Peoples actions are influenced by current times. In general, one's surroundings affect how they behave. In Robert Louis Stevenson's mystery novella, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Victorian Era influenced the characters actions. Society reacts in certain ways depending on the situation. Utterson goes to visit Lanyon because he hasn't been out in days.
“The man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground” (3). Mr. Hyde ran over a young girl late into the night without feeling any guilt. Robert Louis Stevenson shows the archetypal theme of good and evil exists in all people in the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. Good and evil exist in all people and we struggle with these two forces. This is shown through Jekyll because he is good with a little bad in him, this is also shown through Hyde, who is evil with some good, and it is lastly shown with the lab because it brings good and evil into Jekyll’s life.
When Robert Louis Stevenson was woken from a nightmare, he said to his wife, "Why did you wake me? I was dreaming a fine, bogey tale. " Good thing he was woken, because if he wasn't, he might not have gone on to write his bestseller, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The idea was so thought provoking that Stevenson went on to write it all down and have it published. Because of this, it must be considered a classic.
The same idea can be observed when examining Dr. Jekyll’s attempts to rid himself of Mr. Hyde. To begin with, he is able to control when he transforms into Mr. Hyde with ease. The more he allows this to occur, the less he is able to maintain this control. Dr. Jekyll states that “my new power tempted me until I fell in slavery” which suggests an addiction the potion, identical to Jack Torrance’s alcohol addiction. Towards the end of the novella he is becoming Mr. Hyde at frequent and unpredictable intervals, due to the forfeit of his “power of voluntary change”.
In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jekyll attempts to split himself into two people, Edward Hyde and Henry Jekyll. He achieves this difference by creating a concoction out of a crystalline salt and a “blood-red liquor, which was highly pungent to the sense of smell and seemed to me to contain phosphorus and some volatile ether” (Stevenson 104). But as expected, his plan didn’t work out. Jekyll stated, “Man is not truly one, but truly two, I say two because the state of my own knowledge does pass beyond that point” (111). In his scientific studies, Jekyll has come to the conclusion that a man cannot be entirely good or evil, but must be both.
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is exactly what the title says, a strange case. As the reader (if you didn’t have prior knowledge of the story), you would think the story tells the lives of two different men and their constant battles of life. In the last chapter, you find out the truth and the lies between these two characters. The last chapter of the novel is a very important piece of the puzzle when figuring out why Jekyll changes into Hyde.
The concept of keeping something hidden creates lies which results in the contradiction of reality. Dr. Jekyll created a false charisma as he hid his dark side within the identity of Mr. Hyde. The secret continued to make Dr. Jekyll look like a better person than he really was which deceived the town into thinking that he was always innocent in the several murderous situations that had occurred in the novella. Mr. Utterson— lawyer and long time friend of Jekyll’s— was a victim of Jekyll’s trick as Utterson thought to himself, “This Master Hyde, if he were studied, must have secrets of his own: black secrets, by the look of him; secrets compared to which poor Jekyll’s worst would be like sunshine” (11). If the truth would have been known the
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story of a man who has two different personalities living in the same body. The two personalities are totally opposite from one another and you never see them at the same time. The two personalities are so different that friends of Dr. Jekyll cannot tell that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person. Dr. Jekyll is a respectable and honorable man from a wealthy family.
Dr. Jekyll is seemingly good, kind, and benevolent; while is not purely good he is a moral gentleman. He started his experiment so he could totally separate the bad and the good in himself into two separate beings. He did not succeed, however, for Dr. Jekyll is plagued by the feeling that he wants to become evil again, thus he wants to become Mr. Hyde. It is important to note that Mr. Hyde is completely evil; he has no goodness in him, in contrast to Dr. Jekyll who was a troubled mix. Mr. Hyde feels no remorse for any evil he has done and actually feels elated when he does commit a moral sin.
Within the novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, there stands a strange case of good versus evil. However, this story has no great villain or even a valiant hero, it has only a man fighting with his vices and dark urges and desires, which grow darker, more morbid and perverted at the novel goes on. Then, as a means to free himself of such darkness and “evil,” the man creates an antidote or rather cocktail of drugs to help him in such matter. Only problem being, the cocktail separates his psyche in two and with the two sides released from each other. The darkness the bad is allowed to grow and lash out unattended and unblocked.
Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde recounts the story of a quiet, yet esteemed lawyer, Mr. Utterson, who becomes involved in a mysterious case regarding his friend Dr. Henry Jekyll and the unusual Mr. Hyde. After Jekyll names the malignant and strange Hyde as a beneficiary in his will, Utterson begins a search to uncover the mystery created by Jekyll and Hyde. As the novella progresses, Dr. Jekyll becomes increasingly serious and solemn, growing older and tired as time progresses while his mind forms new and darker views of life and human nature. Throughout the story, Dr. Jekyll experiences a change of both mind and body that affects him profoundly.
Starting with this extract, how does Stevenson create a sense of fear and horror in the novel? In the novel, Stevenson, uses Gothic elements to create a sense of suspense and tension. This allows him introduce characters such as Mr Hyde who catalyse this tension, however Stevenson use of the setting also plays a vital role in creating this sinister atmosphere. This is revealed through 'black winter morning' (Chapter 1) which reinforces this idea as the noun 'black' has connotations of death and atrocity - two elements from the semantic field of evil.
An old man called Mr. Carew was beaten up to death with his own walking cane in the street by Mr. Hyde’s house. A maid sitting on her window saw this and recognized Mr. Hyde as the murderer. The corpse has a letter that was addressed to Me. Utterson, so the investigators went to his house. When he hears that the murderer is Mr. Hyde, he offers to take the police to his house.
There is uncertainty as to what these altered genetics will bring for both present day, and future generations (“Genetically Modified Food”
Have you ever watched a movie or a tv show, or even read a book, in which any character has two different sides? It was probably..., the good one and the evil one? And those sides are always opposites… Right? If this plot is not a strange thing to you, have you ever thought why is this idea/theme so present in many ways inside the pop culture?
