“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” is a famous novel that is commonly read by many people. This novel was written by Robert Louis Stevenson, a Scottish author. The novel was first published in 1886 (Singh & Chakrabarti, 2008). Medical professionals and other healthcare professionals often use this novel as a reference for the study of depressive illness (Dell’Osso & Ketter, 2015). This literature is mainly concern about a well reputable man, Dr. Henry Jekyll, having split personality, uses his knowledge to create a type of potion which allows him to have another identity, Mr. Edward Hyde, which is a person totally different from the original personality. The novel described the process of transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde, …show more content…
Jekyll did and also make people to think about whether Dr. Jekyll should be guilty for what Mr. Hyde has done.The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ended with the suicidal and confession of Dr. Jekyll. He admitted what he and Mr. Hyde had done. He feels guilty and therefore he chose to end the life of both Jekyll and Hyde. However, this also alerts that whether a person with split personality should be guilty for what his or her other personalities had done. The person should certainly be guilty if he or she is aware that they had done something wrong but the problem is what if they did not realize the existence of another personality and that personality is doing something insane. Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is an example of split personality. There are two famous criminal who suffered from this mental disorder. One of them is Billy Milligan, who has 24 personalities, while the other one is Juanita Maxwell, who has 6 personalities. Billy’s personalities are involved in raping and kidnapping while Juanita is involved in murdering (Grimminck, 2015). It was stated that it is rarely successful for a person to use multiple personalities as a reason for insanity defense (Farrell, 2011). However, Billy Milligan is an exceptional case as he is the first American that is found not guilty due to dissociative identity disorder (Grimminck, 2015). The example of the sentence that is given to the criminals that suffer from DID indicate that they are guilty for whatever they had done regardless of which personality had committed the crime. Therefore, even if Dr. Jekyll is not dead, he will still be guilty for whatever Edward Hyde has
In both The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the 1941 movie adaptation, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a strong representation of evil is present. Both the film and the novel are surrounded with sense of immorality and sin. The text and the film have economical and historical characteristics that help define evil. While the film alone has a strong representation of evil surrounding gender and relationships.
Robert Louis Stevenson shows a marvelous ability to portray. He depicts the surroundings, architectural details of the dwellings, the inside of the houses, the instruments and each part of the environment in detail. He even specifies that the laboratory door is “covered with red baize” (p.24). Not only does he offer a precise picture of the setting, but also he draws accurately the characters. About 200 words are used in order to describe Mr. Utterson the lawyer (p.5). Dr.Lanyon, the gentleman who befriends Mr. Utterson and Dr. Jekyll, is described as “a healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair prematurely white.” (p.12). Each of the characters are described according to their importance in the novella. Each of them except
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll’s struggle between two personalities is the cause of tragedy and violence. Dr. Jekyll takes his friends loyalty and unknowingly abuses it. In this novella, Stevenson shows attributes of loyalty, how friendship contributes to loyalty, and how his own life affected his writing on loyalty.
“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 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 in his will to a strange man and murderer named Mr. Hyde. 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 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, R.L. Stevenson employs characterization, imagery, and motifs of weather to construct complex characters and create eerie settings, which parallel with the mood of the characters.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 “shilling shocker”, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, has been subjected to various interpretations over the years. While some have assessed the trope of duality in the light of racism, colonization and cultural ‘other’, others have drawn on psychological references of split personality or ‘dissociative identity disorder’(i.e. existence of more than one personality in one body). The popularity of the novella and the idea of binaries existing in one being, has given birth to the phrase ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ which associates itself to a person whose attitude is vastly different from situation to situation. The respectable Dr. Jekyll, in his
A few weeks later Jekyll hosts a dinner-party. Afterwards Utterson stays to discuss the will and the meaning behind leaving such an important lifestyle to Edward Hyde. Jekyll jokes with Utterson but eventually asks him to end the discussion and promise to follow his will exactly. Almost a years later there is an incident involving Sir Danvers Carew and a mysterious man that beat him to death. With Carew, there was a letter addressed to Utterson. He leads the police to the home of Hyde where no one is found. The murder weapon and a burnt checkbook are discovered but in the weeks that follow, there are no signs of Mr. Hyde. On the same day of the murder, Utterson again visits a very ill Dr Jekyll. Jekyll says he has ended the relationship between himself and
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.
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.
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll, in grave danger, writes a letter to his good friend Lanyon. With Jekyll’s fate in Lanyon’s hands, he requests the completion of a task, laying out specific directions for Lanyon to address the urgency of the matter. In desperation, Jekyll reveals the possible consequences of not completing this task through the use of emotional appeals, drawing from his longtime friendship with Lanyon, to the fear and guilt he might feel if he fails at succeeding at this task. Through Jekyll’s serious and urgent tone, it is revealed that his situation is a matter of life and death in which only Lanyon can determine the outcome.
Despite being published in 1886, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson remains to be recognized and referred to as one of the initial studies of the duality of human nature and mans struggle between two natural forces – good and evil. The story takes place during the Victorian Era in which society is already somewhat constrained and cruel and explores the human struggle between being civilized and facing the more primitive aspects to our being. According to author Irving S Saposnik, “Henry Jekyll’s experiment to free himself from the burden of duality results in failure because of his moral myopia, because he is a victim of society’s standards even while he would be free of them.” Henry Jekyll, an English doctor faces duality when he comes into battle with his darker side. Creating a personification under the name of Edward Hyde in order to fulfill his desires, Dr. Jekyll feels as if he will be able to control the face that he wants seen to public vs. the one in which he wants to keep more private. “Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me, and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life.” (10.1) The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story about how people are scared to acknowledge personal duality so they keep silent and in this case, create a personification in order to fulfill evil desires without thinking through the consequences of such actions.
Texts are a representation of their context and this is evident in Robert Stevenson’s novella: “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”, where many values of late nineteenth century Victorian England values were reflected through the themes of the novel using language and structural features. These values included: technological advances, reputation and masculinity and are demonstrated in the text through literary and structure devices as well as the characterisation of the main character.
The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a confusing and perplexing one. R.L. Stevenson uses the devices of foreshadow and irony to subtly cast hints to the reader as to who Mr. Hyde is and where the plot will move. Stevenson foreshadows the events of the book through his delicate hints with objects and words. Irony is demonstrated through the names of characters, the names display to the reader how the character will fit into the novel. These two literary devices engage the readers; they employ a sense of mystery while leading the readers to the answer without them realizing the depth of each indirect detail.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a riveting tale of how one man uncovers, through scientific experiments, the dual nature within himself. Robert Louis Stevenson uses the story to suggest that this human duality is housed inside everyone. The story reveals “that man is not truly one, but two” (Robert Louis Stevenson, 125). He uses the characters of Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde, Dr. Lanyon, and Mr. Utterson to portray this concept. He also utilizes important events, such as the death of Dr. Jekyll and the death of Mr. Lanyon in his exploration of the topic.
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a scientist, Dr. Jekyll, creates an alter ego using a draught in order to escape the harsh views of society. As Mr. Hyde, he commits heinous crimes against citizens and becomes addicted to the perception of freedom from Victorian laws. Best stated by Norman Kerr about addiction, “there is an inebriety derangement of the mental faculties, so that the consciousness, perception, reasoning, power, and conscience are impaired” (Kerr 138). The character Dr. Jekyll illustrates the condition of addiction in the Victorian era through the motifs of the obsession with appearance and duality.