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How Does Stevenson Present Mr Hyde As An Outsider

1155 Words5 Pages

How does Stevenson present Hyde as a frightening outsider? demons=us Hyde as a character is never fully present, he is always coming or going from one place to another whenever he is introduced into the narrative. All the characters find it difficult to describe him, no one knows what he is doing when he is out of Mr Utterson’s perspective. Stevenson has effectively manipulated language and dramatic effect from the first mention of Mr Hyde in order to create the elusive evil that haunts the streets of Victorian London. Stevenson presents a sense of displacement about Mr Hyde, when he is first encountered, he is ‘stumping along eastward’ at ‘3 o’clock’ in the morning, and when he is met by Mr Utterson he is ‘approaching home’, again in the …show more content…

Many men of the period, as shown through Mr Utterson, were very concerned about the way that they appear to society, Mr Utterson for example ‘drinks gin’ ‘to mortify a taste for vintages’. However, Mr Hyde is primarily described by his actions rather than his physical appearance, the first encounter with Mr Hyde is when he ‘trample[s]’ a young girl, and it is only later that the reader discovers that he is ‘deformed’, by focusing on the actions Stevenson is forcing the reader to not judge a book by its cover, but rather by its deeds and morals -which is a key theme throughout the book. Mr Hyde clearly does not care about what other people think of him, and this really makes him an outsider to a society focused on facades and decorum. One could argue that by doing this Stevenson is saying that people shouldn’t care so much about keeping up appearances and this is what prevents us from being our true selves, but there is a problem in this conclusion, Hyde’s true self is evil and uncaring for the feelings of others which surely isn’t beneficial to anyone. However, Stevenson isn’t saying that we should all mince our words so as not to hurt anyone, he is offering the two extremes to the reader and showing that it is not possible to be one or the other, a Jekyll or a Hyde, we have to be ourselves and still try to have empathy for others because that is what makes us human. Humanity isn’t an extreme anything, nothing is black or white, it’s the gray area in between, a cocktail of contradictions and mistakes. To strip someone of one or the other is impossible to retain anything remotely

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