The novel begins with a lawyer named Mr. Utterson going for a walk with his friend and relative Mr. Enfield. They walk past a door, which somehow prompts Mr. Enfield to tell a sad story: a brute of a man knocked down a little girl, everyone yelled at the rude man, and the man offered to pay a lot of money. He then disappeared through the door, only to return with a large check drawn from Dr. Jekyll’s bank account. The nasty man? None other than Mr. Hyde.
The original story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was a novel called “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” written by Robert Louis Stevenson. In 2003, they released a fantastic movie directed by Maurice Phillips and produced by John Hannah. Some of the main characters in this movie include Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde played by John Hannah, Mabel Mercer played by Kellie Shirley, and Ned played by Jack Blumenau. Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a drama/thriller about a scientist (Dr. Jekyll) whose mad experiment goes wrong. He wants to figure out how to separate the good from the evil in a human’s soul and what happens to him while it’s in his system.
In the article, “Women and Sadism In Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, Campbell covers the absence of women throughout the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. Campbell states that some of the reasons of why women seem absent include Victorian censorship, theme of homosexuality, the theme of patriarchy’s failure and the lack of what Jekyll requires to avoid his experiment (the love of a good woman). Although it seems women are absent they are present as inhabitants of the city, defining the cityscape, and receiving all the violence of Mr. Hyde either direct victims or shocked witnesses, some examples being; the little girl, the angry women accusing Hyde of hurting the girl, the housekeeper, the match girl and the maidservant at the window.
One of the major ideas presented in Jekyll and Hyde is the need for both good and evil to live in coexistence within an individual’s conscience. Jekyll’s experiments prove that a balance between the two sides of nature is crucial to be content in the world. He realizes that the only reason he is able to be one of the two sides of his nature is because he
Firstly Stevenson presents Mr Hyde as a Frightening outsider through the portrayal of an impulsive unevolved person. This creates a sense of a frightening outsider as Hyde’s attitude was unfit for his society. Hyde is often described through animalistic imagery to emphasise how he is unfit in the society and how unevolved he is and to create the image of a troglodyte a word by which he is described in in the Carew murder case.
“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.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It can be so confusing to try to explain why Dr. Jekyll felt so trapped, and why he felt that he had to separate himself into two separate personalities. Perhaps it was because of his youth, when he tasted the pleasures of sin for a short while. Maybe he even felt guilty because he wanted the evil side of life and longed to do whatever he pleased, even though it would cause pain and hurt to others. Dr. Jekyll thus separates himself into two people who share the feeling that they need to do whatever they want.
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” because the story takes place in Victorian England we see that the characters have no room for expression of emotions or violence. Everything they do is secret, so the more Dr Jekyll is repressed, the more he wants to be Mr Hyde. The original characteristics of Henry Jekyll are reflected as “...life of effort, virtue, and control” (pg. 172) because, most of his life his vice activities were maintained a secret. According to Jekyll, when evil is separated into one body, one will not know right from wrong because there is no conscious in a being of complete evil which was Hyde for
Robert Stevenson uses his protagonist’s, Dr. Jekyll, person versus self conflict to illustrate this point. Throughout the text, the reader learns that Dr. Jekyll was born into good fortune and was well-respected in society. However, the reader learns that it was not enough for him. He craves irregularities and he seeks a way to experience both sides of his identity without harming his reputation, which leads him to immoral experiments that bring out Hyde. To be specific, Jekyll states the following, “Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame” (Stevenson 55).
People are often presented with making a choice of good or bad. These opportunities can define an individual's life. Someone does not turn evil with the flip of a switch. There is always a process whether it is noticed or not. The reason a person does something in the nature of evil is commonly hard for others to understand.
Literary Devices in Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde In the novel, The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde , Robert Louis Stevenson uses multiple literary devices in the novel and the one literary device used a lot was the similes. The author uses similes to bring the true meaning into the novel and help the audience understand what they are reading. Furthermore, Stevenson used a simile to describe a neighborhood to show that the neighborhood can catch anybody’s eye, “ Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street shone out in contrast to its din-gy neighborhood, like a fire in a forest…,” (Stevenson page 4-5). The audience will get the image of what’s happening in the context and the image will help her imagine the
In the novella, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Henry Jekyll had the belief that there were two sides to everyone. One side being good. One side being evil. There is a purpose for the two coexisting.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: More Than A 19th Century Novel In Kellen Williams’s “"Down With The Door, Poole": Designating Deviance In Stevenson 's Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde”, Williams suggests that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde employs realism, as do many 19th century novels. In Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it is evident that he weaves in a significant portion of Science and scientific language to propel the narrative and highlight the failings of the Victorian society. In addition, Stevenson’s perspective on the social anxieties of the time, namely “fears about degeneration” (Davis 208), the irrevocably dual nature of man, and the questionable morality of Victorian bourgeois values. However, the depiction of class and moral anxieties
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" brings the double personality theme, but, the story itself is about the mystery behind Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde's connection. The whole story goes around Mr. Utterson - a decent lawyer - trying to find out what is wrong with his dear friend, Henry Jekyll, and what is his relationship with the devilish man, also known as Mr. Hyde. On the end of the story, the reader finds out that Mr. Hyde is Jekyll's evil side: the doctor was fascinated by the duality of human nature and decided to do some experiments to separate his two sides, the good one and the evil one. Henry Jekyll wanted to do things that he couldn't because of his reputation and social morals, therefore, the best and only way of doing what he really wanted to was to have another side that no one knew. On the other hand, he didn't know how evil his other side could be: Mr. Hyde was purely evil and Dr. Jekyll wasn't purely good.
III. SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND PREJUDICE The society in the Victorian Era was amidst a great change. Having in mind the fact that they were moving from a pastoral life to industrialization, their lifestyle changed. As with every transition, there is the issue of adapting to changes because people tend to hold onto their principles.
