as the vehicle to express these social revelations and whether the effects of a transformation are immediate, like in the moment Jekyll consumes the separation serum, or transpires slowly over the course of a text, as exhibited in Madame Loisel’s ten-year decline, transformation serves as a powerful tool exposing social fears and criticisms of the role and importance of class. Through raising these issues of class relationships, societal pressures, and degeneration, both works capture nineteenth century attitudes towards these issues while more importantly start raising questions regarding the ethical and moral implications resulting from
Stevenson's narrative reflects some of the effects of socialization and their influence on the repression of certain forms of sexuality, specifically homosexuality, which we will explore a little later. Jekyll begins waking as Hyde, suggesting that when his social controls are weakest, Hyde is free to come out. The story dramatizes social norms, the search to deviate from them, and rid oneself of responsibility for one's actions that go against these norms. As Jekyll gets used to becoming Hyde, the socialized and repressed Je...
To conclude the way that Stevenson has described Hyde and what Jekyll has done in most parts he has related it to the devil which in Victorian times was considered very dangerous, even though today he’s not considered that powerful it would still make a big impact. Stevenson has been successful in using many elements of a shocker/thriller to write a novella with a much deeper moral significance because every aspect of the story relates back to the Victorian morals of 1837 till 1901 and for a 21st century reader some parts of the novella will make them think what is really happening around them now and whether it is right or not!
...ve duality of man;… if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both” Thus, Stevenson creates in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two coexistent, and eternally opposed components that make up a “normal” individual. However, here, good and evil are not related but are two independent entities, individuals even, different in mental and physical attributes and constantly at war with each other. Evil now does not require the existence of good to justify itself but it exists simply as itself, and is depicted as being the more powerful, the more enjoyable of the two, and in the end ultimately it is the one that leads to Dr. Jekyll's downfall and death. Stevenson creates the perfect metaphor for the never-ending battle between good and evil by using Jekyll and Hyde. However, this novella is perhaps one of the few that truly show the power of Evil.
...s malefactor who is deformed and doesn’t regret anything he does. No one seems to be able to describe him, even just after seeing him, which Stevenson deliberately uses to express a mysterious transgressor. Essentially, Hyde is part of Jekyll’s character; whilst Hyde fully embodies pure evil, it is possible to see how Jekyll, although seemingly morally decent, engaging in charity work and enjoying a reputation as a courteous and genial man, never fully embodies virtuousness. As Stevenson shows, it is through Hyde which this story is able to accelerate; although Hyde is not human, he is seen as an alter ego of Jekyll, and he also seems to be the object who is amplifying the common controversial beliefs of the Victorian era- Darwin’s theory of evolution and the constant struggle between good and evil in everyone due to the indoctrination and influence of the Church.
Stevenson truly voices the anxieties and fears of the late Victorian age, and such can be seen throughout his novella, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in the late eighteenth century. Stevenson identifies the double standard of society that he explores through the two characters, Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. Peri Bradley, in Monstrous Makeovers: Transforming 'Monsters’ into Beauty Queens, affirms that ‘each culture and each era creates its own monsters that embody and express the fears and anxieties specific to the environment of that particular generation.’ Within his novel, Stevenson alludes towards the concealment of vice which in turn creates an environment of hypocrisy, leading towards the cultivation of monstrosity. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde truly captures the Victorian era in the way that it has configured the monster and reconstructed the setting of the narrative. Traditional Gothic conventions, such as the use of distant and foreign locations, have been dismissed as Stevenson replaces it with the dark geography of contemporary London; which in turn, literally and metaphorically reinforces the duality in the psychology of late Victorian Britain. An equally significant aspect is Stevenson’s narrative style, which dismisses the omniscient narrator prevalent in the Gothic genre; this allows him to employ conventions involving a scientific nature which explores monstrosity of a different kind. Through this, Stevenson explores evil as an internal element that lies at the heart of human nature itself. The evolution of monstrosity has therefore evolved since Polidori’s construction of the monster; Stevenson highlights society’s creation of its own monsters in its own likeness whilst
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is equally scandalous, if not more than the fading bond between Basil and Dorian. Stevenson’s story line only consists of one duplicitous person, Dr. Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll is an intellectual scientist who is able to drink a potion and morph into an evil brute. The freedoms he utilizes when he is Mr. Hyde fascinate him and he develops an addiction to the evilness of Hyde. Time only tells that “Mr. Hyde is Dr. Jekyll’s parasite” (Nabokov 22). Thus, Jekyll loses touch with his soul as his transformation into Hyde becomes increasingly irreversible. As Hyde, Jekyll is deformed and monstrously unattractive. Jekyll takes his intellectual ability of transforming into Hyde to the extremes and as a result becomes uglier when he is Hyde, similar to how Basil remains flawed because of his intelligence. Dr. Jekyll, fearful that he has gone too far with his experiment cries, “The ugly face of iniquity stared into my soul” (Stevenson 77). At this point Hyde has manifested himself within Jekyll and there is no resolution to keep the two separated. The goal was “to make Jekyll’s evil side before and after the hydization a believable evil” (Nabokov 21). The blood of both personalities is so cold, allowing believable evilness to occur. It is not until Jekyll’s suicide of himself and Hyde is complete that the blood can rid itself of its evil
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.
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 to a strange man and murderer named Mr. Hyde in his will. Readers learn from the ominous third person point of view the worries of Mr. Utterson and ride along in his search for Mr. Hyde. In R. L. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he employs characterization, imagery, and weather motifs to construct complex characters and create eerie settings, which parallel the mood of the characters. Throughout the story, Stevenson characterizes Mr. Hyde as a strange man with odd features who nobody seems to like.
Page, Norman. "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson." Encyclopedia of the Novel. Eds. Paul Schellinger, Christopher Hudson, and Marijke Rijsberman. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998.
When Jekyll first turns into Hyde, he feels delighted at his newfound freedom. He states: "... And yet when I looked upon /that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, /rather of a leap of welcome..."(131). Now he could be respected as a scientist and explore his darker passions. Stevenson shows duality of human nature through society.
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...
Stevenson presents Hyde's transformation as sudden and terrifying. "pale and shaken, like a man restored from death." This shows that this change is unnatural and peculiar. Lanyon does not know how it had been done and is now traumatised. The use of the noun "death" suggests that Jekyll has now been ressurected because he was no-where to be seen; many people though that Jekyll was dead. Stevenson uses powerful adjectives to make an effect and statement as to how Jekyll looks now. It is also said in the phrase "deadliest terror" that this supernatural. This has an effect on the gothic context in this story. This is paticularly suprising as in this context that Victorian people believe God can only do the unbelievable.
Dr. Jekyll is, immediately, a character the audience recognizes as well-educated, socially respected, and nearly beyond reproach – the culmination of Victorian idealism. However revered, Dr. Jekyll is at unease with himself and states that, “a certain impatient gaiety of disposition” has long haunted him, dividing his social perception from personal feeling (55). “In order to absolve himself of guilt and resolve his existential crisis, Jekyll turns to the outer limits of science” (De Ciccio 11). In his laboratory, Jekyll devises an elixir that separates his dual-nature and creates the nefarious Mr. Hyde to act upon his primal, animalistic desires “for his own pleasures” (Stevenson
To summarize, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a metaphorical looking glass into the duality of human nature. In the words of Romeo and Juliet’s Friar Lawrence, “Two such opposèd kings encamp them still/ In man as well as herbs—grace and rude will” (II iii 28-29). In everyone, there is good and evil, a Jekyll and Hyde. The decision is who will be allowed to take control. Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel helps the reader to better understand the duality of human nature through Jekyll’s fascinating tale, and the true meaning behind the story that makes the reader sit back and reflect makes the story a timeless piece of literature.
Although we don’t explicitly see how inferior classes are treated, Mrs. Dalloway’s brief interaction with Ms. Kilman illuminates this discourse. As the novel approaches their confrontation we learn they have an extreme dislike for each other, where to Mrs. Dalloway, Ms. Kilman represents everything she despises and even comments on the way she dresses for women, where Ms. Kilman views Mrs. Dalloway as “the most worthless of classes- the rich with a smattering of culture”( Dalloway