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Comparing Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde By Robert Stevenson

937 Words4 Pages

In Stevenson’s novel, the titular Dr. Jekyll is a well-honored individual who is revealed to have a secret persona, Mr. Hyde, who is an embodiment of his evil. In Wilde’s, the titular Dorian Gray is a high-class gentleman who has a painting of himself that takes the consequences of his aging and sins instead of himself, and he becomes increasingly immoral because of it. In both “The Picture of Dorian Gray” by Oscar Wilde and “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Stevenson, the authors demonstrate how the Victorian culture of repression could bring out the worst in humanity, even in some of the best, most respectable people. Both texts are written and set in Victorian England, and both have strong themes of societal pressure …show more content…

Jekyll and Mr. Hyde this is shown in many ways, with “Utterson's repressed personality and his friends' appreciation of it provide a good example of the rigid patterns of conduct followed by many middle-class Victorians” (Perkins), as well as Jekyll’s own. The culture of the time encourages the people to uphold specific standards in their actions, moral but simple and toned down. Jekyll can put up an act, but in actuality he doesn't live up to those expectations. After discovering the possibility of the drug, “the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last overcame the suggestions of alarm” (Stevenson) at the true moral implications of the change. He is so Whitmer 2 desperate for an alternative, a way to express his internal thoughts and desires that aren't acceptable, that he jumps at the opportunity to do so. Meanwhile, the preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray, and the book itself, was written in response to the culture of hiding and acting more respectably. Wilde’s purpose was to criticize the veneer, that “Victorian morality did not radically transform citizens' behavior but merely forced them to camouflage their baser instincts” (Schmitt). He was against the hypocrisy of the time, and so he wrote about a character living in that state who was brought to

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