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Victorian and romantic periods in British literature
Victorian and romantic periods in British literature
Victorian era essay british literature
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Robert Louis Stevenson shows a marvelous ability to portray. He depicts the surroundings, architectural details of the dwellings, the inside of the houses, the instruments and each part of the environment in detail. He even specifies that the laboratory door is “covered with red baize” (p.24). Not only does he offer a precise picture of the setting, but also he draws accurately the characters. About 200 words are used in order to describe Mr. Utterson the lawyer (p.5). Dr.Lanyon, the gentleman who befriends Mr. Utterson and Dr. Jekyll, is described as “a healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair prematurely white.” (p.12). Each of the characters are described according to their importance in the novella. Each of them except …show more content…
Hyde. The maid does not grant us anything new, but for a comparison between Mr. Hyde and “an aged beautiful gentleman with white hair” (p.20) Having two descriptions so close we cannot deny the difference between them.
The previous chapter before the two confessions is reasonably remarkable. Poole, Dr. Jekyll’s butler, provides another portrayal. He offers many comparisons between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. (“My master (…) is a tall, fine build of a man, and this was more of a dwarf.” (p.38)). The affirmations of the poor butler are all correct except perhaps the most important: This “thing” that is in the cabinet is in fact Dr. Jekyll.
The penultimate description is presented by Dr. Lanyon. Lanyon focuses in the way he feels towards Mr. Hyde and the possible reason of that (p.48).
The first transformation occurs in the seventh chapter of the novella. Mr. Utterson and Mr. Enfield can see barely something because Dr. Jekyll closes the window in the precise instant when transformation starts (p.33).Nevertheless, it is sufficient to provoke a deadly silence between the two gentlemen. The last transformation is pretty inexact too, but it appears in Dr. Jekyll confession. The narrator is dealing with several things, it is not strange this evasion of a suitable
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Lanyon uses more words in his description of Mr. Hyde than in a moment with that importance. In addition, Lanyon describes more accurately the change of color of the potion than the transformation itself (p.49).
As specified, descriptions cannot be called descriptions. Moreover, in a extremely important moment, the transformation, when Mr. Hyde should appear in all his glory, words simply avoid his figure. Trying to find a reason for this strange way to proceed Sami Schalk wrote an interesting article: “What Makes Mr. Hyde So Scary?: Disability as a Result of Evil and Cause of Fear”. One of the main ideas of the text is that Stevenson takes advantage of Victorians’ mentality and uses this untraceable disability of Mr. Hyde in order to produce fear:
Just as Victorians did not particularly distinguish between mind and body, the moral model does not regulate which comes first (…). As a result it is not clear if Hyde is disabled because he is evil or if he is evil because he is disabled. The two are not necessarily perceived to be the same, but are so intensely linked in the back of our minds that it becomes hard to not make the assumption of their coexistence
In this piece, I have chosen to write a eulogy to Dr Jekyll as it best to exemplify my thoughts and understanding of the novella. I stood in the viewpoint of Mr Utterson because he recognizes for what was unravelled within Jekyll’s dark trail. In order to highlight certain portions of Jekyll’s qualities, I further
On his way out, Utterson asks Poole what the man delivering the letter looked like, but Poole did not know what letter he was talking about other than the regular mail. Later that evening, Utterson invites a friend, Mr. Guest, for his expertise in calligraphy to compare the letter from Hyde to some other writings of Jekyll’s. Mr. Guest implies that they were written by the same person, only with a slight tilt of the wrist in Hyde’s letter. Utterson is now truly shaken with the thought of Dr. Jekyll forging the letter from Mr. Hyde. With Jekyll’s good nature returning in the following months and no sign of Hyde, Dr. Jekyll throws another dinner-party which is attended by both Utterson and Dr. Lanyon. But as the cycle continues, only a couple of days after, Jekyll becomes secluded. Utterson inquires from Lanyon to see what the problem is but Lanyon is weak and distraught. Irate at the mention of Jekyll’s name he tells Utterson that he will know soon enough. Not much information came from mailing Jekyll as well to what was happening. Jekyll’s reply only saying that he still likes Lanyon but his distantness must continue though the pain he is
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novel about dual identity, Dr. Henry Jekyll, an affluent surgeon, creates a potion by which he can transform into Edward Hyde, the physical manifestation of his evil side. After many months of thrilling nighttime criminal escapades through the streets of London, his antics under the cloak of Hyde get him in trouble when he slays prominent public figure Danvers Carew. Jekyll is so shocked by this deed of evil that he decides an end will be put to his transformations, a science he calls transcendental medicine. Much to his alarm, Jekyll finds that he now turns into Hyde without his wanting it, undeniably a side effect of the drug. After locking himself into his cabinet, in order to facilitate his use of the drug in case of spontaneous transformations, his concerned butler Poole alerts good friend Gabriel Utterson, a lawyer. Together, they break into the cabinet, only to find they body of Hyde, lifeless on the floor. The pair finds an envelope addressed to Utterson which shall supposedly explain why they cannot find the body of Henry Jekyll.
Mr. Utterson: A highly respected lawyer in the town who is very loyal to his clients. Mr. Utterson is friends with Jekyll and Lanyon, and also Mr. Guest. Utterson helps Poole reveal the truth about Jekyll and Hyde. Utterson is a man of reason and is strict with his rules and principles.
Within the text of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson portrays a complex power struggle between Dr. Jekyll, a respected individual within Victorian London society, and Mr. Hyde a villainous man tempted with criminal urges, fighting to take total control of their shared body. While Dr. Jekyll is shown to be well-liked by his colleagues, Mr. Hyde is openly disliked by the grand majority of those who encounter him, terrified of his frightful nature and cruel actions. Throughout Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson portrays the wealthy side of London, including Mr. Utterson and Dr. Jekyll, as respected and well-liked, while showing the impoverish side as either non-existent or cruel.
All of this changed when he tried to portray the image of a light-hearted, good-natured person so he “hydes” his evil pleasures. He states in his confession letter, “.my medical studies began to increasingly focus on the origins and dimensions of this phenomenon of duality. This investigation of course, bordered on the mystical and the transcendental, but only these disciplines could help me better understand myself and the duality of all human beings “ (110).... ... middle of paper ...
“…Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay… It seemed natural and human. This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.”(Stevenson 80)
An example of this would be how Utterson outline Hyde as “He’s an extraordinary looking man”. In contrast, Utterson said, “I really can name nothing out of the way”. These quotations add the theme of secrecy upon the reader as we are confused by the double characteristics of Hyde between how he looks physically and how his inner soul played out. In consequence, for some reason, nobody seems to remember his appearances at all like none of them would ever want to. In addition, the theme of religion, God and the Devil is employed to show the ultimate antithesis in Jekyll and Hyde. The simile “like Satan’ and the metaphor, ‘the Day of Judgement” construct the feeling of evil upon the face and body of Hyde which will soon be punished by god in this day, thus, we feel that his deformity must have a cause and also an
To begin with, Stevenson shows duality of human nature through society. During the Victorian era, there were two classes, trashy and wealthy. Dr. Jekyll comes from a wealthy family, so he is expected to be a proper gentleman. He wants to be taken seriously as a scientist, but also indulge in his darker passions.“...I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality/ of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in/ the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said/ to be either, it was only because I was radically both..."(125).
Utterson even compares his face to “Satan’s signature” (p23). Dr Lanyon writes that Mr Hyde has a “remarkable combination of great muscular activity and a great apparent debility of constitution” (p65).When a young girl is in Hyde’s way, he tramples her without asking if she is hurt. While this is regarded as a cruel and violent action by most people’s morals, Hyde appears to feel no remorse for what he did. This demonstrates how his moral code differs from that of society. Another instance of this violent, psychopathic behavior is when Mr Hyde beats an old man to death with a cane with what is described as “ape-like fury”, demonstrating his animalistic side which allows him to follow his instincts (p30). Since murder is a crime, Mr Hyde becomes a wanted man, and even his moral counterpart, Dr Jekyll, wants nothing more to do with him. Most killers are tracked down when the police question their friends and family to help give an idea of where they went, but Hyde is a solitary man with almost no ties to other people. This isolation aids him in escaping the law and living his free life without being restrained by society’s rules and code of behaviour. Whereas Dr Jekyll is concerned with keeping his good reputation, Mr Hyde does not have to worry about this since he was always “despised and friendless” and therefore has no reputation to lose (p79). In his statement, Dr Jekyll says that whilst Jekyll
Benjamin Franklin once said, “It is much easier to suppress a first desire than it is to satisfy those that follow.” This is certainly true in the situation of Dr. Jekyll, as the temptation of becoming Mr. Hyde becomes stronger as he continually surrenders to the wickedness that is constantly misleading him. Mr. Hyde is never contented, even after murdering numerous innocents, but on the contrary, his depravity is further intensified. The significance of the repression of a desire is a prevalent theme throughout the novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, as the inability to repress one’s curiosity can lead to a fatal end, whereas the repression of a desire that can no longer contain itself, or the repression of confronting a guilty conscience, will conclude in a tragic ending and in this case specifically,
The reader is drawn to the plot of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde through the literary devices Stevenson employs. Foreshadowing displays the sense of mystery throughout the novel, the foreshadowing of the actions of Mr. Hyde leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. The ironic nature of Dr. Jekyll relates to the reader as a person, no person is completely perfect and Dr. Jekyll exhibits the natural wants and desires of humans. The irony behind Mr. Hyde adds an enigmatic side to the plot. These two devices expose the readers to the complexity of the novel and reveal the inner meaning of the hidden details.
This essay will focus on how Robert Louis Stevenson presents the nature of evil through his novel ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. Using ideas such as duality, the technique used to highlight the two different sides of a character or scene, allegories, an extended metaphor which has an underlying moral significance, and hypocrisy; in this book the Victorians being against all things evil but regularly taking part in frown able deeds that would not be approved of in a ‘respectable’ society. This links in with the idea of secrecy among people and also that evil is present in everyone. The novel also has strong ties and is heavily influenced by religion. Stevenson, being brought up following strong Calvinist beliefs, portrays his thoughts and opinion throughout the story in his characters; good and evil.
The novella, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson centers on the issues of identity, social hierarchy, and class. In an article, “Character Crisis: Hegemonic Negotiations in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” Benjamin D. O’Dell argues that hegemony is essential in maintaining social hierarchy, but while his representation of gentlemanliness helps us understand Utterson’s role, it does not allow one to make sense of how the recurring image of the hands correlates to the facts that are hidden and revealed in the novella. The motif of hand-related images is used as the main source of revelations and represents the trust placed between characters
Throughout our lives, many of us have questioned if someone is born good or evil, and in Stevenson’s novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he shares