Good And Evil In Victorian Literature

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There are many moral behaviors that have happened over time between now and back in the Victorian era. There were a different set of morals over time based on religion and other perceptions of good and evil in literature and different forms media going back from the Victorian era till now. The books The Strange Cases of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Hunger Games, Dracula, and Beowulf are some of the literature that support the morals changing through time, how good and evil was perceived, and how actions were justified as good or evil. The thesis for this paper is that morals and perception of good and evil in society and the media try to justify actions and how society at that time perceived it as good or evil, set to be morally right or wrong …show more content…

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde show the two sides of a man. The character in the book shows a man with a good side and an evil side. The good side is Dr. Jekyll who is shown as the person that they wanted in the Victorian society. Because he is the person that is doing good and doing everything by the book, he represents good. Every time he drinks the potion, the good and evil in the person separates. This means that the caring side of a person and remorseful side are separated from the evil side of him which is all the things that there society perceives as evil. The evils is shown when, “the man trampled calmly over the body and left her on the ground” (Robert Louis Stevenson 3). This shows that when Hyde was walking he trampled over this girl who was just a child in order to run around and he didn’t care. The nature of Hyde is evil because he was made out evil. They show him as evil in every action that he does. The evil shown in the text is evil like in the trampling part. There was no remorse for trampling of this girl that shows how his nature is to do evil and how he does not know any better but to do evil. The good in the book is the good in Jekyll because he meet up to their society’s expectations. Dr. Jekyll was consider an upstanding person with a good reputation. He was considered a good friend and man in everybody’s mind and this was represented in the way he was acting and how he has friends. The book states, “Henry Jekyll shoes without further delay, and free from any burthen or obligation, beyond the payment of a of a few small sums to the member of the doctors household” (Robert Louis Stevenson 6). This explains how as a person he shows values that hold up to the values they had and they thought were good. He went to all the meetings and was respected. Mr. Hyde did not have this respect. Because he was not respected in the same way, they would not have him at the meeting. This shows that if you are good it leads to a man being

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