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.
Upon reading the novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson I would not have guessed there being such a controversy or existing reason behind simply the names of the characters involved. With such a dark path and background foreshadowing the novel I could have seen some sort of controversy in how the story may have been portrayed and understood, but there is an audience of readers that believe that there is something more behind the book. Digging deep within the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde it proves to me that there is reason to believe that the names of the characters were chosen for a specific reason. The three characters that stood out when reading The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde would be
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.
Dr. Jekyll is not only making it more evident that he is an addict, but also making it the addiction harder to resist. The character of Mr. Hyde is the reason Dr. Jekyll is addicted, and he can be compared to a drug addict. A drug addicts tends to go mad and are unaware of their actions, therefore being incapable of controlling themselves. With that being said, they also continuously convince others and themselves that they are completely capable of controlling themselves when in reality they cannot. The same can be said for Mr. Hyde.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde comprise of notoriety, great versus shrewdness and harm control. At the end of the day, Utterson resolutely attempts to keep his closest companion Dr. Jekyll from being dragged into the repulsive issues of Mr. Hyde, and Dr. Jekyll experiences the best of lengths to keep his Hyde personality from being found, so as to maintain a strategic distance from anybody knowing about his to some degree flawed logical work and ethically wretched conduct. A great part of the novel depends on the characters ' notorieties, how they need to keep up a decent open picture, as they are high society individuals. The novel happens in Victorian England and the principle characters are for the most part male individuals from high society
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The novel, Dr. Jekyll, and Mr. Hyde is a story about the struggle of Dr. Jekyll with the other side of his evil self, known to the people around as Edward Hyde. We learn that he adopted his evil self through lab activities so that he could practice whatever wickedness that would make the good self of Dr. Jekyll feel shame about. To a great extent, the characters in the novel Dr. Lanyon and the Lawyer Utterson fail to be good friends to Dr. Jekyll.
These crippling addictions have been seen throughout history, having chokeholds on innocent people, and likely will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. These addictions are only getting stronger with the higher availability and strength of drugs, causing abusers to become slaves to them which are explained by Comitini as she states, “When De Quincey or Coldridge describes the experience of taking or trying to quit, he depicts an individual experience of moral weakness rather than any physical or social consequence from taking or quitting the drug,” (Comitini 115). Comitini puts this perfectly, as she describes people trying to break addictions as very volatile. This parallels Jekyll since he is becoming weaker to his addiction to the point where he is essentially Mr.Hyde all the time and is never “sober”. Hyde is truly rotten to the core when it comes to his behavior, but even his outside appearance is evil.
Jekyll’s fascination of the drug is what drove him to take it in the first place and put his life and mentality on the line. After taking the drug he would then turn in to Mr. Hyde and can act upon his deepest desires without ruining his perfect scientist image of Dr. Jekyll. “The object of study—the body—was individualized, dissocialized, demoralized. Following the logic of the discourse of addiction, the same object of study exists in the novel: Hyde” (pg 117 addiction). The idea of individualization, dissocializing, and demoralizing
I think what Stevenson is trying to teach in this book is that there is a notion between good and bad in the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it was published in 1886 and it was written after a dream that Stevenson had. The story mainly is about a horror but has a slight touch of mystery trailing behind it. This is powerful story that has a hidden outlook on life and society. There is one theme that just kind of sticks out from the others but there are also more themes but you would have to read through the lines to find the smaller ones, I would say that the main theme of the story would have to be duality in humans, this means that we have all hidden something extreme in us whether it is being something extremely good or something extremely evil. Robert Louis Stevenson decided to magnify on the extreme evil in the story, the story had been set in Victorian England where society was strictly disciplined were people had been expected to be middle class or upper class
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.
“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.
He relishes in his freedom from rules. Although Dr. Jekyll 's personality traits or basic humanistic qualities were split into very different people, he never lost that touch of Mr. Hyde when he was Dr. Jekyll. Rather, he had Mr. Hyde in him his whole life, it would seem, and just succeeded in annexing out Dr. Jekyll when he became Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde never considered how his actions were hurting people. Nevertheless, as Dr. Jekyll, he experienced guilt for what was considered moral shortcomings.
Even though they are different in physical appearance, they are close. Dr. Jekyll is a “well known, large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with something of a stylish cast”. While Mr. Hyde, was a much younger man than Dr. Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll is a friend of Mr. Hyde, and this is evident because Mr. Hyde was put into Dr. Jekyll’s will, so you can say that these two are friends. Mr.Hyde,however, does not have many friends.
The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde comes to an end. Mr. Lanyon witnesses firsthand the horrific transition Mr. Hyde makes into becoming his "dear friend" Dr. Jekyll. Upon Mr. Poole and Mr. Utterson entering Dr. Jekyll's laboratory, They find a broken mirror, chemicals, and a letter inscribed to Mr. Utterson lying next to what appears to be a deceased Mr. Hyde. The letter explains the events that had occurred with Lanyon. He begins to tell Utterson that he could no longer control his transformations. "
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?
