me

It was during this period when Gothic literature reached its peak making known the true side of the society imprisoned by the ideals of behaviour and repression. Since its inceptions, Gothic literature has undergone several vicissitudes due to the inherent complexity of the topics and especially by historical, cultural and political differences, but it has always emerged as a response to the concerns of the dissatisfied souls against laws in order to experience forbidden sensations and escape from everyday life. Therefore, the society used this kind of literature as a safety valve. Focusing on the 19th Century, the Gothic novel was adapted to the especial concerns of the Victorian readers, becoming clear reactions that expressed constrained and oppressed feelings by Victorian social practice and laws. Moreover, although the Gothic literature has always dealt with psychological, emotional and physical issues, it is in the Victorian novels where authors began to question the figure of man as creator like in Frankenstein calling into question the human behaviour with particular emphasis in the duality of a society based just on appearances. These appearances of a moral and disciplinary society were closely associated with the birth of psychoanalysis founded by Sigmund Freud. This therapeutic practice marked a before and an after in society and consequently in the Gothic novel.

Freud attempted to explain the human mental functioning on the basis of human behaviour in society, arguing the existence of a physical apparatus which had a particular structure. This structure was comprised of three concepts that would influence to the Gothic literature when describing the personality of the characters reaching the conclusion about the exist...

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...and the monster, the Victor’s dark and irrational side, and on the other hand, Victor himself when he regrets what he has done.

As a conclusion, we have to highlight that both in The Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde and Frankenstein, the attempt to fulfill their desires, related to the discovery of their repressed sides, lead to the protagonists of these two novels to death. In both cases, they reflect the society of that time, because the experiments that they carry out are caused by these moral constraints of the society, as I explained in the introduction, in which people had two sides: the public one and the hidden one. Furthermore, these experiments lead to the appearance of the dark side, so that the evil creature is who eventually takes control of the situation, demanding the recognition of its independence thus reflecting the struggle of being human’s duality.