Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Analysis

Written just four years apart, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886) and The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) are both examples of Victorian gothic literature, written in response to changing ideas about the human psychology and the hypocrisies of Victorian England, with particular reference to its capital, London, a city that reflects the internal contradictions of the novels’ protagonists. These contradictions are explored through the idea of the doppelgänger, “an apparition or double of a living person.” The divided self was a classic motif of Gothic literature, because it highlighted that appearances could be deceiving and that within us all there is a struggle between good and evil. For Stevenson and Wilde, this produced a schism between the repressive

social conventions of the times and the expression of one’s true self. In both cases the irreconcilability of these two states of being is shown to have forced animal passions underground with tragic results. Both authors also develop the idea “that man is not truly one, but truly two,” through other forms of duality: the seen and the unseen, the body and the soul, and respectability and immorality. This is explored through the novels’ structure and through characterisation, with both texts portraying characters with divided selves who live double lives.

Characterisation is used by both Wilde and Stevenson to explore one of the most important dualisms of gothic literature: the dualism between ‘culture’ and ‘nature’ and the belief that social structures could mask and refine, but never defeat nature. Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll is a respectable scientist who invents a potion that erases all traces of physical and moral refinement and transforms him into the degenerate Mr Hyde. In chapter one, Mr Hyde is introduced by a secondary character as “some damned Juggernaut” and as an evil beast who “trampled calmly” over a young girl’s body, descriptions that reinforce his unstoppable momentum. In contrast, Dorian Gray, whose fall from innocence and descent into depravity is charted in the novel, is introduced by Wilde’s omniscient narrator as “wonderfully handsome, with his finely curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes, his crisp gold hair.” Unlike Dr Jekyll, Dorian doesn’t split into two physical beings, instead his soul is absorbed by a portrait of him, which grows decrepit in response to his increasing debauchery, but leaves Dorian’s physical appearance untouched.

Stevenson and Wilde both explore the notion of psychological and scientific influence in the context of Victorian London.

Dorian’s divided self is explored through the competing characters of Lord Henry, and the artist Basil Hallward who paints Dorian’s portrait. Both are engaged in a struggle over Dorian’s soul. Lord Henry projects onto Dorian the view that “all influence is immoral— immoral from the scientific point of view,” and admonishes him about the dangers of adhering to conventions and morals; while Basil, despite his declared fascination with Dorian’s outward beauty, reminds him of the need to nurture his sense of common humanity. In Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde, degradation and immorality is also equated with a lack of evolution. Published after the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species (1859) and during the rise of ideas of Social Darwinism, Stevenson attributes primal, almost subhuman characteristics to Mr Hyde, referring to his “ape-like fury,” with Mr Utterson, the narrator, noting that he “seems hardly human.” Hyde is thus constructed as bestial in appearance and character. Through him Stevenson suggests the importance of evolution and refinement for human society, while also proposing that within us all is a trace of our animal origins. The motif of the physical appearance of evil is also explored in Dorian Gray: “Sin is a thing that writes itself across a man’s face. (...) If a wretched man has a vice, it shows itself in the lines of his mouth, the

droop of his eyelids, the moulding of his hands even.” Both authors continually return to the contradictions between the appearances of affluent refinement and the squalor that can lie within.

Stevenson and Wilde return to the contradictions between the appearances of affluent refinement and the potential for evil that can lie within, presenting characters who regard evil with a morbid fascination as shown through dialogue. In Dorian Gray, Dorian and Lord Henry are obsessed with beauty, aesthetics and the world of appearances. This is symbolised by their regular attendance at the opera and the theatre, diversions that serve as a substitute for real life and alienate them from the struggles of the working classes and the downtrodden of London. When Sybil, the young East End actress Dorian has become infatuated with, commits suicide because of him, instead of feeling guilt or grief Dorian and Henry cast her death as a piece of theatre, Lord Henry convincing Dorian to consider how lucky he is be at the centre of such a tragedy. Dorian declares that it is, “a wonderful ending to a wonderful play”, and Henry replies that he “found an exquisite pleasure in playing on the lad's unconscious egotism.” Similarly, Dr Jekyll observes the murderous actions of Mr Hyde with a clinical fascination: while Jekyll’s experiments aim to separate the good and evil in his personality, this is not to rid himself of evil, but to enable him to live as two distinct people - his high-minded, socially responsible self and his debauched self - without compromise or guilt. Jekyll states that he would recall his time as Hyde with joy: “I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking the chops of memory.”

Stevenson and Wilde use the dualities of London to explore ideas about the connections between poverty and immorality. In Dorian Gray, the West End is characterised by wealth and luxury, while the East End is home to poverty, squalor and crime. In the West, Dorian is “made of ivory and gold”, while in the East “Women with hoarse voices and harsh laughter (...) called after him” and drunkards cursed him “like monstrous apes,” another reference perhaps to the social Darwinist ideas gaining popularity at the time/ Stevenson’s historical context. As Henry declares, “Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders. …I should fancy that crime is to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.” In Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde, London is less clearly divided along lines of East and West but the distinction between rich and poor areas is still clear. Mr Hyde lives in a “sinister block of building” in a “dingy neighbourhood” in Soho, an area geographically situated in the West, but impoverished at the time, and often home to immigrants. Dr Jekyll, however, lives in a highly respectable neighbourhood, full of “ancient, handsome houses,” and cultivated, wealthy residents. Dorian’s house is, assumedly, in a similarly lavish area and the luxurious interior indicates Dorian’s inherited wealth and his hedonism. Decorated with “long tussore-silk curtains,” and “persian saddle-bags,” his rooms are an opulent shrine to beauty and self-indulgence. His portrait, however, ‘lives’ upstairs in a neglected room “covered with cobwebs,” and “full of dust,” a place reminiscent of Mr Hyde’s decaying house in Soho.

These settings are further explored through symbolism. Dorian is symbolic of London’s nobility and upper classes: too absorbed by fine manners and material luxury to care much about the poverty of the working classes. Indeed, they regard the working classes as grotesque, seeing their lack of refinement as evidence of their inferiority rather than a result of socio-economic disadvantage. Some resolve to perform charitable acts to lift the spirits of the poor and only Lord Henry seems to understand this hypocrisy, explaining that the East End “is the problem of slavery, and we try to solve it by amusing the slaves.” Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are also symbols of two opposing sides of Victorian society, with Dr Jekyll representing affluence, intelligence and honorability, and Mr Hyde embodying the poverty of the working classes and the grotesqueness that Lord Henry and others equate them with. The settings in which both Dorian and Jekyll/Hyde first become divided are also symbolically significant. Dorian’s portrait is painted in studio located in a ”green, flickering, sun-lashed” garden, and Dorian’s subsequent ‘fall’ makes this appear like a Garden of Eden. Extending this, Basil is the portrait’s god-like creator, while Henry is the serpent, who corrupts Dorian’s innocence by giving him knowledge of good and evil. Hyde, on the other hand, is created in a laboratory, a “dingy, windowless structure,” that is “gaunt and silent.” The laboratory can be seen as a symbol of the hopes, but also the fears, of the Victorian period. Science offered humanity greater control over nature but at the same time there were anxieties about the dangers of ‘playing god’. Through the settings, both authors question issues of class and evil, suggesting that evil isn’t negated by wealth, despite what many people in Victorian London may have thought.

Structurally, the novels employ quite different techniques to progress the plot.

The structure of Dorian Gray is similar to that of a play, chronological, but effectively split into two acts, connected with a short bridge. Stevenson’s novella, similarly, is split into a number of distinct parts, a first person, chronologic narrative recount of events, narrated by Mr Utterson, followed by a letter, written by secondary character Dr Lanyon and a testimony by Dr Jekyll, where all is revealed in a climactic denouement. The splits in structure, and use of different perspectives in both cases, reflect the double lives of their protagonists. The first part of Dorian Gray is an ode to Dorian’s beauty and innocence, and introduces Dorian’s impressionability, growing narcissism and his belief that “the gods have been good to [him].” Tonally, the first part of Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde is detached and straightforward, simply an account of Hyde’s crimes and Jekyll’s social respectability as a man “known for charities,” spanning a period of two years, with time jumps separating chapters. A similar, but much longer time shift is used in the bridge section of Wilde’s novel. This section, outlining Dorian’s descent into hedonism and debauchery, and his final, complete rejection of Victorian morality, lasts twenty years and serves to highlight just how youthful Dorian has remained, despite no longer being young and “cherubic.” And while in the first part of the novel the reader feels some connection

with him, in the second part, as Dorian becomes murderous, the reader ceases to feel any sympathy for Dorian’s fate. In contrast, the final section of Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde encourages the reader to feel some sympathy with Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde. In Dr Jekyll’s testimony, in which he reflects on the experiment and brings the novel to its climax, the mysteries in the novel are solved. The endings of both novels are shocking. In Stevenson’s novel the potion used to transform Hyde back to Jekyll has lost its potency, causing Mr Hyde to become the dominant identity and leading him to recognise that the only way out of his degradation is death. Similarly, the denouement of Dorian Gray has Dorian slashing his portrait and, inadvertently, killing himself. The conclusions seem unambiguous with both authors advocating the need to balance both sides of the self and to not succumb to the basest desires. Through interesting structures and endings, the authors ask their readers to acknowledge the divisions within themselves and to question the society that led their protagonists to suffer their fates.

The Picture of Dorian Gray and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are critiques of their social contexts and ideas about class, and good and evil prevalent at that time. By playing into Victorian suspicions about hidden desires and the uncertainty of both science and God, Stevenson and Wilde critique the repressive conventions of Victorian London. Stevenson’s construction of Mr Hyde, as an, animalistic man, and double to an admired doctor, and Wilde’s portrayal of a high society man, who, underneath his beauty, is evil, suggest that wealth, status and appearance play no part in true goodness. Rather, they suggest that both ugliness and beauty, good and evil, exist in everyone, and that any attempt to separate or hide these two sides are bound to end in tragedy.