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An essay on 'Importance" on Oscar Wilde's Important of being earnest
An essay on 'Importance" on Oscar Wilde's Important of being earnest
The strange case of dr. jekyll and mr. hyde analysis
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Though very different in terms of tone and genre, Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest are similar in that they provide meaningful commentary on the conflict between social identity and personal desires through their depictions of characters who experience great difficulty in conforming to the responsibilities and expectations of high class Victorian society. In their respective literary works, Robert Louis Stevenson and Oscar Wilde use Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde, and Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff as vehicles to convey the trivial and or ever-changing nature of social identity when it is confronted with one’s inescapable personal desires.
The Importance
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of Being Earnest depicts the upper class lifestyle of the Victorian era as one of luxury and of little concern.
While this lifestyle would be quite desirable for the average person, Jack Worthing seems to view the pressures of upper class society as overwhelming. He expresses this in the following passage: “When one is placed in the position of guardian, one has to adopt a very high moral tone on all subjects… who lives in the Albany, and gets into the most dreadful scrapes” (Earnest 1738). In an attempt to escape his responsibilities and the stress that comes with them, Jack adopts an alternate identity, allowing him to change his name (to Ernest), his personality, and by extension his social image. For a while, this works marvelously. However, Jack’s deception eventually begins to catch up to him when Cecily insists on meeting the alter ego he has created. This leaves Jack with the need to find a feasible way to make his alternate identity disappear. It seems however, Jack experiences the most pressure through Lady Bracknell and her insistence on denying Jack the privilege of marrying her daughter, Gwendolyn, unless he can produce proof of his high class origins. The pressure is specifically applied when Lady Bracknell says “... I feel …show more content…
somewhat bewildered by what you have just told me. To be born, or at any rate, bred in a handbag… seems to me to display a contempt for the ordinary excesses of family life… it could hardly be regarded as an assured basis for a recognized position in good society” (Earnest 1745). It can be inferred from the passage that even if Jack had been able to obtain and present the identity of one of his parents, Lady Bracknell would still have declined his request for marriage if he or she was not a member of the high class society. This is the main sentiment that Wilde sought to discourage. Through Jack, Wilde wishes to communicate the idea that one’s social identity should not be the chief factor when determining the quality of a person. Algernon’s situation is slightly different. Unlike Jack, Algernon does not wish to keep his life as Ernest separate from his life as Algernon. It is in Algernon’s character to seek out and embrace all the pleasures life has offer; this is supported in the following passage: “... there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal… Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If ever I get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact” (Earnest 1735). The strongest support for this claim comes from Algernon’s concern that “the excitement is all over.” Algernon simply cannot imagine himself living a life in which he is not pursuing the pleasures his heart desires. So when the opportunity to marry an 18 year old ward (in the form of Ernest) presents itself, he cannot help but indulge his passions. Although, he takes on the identity of Ernest in order to court Cecily, Algernon is simply being himself. Oscar Wilde seems to use Algernon as a means of expressing that one’s identity should not be set in stone (and by extension, one should not be required to conform to it), rather it should be ever-changing and allowed to develop. Much like Algernon Moncrieff, Dr.
Jekyll creates his alter ego, Mr. Hyde, as a means to introduce much more excitement and pleasure into his life, albeit with vastly different results. However, the critical difference between Dr. Jekyll’s and Algernon’s situations lies in Dr. Jekyll’s internal battle for dominance. Throughout the course of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll experiences great difficulty in balancing the responsibilities that come with his highly respected social image with the dark desires that constantly haunt him, but ultimately Dr. Jekyll succumbs to the pressures set on him by society and to his urges, despite the potential risks they pose. In Dr. Jekyll’s full statement of the case he writes, “I knew well that I risked death;... But the temptation of a discovery so singular and profound, at last overcame the suggestions of alarm” (Strange Case 1710). This passage highlights Stevenson’s idea that one’s social image should come second to his or her personal desires. This is supported by how Dr. Jekyll had full knowledge that indulging his desires presented the possibility of death, yet he continued with the experiment anyway and deemed this risk to be “worth it,” leaving its potential effects absent from his mind. While Dr. Jekyll’s situation is an extreme example, the internal struggle for dominance he experiences shows the potential effects that bottling up one’s desires and having too much focus on social image can have on a
person.
Within every being exists temptations, whether it be quiescent or dynamic, which fluctuates from one individual to another. Commonly negative, temptations ascend from lesser qualities of man and expose an individual to develop even more reprehensible ambitions. The story of a one man’s dark wishes is explored in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella, “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”. Properly termed, Stevenson perused the unnerving case of a respectable, proletariat-class doctor, who becomes associated and obsessed with Mr Hyde. It is this presence of the “duality of human nature that is created consistently throughout the Gothic Literature”.
Texts are a representation of their context and this is evident in Robert Stevenson’s novella: “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”, where many values of late nineteenth century Victorian England values were reflected through the themes of the novel using language and structural features. These values included: technological advances, reputation and masculinity and are demonstrated in the text through literary and structure devices as well as the characterisation of the main character.
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.
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll, in grave danger, writes a letter to his good friend Lanyon. With Jekyll’s fate in Lanyon’s hands, he requests the completion of a task, laying out specific directions for Lanyon to address the urgency of the matter. In desperation, Jekyll reveals the possible consequences of not completing this task through the use of emotional appeals, drawing from his longtime friendship with Lanyon, to the fear and guilt he might feel if he fails at succeeding at this task. Through Jekyll’s serious and urgent tone, it is revealed that his situation is a matter of life and death in which only Lanyon can determine the outcome.
“The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde” is a novella written in the Victorian era, more specifically in 1886 by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. When the novella was first published it had caused a lot of public outrage as it clashed with many of the views regarding the duality of the soul and science itself. The audience can relate many of the themes of the story with Stevenson’s personal life. Due to the fact that Stevenson started out as a sick child, moving from hospital to hospital, and continued on that track as an adult, a lot of the medical influence of the story and the fact that Jekyll’s situation was described as an “fateful illness” is most likely due to Stevenson’s unfortunate and diseased-riddled life. Furthermore the author had been known to dabble in various drugs, this again can be linked to Jekyll’s desperate need and desire to give in to his darker side by changing into Mr Hyde.
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,
wrong, a lot like the way Mr Hyde was thought of. So to Mr Utterson,
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a highly acclaimed novel, in which Jekyll is painted as the loving victim while Hyde is the murderous villain. In the case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the fact of the matter is one is a psychopath born cold-hearted, while the other is a sociopath created by society. Anti-social disorder is at the crux of the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, which reveals the psychotic characteristics, deprived social relations, and *** of the psychopath, Dr. Jekyll, and the sociopath, Mr. Hyde.
In conclusion, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, represents many themes of duality in human nature. This is represented by the characters of Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde, Hastie Lanyon, and John Utterson. Some themes represented are the duality in conforming to societal conventions, curiosity, and temptation. Stevenson utilizes significant events including the deaths of Lanyon and Jekyll, and the transformations of Jekyll into Hyde to prove “that man is not truly one, but two” (125)
... man. Society in the Victorian era was consisted of two classes, trashy and wealthy. Jekyll was expected to be a gentleman, but he wanted to have fun. This was the reason he created Hyde, so he could both be respected and have fun. He was delighted at the freedom he now had. Lanyon was overly contolled, but Utterson knew all men had both good and bad within them and could control it. In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, the dual nature of man is a main theme.
Victorian morals are significant in the establishment of duality due to the moral conflict it initiates. Stevenson introduced the theme of duality not merely because of contrasting characters and an appealing storyline. Present evidence indicates that Victorian society was constantly disturbed by an inescapable sense of division (Saposnik 88). The presence of two opposing personalities conflicted with the Victorian conscience. Likewise, Victorian society feared the type of behaviors and person represented by Jekyll and Hyde. Hyde is considered the "brutal embodiment of the moral, social, political, and economic threats which shook the uncertain Victorian world" (Saposnik 100). Everything about Jekyll was eerie and defied the Victorian ethics from his physical appearance to his inconsiderate actions. The setting also played an important role with Victorian morals. London was a location where virtue and vice was most clearly present. This is where evil battled the good of Christianity. London was the center of the Victorian world and was the great arena of moral conflict as well....
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde shared the same body, but they didn’t share the same personalities nor physical, mental and morally. In the story “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” A man name Henry Jekyll turn himself into a monster named Edward Hyde. Dr. Jekyll made a potion to create Mr. Hyde. Mr. Hyde then does things that Dr. Jekyll would never do. Mr. Hyde would go out only at night and do unspeakable things. They are clearly two different personalities because of their physical, mental and moral differences.
Secondly Trifle the play and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde provokes a psychological state to justify the difference between reasons behind a person committing murder. People commit murders for different reasons. In Trifle Mrs. Wright violent act is self-preservation and Hyde thrives on power and prides himself to murder. Both genres are guilty as charged, manslaughter, justifiable homicide or murder, broken down it is first and second degree murder. The cynical murder mystery Trifles and the outright blatant dual mysterious and serious dark half of Jekyll, Hyde, both have similarities in the act of committing murder. The two are evil people.
Jekyll is not a hypocrite and neither is Hyde, but together they are used to represent a hypocritical society. Jekyll and Hyde were separate individuals, each acting upon their own will. Hypocrites do act under their own will, but Hyde was solely controlled by himself, and soon Jekyll would not even be able to control his coming. Neither character was a hypocrite, but the idea that they portrayed was.
In the late 19th Century, Author “Robert Louis Stevenson” wrote the Novel of “the Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. The Novel was about Dr. Jekyll that lived a normal life, and late in the age, he transformed his body sporadically into a wicked man to expose evil doings to the surrounds. He wrote his will and made Mr. Hyde, The Evil Dr. Jekyll, the beneficiary of all his estates after death. Dr. Jekyll used the potion to allow him express his evil urges without guilt.