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the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde text
the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde essay
the strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde essay
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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 for his search of Mr. Hyde. In R. L. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he employs characterization, imagery, and motifs of weather to construct complex characters and create eerie settings, which parallel with the mood of the characters. Throughout the story, Stevenson characterizes Mr. Hyde as a strange man with odd features who nobody seems to like. Hyde and his background, no one really knows about him. Since not many Hyde commits. Whenever Mr. Hyde is around in the story the weather is always bad. In the first story Mr. Enfield tells, it is “about three o’clock of a black winter morning” and silent (7). Stevenson purposefully uses the motif of weather to alert his readers of the impending appearance of one terrible Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde is appropriately given his name because of the way he hides in the dark, foggy nights of London. On the nights when Hyde commits his villainous acts, Stevenson utilizes the weather to make readers feel frightened of what is about to happen. When Mr. Utterson goes looking for Mr. Hyde he drives up to the address he is given “and the next moment the fog settled down again upon that part” at the home of Mr. Hyde (23). Again the fog is brought back to make a point of the mystery of Mr. Hyde. The fog represents the uncertainty that lies within Mr. Hyde. Since it is only nine o’clock in the morning, Mr. Hyde is nowhere to be found because during the day he hides behind the mask of Dr. Henry Jekyll. Only at night he comes out as his evil self, then retreats back to the door and once again hides in plain sight, behind Dr.
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...
Stevenson's Use of Literary Techniques in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Stevenson's Use of Literary Techniques in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
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’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...
“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.
Throughout the story, Stevenson characterizes Mr. Hyde as a strange man with odd features whom nobody
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.
Hyde as a different man, the original man himself Dr. Jekyll admits he enjoys Hyde’s crude actions as pleasures. Initially, he presents his decision of Hyde as a scientific experiment and allow himself to be releases from societal pressure; however, he turns hypocritical due to materialism and pride. Soon he admits that the actions turned monstrous in Hyde’s hands and he knew soon Hyde will take over his real self. He realizes he created another man or identity that he could not control. Therefore he concludes, “Man is not truly one, but truly two” (Stevenson 43). The strange case is that the novel never give’s Hyde’s point of view, it is always from the perspective of the good doctor. Hyde does not have a conscious of his own; rather, it is that of the doctor. It is evident that Dr. Jekyll embraces Hyde, because he refers to himself as “I” in the body of
The symbolism of the light and dark in his nightmare represent the internal struggle Utterson is having with himself on the subject of Mr. Hyde. As a lawyer Utterson wants to uphold the law, however as a friend his loyalty demands that he protect Dr. Jekyll in any way that he can. This causes his mental state of separation where his mind will not show Mr. Hyde’s face because of the possible relations to Dr. Jekyll. This mental separation echoes Dr. Jekyll and Hyde’s duality by foreshadowing the later realization that they are in fact the same person. This notion of foreshadowing duality with duality is strengthened even more with Utterson’s physical doubles in his actions and words culminating inside one person as the thoughts, images and emotions from his dreams translate into his waking life. Utterson’s duality is embodied in one person, as is Dr. Jeykll’s duality which Stevenson has purposefully made echo in his novel about human nature and the duality of it. Stevenson was a foreword thinker of his time using gothic vocabulary to try to fill the void of imprecise language to discuss physiological implications. This concept has helped influence literature o help create the science fiction any mystery genre that uses supernatural devices and remnants of gothic language to address morality and human
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the author Robert Louis Stevenson uses Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to show the human duality. Everyone has a split personality, good and evil. Stevenson presents Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as two separate characters, instead of just one. Dr. Jekyll symbolizes the human composite of a person while Mr. Hyde symbolizes the absolute evil. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who are indeed the same person, present good and evil throughout the novel.
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
Essentially, the two men are complete opposites. Reputable and successful, Dr Jekyll was outlined “… [possessed] every mark of capacity and kindness” (Stevenson, 1978 pg. 14) . Paradoxically, Stevenson gave a man that hides from people the name Mr. Hyde. A couple examples of crimes which reflect his evil disposition include an incidence where he “trampled calmly over [a] child’s body and left her screaming on the ground,” (Stevenson, 1978 pg. 5) and his attack on Sir Danvers where “…with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway.” I did not, however, outline the severity of criminal events in which Mr Hyde (or in case Dr Jekyll) had triggered, as it would be too unbefitting to include in the
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.
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.