Mary Reilly: Discussion Questions
1. How is Mary attracted to Dr. Jekyll?
Mary and Dr. Jekyll are drawn together. Dr. Jekyll starts to like Mary because of her experience of the dark side of man and also with her father treating her bad. Dr. Jekyll asks Mary throughout the book if she liked or disliked her father for abusing her and not giving the love she wanted from family. She continues to struggle with this question throughout the book. Mary is totally devoted to Jekyll. She believes she has found the best employer possible, but she also worries at his ailing health as he continues his "work" in his laboratory and the influences Mr. Hyde seems to have over him. She worries about more and more often and reminds more and more of her father.
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Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It takes place during, the framework of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde which can be from the same or another author. It is inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson 's novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. With having two parallel books people can compare how his books are alike and how they are different. For example, how open Mary was with her feeling toward Dr. Jekyll by the end of the novel.
3. How has Mary Reilly personality changed from the beginning to the end?
In the past, Mary was raised by her hard working mother and abusive father. Her father often beats her in his drunken rage and locked her in a closet with a rat. Her mother found her and took her away. She enrolled her daughter to become a servant, so she could earn a living. Mary went to Dr. Jekyll home and believes this is the best home she has ever tended to. Mary now is quite sweet and kind, but mostly tends to keep to herself. The only person she has really opened up to is her employer, Dr. Jekyll. It is evident that she loves him, and would do anything for him.
4. How are Mr. Hyde and Mary’s father
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Mary’s father locks her in a room full of rats. Dr. Jekyll has been the good side where as his double is Mr. Hyde that creates all of the violence. Mr. Hyde haunts Mary as an adult by biting her neck. When Hyde bites her neck, Mary reacts with the same plea she made with her father. The quote was “Please sir, do not do this” (6). Another aspect is that Mary calls Dr. Jekyll “The Master”. Dr. Jekyll is always in charge of Mary even though in the novel it doesn’t say it, but as the reader, I could infer that he was a Master and in control of Mary whereas also Mary’s father could be referred to as “The Master”. My reasoning behind this is that Mary’s Father was very violent and abuse to Mary and was in charge of her as a child. 5. Does Dr. Jekyll like to act as Mr. Hyde when his evil side comes out?
Hyde is rewarded when Dr. Jekyll turns to him. Dr. Jekyll wants to be like Hyde when consequences catch up and then want to be Jekyll again. Hyde is the alter ego of Jekyll. It is a second self, which is believed to be distinct from a person 's normal or original personality and can live a double life. Hyde likes to be in control of Jekyll because he is of lower social
For this reason I’ll be explaining Jekyll’s mental health. Jekyll has as what we now call Multiple Personality Disorder; “I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could be rightly said to be either, it was only because I was radically both,” Stevenson 57.) The disease was first discovered by Dr. Jean-Martin Charcot. He would ask patients symptoms that he found common in MPD. Many patients know about their alternate personality but refuse to acknowledge it’s existence. In some cases they may even refer to it as a separate person entirely. In this case Jekyll is very much aware of his alternate personality, going as to so far as to willingly change into him. However despite this he also categorizes Hyde into a separate being. For example when Hyde does something unappealing or distasteful he blames it on a separate person. Consciously though he is aware that he is Hyde and Hyde is him. (MD, Arnold Lieber. "Multiple Personality Disorder / Dissociative Identity Disorder." PsyCom.net - Mental Health Treatment Resource Since 1986. Vertical Health LLC, n.d. Web. 10 Dec. 2016).
Mr Hyde is the evil side of Dr Jekyll, but he is restrained from being
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story about a smart doctor who makes a drug that can make the evil side of a person come out. This drug changes Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde. The author does not mention that Dr. Jekyl...
As the novel progresses, Dr. Jekyll becomes a prisoner to the part of him called Mr. Hyde because Hyde gains strength overtime. The rush Mr. Hyde brings him causes him to want
Doctor Jekyll: A very respected and hardworking man of older age. Jekyll has a great public image in the town. He is friends with Doctor Lanyon and Utterson. Jekyll struggles to suppress his darker side and looks for a release of this energy. This comes from his experiment in the form of Mr. Hyde. Jekyll then fights to keep Hyde in check and his good side prominent.
Jekyll is respectable man with a very good career. He is a doctor that is highly regarded in his community for what he does as far as charity and his manners. As young man growing up, he was secretly involved in weird behaviors that made him a bit questionable. Dr. Jekyll finds his other side to be quite bothersome and he decides to experiment so he could try a separate the good from the evil. He creates potions and other things that really do not help. After so many attempts of trying to restrain his evil side, he brings forth Hyde through his failed experimentation. Therefore, he only accentuates his evil self to come forth. Hyde is an extremely ugly creature that no one could stand the sight of. He is deformed, violent, and very evil. Throughout the story, he fights against Jekyll to take over his life eventually causing Jekyll to murder one of his good friends, Mr.
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.
Though Hyde is pure evil, Jekyll is not pure goodness; he is still the same old conflicted mix of both good and evil. To cover his tracks, Jekyll rented a room for Hyde, opened a bank account in his name, and explained to his household servants that Hyde was to be allowed to freely come and go through the house. Hyde was even made Jekyll’s sole heir. At first, Jekyll delights in having his alter ego. Through Hyde, he can live out his fantasies of doing whatever he pleases, with no consequences, seeing as how he has but to drink the potion to make Hyde disappear. No accountability for Hyde’s
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.
Stevenson focuses on two different characters Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but in reality these are not separate men, they are two different aspects of one man’s reality. In the story, Dr. Je...
Jekyll unveils his story, it becomes evident that Dr. Jekyll’s efforts to keep Mr. Hyde, his immoral outlet, reticent are in vain. Dr. Jekyll succumbs to Mr. Hyde once and eventually the pull of his worse self overpowers Dr. Jekyll completely. His futile attempts to contain Mr. Hyde were more damaging than auspicious, as Mr. Hyde would only gain a stronger grip on Dr. Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll writes, “I began to be tortured with throes and longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and at last, in an hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the transforming draught… My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring” (115). Dr. Jekyll’s inevitable passion for debauchery is only further invigorated by his repression of Mr. Hyde. By restraining a desire that is so deeply rooted within Dr. Jekyll, he destroys himself, even after his desires are appeased. Like a drug, when Dr. Jekyll first allowed himself to concede to Mr. Hyde, he is no longer able to abstain, as his initial submission to depravity resulted in the loss of Dr. Jekyll and the reign of Mr.
Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a novel about a man named Henry Jekyll who
The reader is drawn to the plot of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde through the literary devices Stevenson employs. Foreshadowing displays the sense of mystery throughout the novel, the foreshadowing of the actions of Mr. Hyde leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. The ironic nature of Dr. Jekyll relates to the reader as a person, no person is completely perfect and Dr. Jekyll exhibits the natural wants and desires of humans. The irony behind Mr. Hyde adds an enigmatic side to the plot. These two devices expose the readers to the complexity of the novel and reveal the inner meaning of the hidden details.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both suffer; however, one from illness and the other from insanity. Mr. Hyde is a sociopath, and lives in it to the full extent as well as Jekyll being a psychopath. However, Hyde was created the way he was to portray a sinful side of Jekyll, while Jekyll was himself throughout, good and bad, to manipulate and gain in the harm of
The book Mary Reilly is the sequel to the famous The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, is a stark, ingeniously woven, engaging novel. That tells the disturbing tale of the dual personality of Dr. Jekyll, a physician. A generous and philanthropic man, his is preoccupied with the problems of good and evil and with the possibility of separating them into two distinct personalities. He develops a drug that transforms him into the demonic Mr. Hyde, in whose person he exhausts all the latent evil in his nature. He also creates an antidote that will restore him into his respectable existence as Dr. Jekyll. Gradually, however, the unmitigated evil of his darker self predominates, until finally he performs an atrocious murder. His saner self determines to curtail those alternations of personality, but he discovers that he is losing control over his transformations, that he slips with increasing frequency into the world of evil. Finally, unable to procure one of the ingredients for the mixture of redemption, and on the verge of being discovered, he commits suicide.