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Society and the individual in Frankenstein
An essay on depiction of monsters in literature
Mary shelley frankenstein and society
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Recommended: Society and the individual in Frankenstein
In the books Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson and Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley, the main characters have a lack of responsibility. Both creators have no responsibility when it came to creating a living thing. When Frankenstein and Henry Jekyll create these creatures they eventually destroy what is most important to them. Jekyll loses himself and his reputation of being a sweet, dapper man. Frankenstein loses his whole family and most importantly his wife Elizabeth who was the light in his life.
The responsibility between Jekyll and Frankenstein is different with their creations. Jekyll had to control himself more and Frankenstein should have been more nurturing to his creature. Jekyll knew the consequences
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of creating Hyde but didn’t take the responsibility of controlling himself.
In the end, Hyde was so in control of him Jekyll had to vow never to change into Hyde again. The only problem with vowing not to change back to Hyde was he didn’t change his will and he didn’t get rid of the potion. He didn’t take the responsibility of throwing Hyde’s clothes away and getting rid of anything that had to do with him. He kept them just in case. The reason he was so obsessed with Hyde was his society allowed each individual to only be one thing good or evil. He created Hyde to be free which got the best of him. His lack of responsibility and control led to Hyde becoming a monster. All things are not born evil. Frankenstein lacked responsibility by not taking care of his creation. He let the impression of looks cover the inside. “Never did I behold a vision so horrible as his face, I shut my eyes involuntarily” (15.26). He runs away when he should stay. He should nurture him like a father or thought of what the monster would be like once it awoke and how he would deal with it. Instead he hide, scared that the monster was going to kill him. He needed to talk to the creature, put him in a place where he felt safe, and make sure he didn’t get away from him. The creature was neglected and faced the world on his own. He was …show more content…
exposed to people who disgraced him and were scared of him. He hated himself and Frankenstein. Frankenstein’s irresponsibility lead to the death of his little brother and wife who was strangled by the creature. The creature wanted to get revenge for his creation. After losing Elizabeth, Frankenstein wasn’t the same. He lost the most important thing in his life all because he didn’t take the responsibility of the creature. The difference between Frankenstein and Jekyll was Jekyll could destroy his monster and Frankenstein could not. Throughout Frankenstein, women are a big role in the men’s lives.
They provide many lessons for the men or impact them by dying like Elizabeth. Agatha, the cottager’s daughter, is studied by the monster and he sees that she is kind and gentle. She takes very good care of her blind father and she teaches the creature lessons on healthy human relationships, what it’s like to love and how to take care of someone. Safie who lives with Agatha also teaches the creature by teaching him English. Each women lived with one function and had a life lesson for each man and then she would die or disappear. If it weren’t for the women, the story would have been
different. Their societies were quite different. Dr.Jekyll’s society is very strict and judges everything everyone does. The main reason Jekyll created Hyde was so he could be free to be whoever he wanted to be. He could be Hyde and no one would know. Frankenstein on the other hand didn’t have a strict society. They thought he was unusual for collecting dead bodies but they weren’t judging. Jekyll’s society made want to create Hyde, Frankenstein’s society didn’t. Both books, Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley and Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson, characters’ are lacking responsibility when it comes to taking care of and controlling their monsters. Their monsters end up destroying them by killing their loved ones or destroying their social lives. In the end, Jekyll and Frankenstein loose themselves in their creations and become obsessed.
...ry one may think that Jekyll should have reflected on his behaviour and when he got inkling to separate the two sides he should have stopped, as then he wouldn’t have been playing with God and becoming a heretic in the eyes of society.
From reading the last chapter, we can all see that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are easily viewed as a symbol about the good and evil that exists in all men, and about the struggle these two sides in the human personality. Hyde has a short temper and is made to look evil. “I observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near me at first with a visible misgiving of the flesh”. Jekyll is arguing that Hyde is the perfect physical embodiment of the evil inside him, implying that Hyde looks evil. Stevenson has also explored which aspect of human personality is superior, good or evil. Since at the start of the book Hyde seems to be taking over, you might argue that evil is stronger than good. However, Hyde does end up dead at the end of the story, suggesting a failure of the weakness of evil. Since Hyde represents the evil in Jekyll he is therefore symbolically represented being much smaller than Jekyll as “Jekyll’s clothes are far too large for him”. But as the plot progresses Mr. Hyde began to grow and becomes more powerful than Jekyll, and the reason for Hyde to become more powerful is due to the fact that Jekyll enjoys what Hyde does, which allow Hyde to gradually destroy the good in
Jekyll is respectable man with a very good career. He is a doctor that is highly regarded in his community for what he does as far as charity and his manners. As young man growing up, he was secretly involved in weird behaviors that made him a bit questionable. Dr. Jekyll finds his other side to be quite bothersome and he decides to experiment so he could try a separate the good from the evil. He creates potions and other things that really do not help. After so many attempts of trying to restrain his evil side, he brings forth Hyde through his failed experimentation. Therefore, he only accentuates his evil self to come forth. Hyde is an extremely ugly creature that no one could stand the sight of. He is deformed, violent, and very evil. Throughout the story, he fights against Jekyll to take over his life eventually causing Jekyll to murder one of his good friends, Mr.
Jekyll. Hyde commits acts of murder and assault yet can be seen as Dr. Jekyll’s id or deep desires. By trying to separate good and bad . Dr. Jekyll passed scientific and social borders to isolate his personality. In doing so, he lost control of who he wanted to be. As a last resort he created a poisonous potion that Hyde drank and died through act of suicide. Dr. Jekyll although not working with anyone took matters in his own hands which makes him seem like an outlaw hero. He did not turn himself into the police when he had control. However, Dr. Jekyll seems to have qualities of a official hero in his maturity in handling the situation. He knows how evil his alter ego is, so he isolates himself from others as a safety precaution. Jekyll tries to live a normal life, but is unable to. His status as a well distinguished doctor and sociability skills with his
Society dictates the behavior of the creature and how individuals react to that society. Within both Victor and the creature, another situation would abide how nature and nurture is in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel “Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde”. In the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, there are many instances of foul play. Now the question is, where do these acts cause a born child to become evil? They may be evil but not because of man. In many instances in the book, the characters use the term “creature” a lot and not man. For instance after first meeting Mr. Hyde, Mr Utterson says, “God bless me, the man seems hardly human!” (Stevenson 40). This isn't the only instance of this though, many times in the story, Hyde is addressed as a “creature”
Dr. Jekyll shouldn’t have let his guilt win due to his choice of killing himself. No matter what he did to try and forget that he was also Mr. Hyde he couldn’t, but after all that happened,
The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a confusing and perplexing one. R.L. Stevenson uses the devices of foreshadow and irony to subtly cast hints to the reader as to who Mr. Hyde is and where the plot will move. Stevenson foreshadows the events of the book through his delicate hints with objects and words. Irony is demonstrated through the names of characters, the names display to the reader how the character will fit into the novel. These two literary devices engage the readers; they employ a sense of mystery while leading the readers to the answer without them realizing the depth of each indirect detail.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde both suffer; however, one from illness and the other from insanity. Mr. Hyde is a sociopath, and lives in it to the full extent as well as Jekyll being a psychopath. However, Hyde was created the way he was to portray a sinful side of Jekyll, while Jekyll was himself throughout, good and bad, to manipulate and gain in the harm of
Hyde is also responsible, but less, for the death of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, because he caused Jekyll to be so ashamed and feel that the only way out was to take the poison and sacrifice himself. The text states that in Jekyll’s confession, it says that he, (Jekyll), kept trying to keep Jekyll there and was so ashamed of Hyde, who caused it. This evidence proves that Hyde influenced Jekyll to feel this way, because he made Jekyll feel so bad that he took the poison to kill Hyde after all his evil acts. Furthermore, the text shows that Hyde’s characteristic of boldness and risk-taking shows that he didn’t commit suicide to avoid being caught, that Jekyll killed him and sacrificed himself. This evidence proves that Hyde was partially responsible for his own and Jekyll’s death because in order to stop all that he and Hyde had done, Jekyll killed him. On the other hand, Jekyll created Hyde, so Hyde couldn’t have been even partially responsible. However, Hyde eventually overpowered Jekyll’s decisions, which caused Jekyll to be very ashamed and to feel that he need to sacrifice himself to stop all that Hyde was
Mr. Hyde is the monstrous side of Dr. Jekyll from their book “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” In their story, Dr. Jekyll is a brilliant scientist who has created a formula that turns him into Mr. Hyde. It is stated that, at some point, Dr. Jekyll became addicted to the potion. Though it is unclear what would cause the addiction, since it would be Hyde who would experience the “high” and not Jekyll himself. Hyde is the contrast to Dr. Jekyll, and is considerably more brutal and immoral. Modern incarnations depict him as becoming incredibly muscular after the transformation, though in the original work it is only implied that Hyde is stronger, retaining his previous physique. It is consistent that Hyde is shown to be ugly, perhaps even deformed.
In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, she characterized the women as disposable, passive and only serving a utilitarian function. Characters like Justine, Margaret, Elizabeth, Safie, and Agatha are only relevant to create a storyline for the male characters in the novel. When something happens to one of them it is usually to teach a male character a lesson or to spark an emotion within him. Each woman in Shelly’s Frankenstein serves a purpose to the novel.
Though Hyde is pure evil, Jekyll is not pure goodness; he is still the same old conflicted mix of both good and evil. To cover his tracks, Jekyll rented a room for Hyde, opened a bank account in his name, and explained to his household servants that Hyde was to be allowed to freely come and go through the house. Hyde was even made Jekyll’s sole heir. At first, Jekyll delights in having his alter ego. Through Hyde, he can live out his fantasies of doing whatever he pleases, with no consequences, seeing as how he has but to drink the potion to make Hyde disappear. No accountability for Hyde’s
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are two horrific tales of science gone terribly wrong. Shelley?s novel eloquently tells the story of a scientist, Victor Frankenstein, who creates a living monster out of decomposed body parts, while Stevenson?s novel describes the account of one, Henry Jekyll, who creates a potion to bring out the pure evil side to himself. Although the two scientists differ in their initial response and action to their creations, there are strong similarities between their raging curiosity to surpass human limitation, as well as their lack of responsibility concerning their actions. These similarities raise an awareness of human limitation in the realm of science: the further the two scientists go in their experiments, the more trouble and pain they cause to themselves and to others.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are two entirely different people who have different personalities. They are also different physically, mentally and morally. In the end it was Dr. Jekyll’s fault for letting his evil side take over. Every time he would drink the potion he would transform into Mr. Hyde and that kept getting Mr. Hyde more and more powerful. Then sadly Dr. Jekyll gave in to the worst and became Mr. Edward
Henry Jekyll’s innermost vices, but since he held himself to an extremely high standard of moral excellence, he needed to find another way of releasing. He creates Hyde as his way of getting these primal urges out. During this time period, the focus on reputation and credibility was huge, and this is how men were judged. He had many urges that he was internally repressing, as a result of existing in the Victorian era, which was well known for how incredibly stuffy and repressed it was. Jekyll was widely respected in the community as a doctor and he had many friends, so it is understandable that he didn’t want to lose his reputation, which came first for men of his social standing in this time period. He went to great lengths to create and cover for Hyde, including renting a place for Hyde to live, and making a bank account for his alter ego. The creation of Hyde turns out to be way more sinister than Jekyll initially imagined. Hyde’s own name is a pun, as he is the part of Jekyll that he must keep hidden away for fear of