Mary Reilly: A mystery
Mystery is a literary genre that hooks the reader in with thrill and suspense. Mary Reilly is a 1990 parallel novel by American writer Valerie Martin inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson 's classic novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Faithfully weaving in details from Robert Louis Stevenson 's classic, Martin introduces an original and captivating character: Mary Reilly, a survivor who is scarred but still strong, familiar with evil but brimming with devotion and love. The novel Mary Reilly both compliments and complements Stevenson’s novel.
This novel can be seen as a medical thriller rather than a romance because of the way the chain of events take place throughout the laboratory. It cannot be called a
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Hyde, will be joining him to help in his lab work, and that Hyde should be accorded all the respect that Mary shows to Jekyll. Mary, being a devoted servant, senses that something is dreadfully wrong with the weary and laboratory-obsessed scientist, who has hired Edward Hyde as his assistant.
At the outset there is no suspicion or doubt in chapter 1 of the novel; it looks like a plain, one-dimensional love novel. However, as we read further, the element of mystery grows and is developed in Book 2 and Book 3.
The suspicion starts when Mary follows the sound of footsteps, thinking it to be Hyde. When when she enters the laboratory, she finds Jekyll’s checkbook left open and blood-stained. The mystery deepens when Jekyll remains inside and rarely comes out. The hideous clothing of Hyde, his similar appearance to Jekyll, and his similar handwriting makes Mary grow more confused. “That was how we passed the days when Master could have been on the moon across the yard, for all we knew of his doings” explains the way things were back
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Before leaving, she decides to visit her aster once more. To the shock of the reader, Hyde attacks Mary and tries to cut her throat, although he ultimately fails to kill her. He reveals that he has mixed poison into his antidote and injects it into himself. He finally becomes Jekyll once more and breathes his last in Mary’s arms.
The characters Mary and Stevenson make this novel terrifying and mysterious. Mary represents a character that shows goodness, whereas Dr. Jekyll is a character that completely contrasts with this goodness. As the Medina County District Library puts it, “Mary represents the apex of devotion, goodness, and honesty, in contrast to the dual nature and complexity of Dr. Jekyll, whose shadow side threatens to destroy all bounds of decency, law, and order.”
Martin finds Edward Hyde to be an evil person, and the duality of Jekyll and Hyde to be a normal thing that could occur in any human. As she states in one of her novels, “You want to surprise and shake up your readers, but at the same time, you want to entertain them and draw them in”
To conclude the way that Stevenson has described Hyde and what Jekyll has done in most parts he has related it to the devil which in Victorian times was considered very dangerous, even though today he’s not considered that powerful it would still make a big impact. Stevenson has been successful in using many elements of a shocker/thriller to write a novella with a much deeper moral significance because every aspect of the story relates back to the Victorian morals of 1837 till 1901 and for a 21st century reader some parts of the novella will make them think what is really happening around them now and whether it is right or not!
...ve duality of man;… if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both” Thus, Stevenson creates in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two coexistent, and eternally opposed components that make up a “normal” individual. However, here, good and evil are not related but are two independent entities, individuals even, different in mental and physical attributes and constantly at war with each other. Evil now does not require the existence of good to justify itself but it exists simply as itself, and is depicted as being the more powerful, the more enjoyable of the two, and in the end ultimately it is the one that leads to Dr. Jekyll's downfall and death. Stevenson creates the perfect metaphor for the never-ending battle between good and evil by using Jekyll and Hyde. However, this novella is perhaps one of the few that truly show the power of Evil.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hyde was an evil being it was slowly starting to take over and Dr. Jekyll knew that was happening. By shutting him out self off more and more he was helping everyone around him. Since he did not have any control over Mr. Hyde he had to stop Mr. Hyde from hurting anyone else and couldn’t tell anyone of these issues. In the book where Hyde and Jekyll are struggling, it says “ I was so far in my reflections” (53). This was Dr. Jekylls note for his struggles when he was finally telling people. He was deep in reflection and hiding them self off because he knew it was too late. It also states in this section of the book: “When Jekyll locks himself in his library” (61). Everyone was worried about him even though sometimes he does do this like in the beginning when he’s in solitude to work on his research. Dr. Jekyll had finally shut himself off from the word completely due to him knowing it was his final moments. He knew that since his potion was out and he could not find more materials it was over so he made a backup plan for when Hyde has taken over. This brutal plan was to kill himself and ultimately this is what he did. He had put all the other parts of the plan into effect and left a note to explain what truly happened, thus signifying the end of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, helping others but only helping him at the
disturbing. I am not a Jekyll didn't want to face his dark side and control it, he took the lead. easy way out but splitting his soul and having two separate lives both the extreme opposite of the other. Stevenson is trying to show the reader that this is the wrong way to do things because Jekyll dies and commits murder as well. Stevenson is telling us that we have to live.
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...
Stevenson uses many methods to achieve and sustain an atmosphere of mystery and suspense in the novel of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He does this by using a clever sense of setting, vocabulary, surroundings and the manner of his characters which are used to describe and slowly reveal the appearance of Hyde . Some of these are highlighted in the depiction of the Dr Jekyll’s house, such as Mr. Enfield's story, Henry Jekyll’s will and the meeting with Hyde.
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 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.
...of bettering the Victorian society, although it went entirely wrong. The falling action toward the denouement occurred when Dr. Jekyll was unable to create anymore of the potion needed to keep Dr Jekyll intact; resulting in Hyde completely taking over the body of Dr. Jekyll.
The story unfolds with the search for the elusive Mr. Hyde by three men close to Jekyll, Utterson, Poole and Lanyon, to uncover the terrible secret behind their connection. As Dr. Jekyll’s lawyer and the story narrator, Utterson, says, "If he be Mr. Hyde . . . I shall be Mr. Seek" (Stevenson 38). Utterson begins his expedition with a cursory examination inward for his own demons. Utterson scrutinizes his own conscience, "and the lawyer, scared by the thought, br...
The setting and environment of the book also symbolizes how Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll are different as well. Dr. Jekyll lived in an upper middle class neighborhood but there was a backdoor leading to a dangerous street. Soho is described with a negative description its “... a district of some city in a nightmare.” In the chapter of “The Carew Murder Case”(15) Stevenson compares it to a nightmare while your sleeping. He emphasizes that duality is everywhere not just within human nature.