How effective is the setting in creating tension and suspense in Stevenson’s works? Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a novella about a scientist who experiments with the morals of good and evil. He then decides to try to separate these elements and difficulties arise with this. This novella concerns how one individual has conflicting emotions that are both good and evil. Dr Jekyll tries to make one-person ‘wholly’ good and another ‘wholly’ evil, but his experiments become quite dangerous. ‘The Body Snatcher’ is about two old friends, Fettes and Doctor Macfarlane, who studied under someone who was a famous, but unorthodox, anatomist. They would collect bodies for this person but they soon regret collecting one body. The confession of William Burke, murderer and procurer of corpses, inspired this short story. Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is set in Soho, London, which is famous for being the ‘seedier’ side of London in the nineteenth century. At this time there was a great divide between the poverty-stricken and the rich. Even in the daytime, London was very dark due to the industrial London smog, and this adds to the atmosphere of fear, creating tension to make the reader feel uneasy. Stevenson presents the atmosphere of chill and darkness, therefore making the reader have a sense of foreboding about coming events. ‘The Body Snatcher’ is set in Robert Louis Stevenson’s home town of Edinburgh. At that time, it was illegal but common, to collect bodies and experiment on them, and this is the basis of this tale. Experimenting on bodies at this time was not acceptable; there is already something chilling about this practice, and collecting bodies from graves is also very unnerving, done late at night. By setting these ... ... middle of paper ... ...l not describe the certain character as well, therefore there is always something about that person that the reader wants to find out. This technique is very effective in creating, tension and suspense. I found it had greater suspense, especially at the beginning, with Fettes and Macfarlane arguing over something that people do not know about; their secret past lives that we have yet to find out about. I think that the reader would appreciate his works because they are so full of tension and suspense, and he sets the scene very effectively, the atmosphere is dark and gloomy, the stories take place in areas people often avoid, such as dark alleys and graveyards. The characters in the stories are often threatening, sinister and menacing. Yet the reader feels the need to find out what happens next. Stevenson creates great tension and suspense in his writing.
In this book, Dr. Bass takes us behing the scenes of the Body Farm. An engaging storyteller, he reveals his hardest and best cases. While this book tells about Bass’s life, it is centered around the Body Farm itself because it tells of how it was started. This book is very informative and it tells you that even though it is a dead body, it can still tell many tales and it can mean a lot to history, This book shows just how the dead can come to
Stevenson then went on to put a scary touch to the story by telling us
Stevenson uses many literary techniques to create suspense and amuses the readers. He uses the literary symbolisms such as paradox and symbolism. However the most important technique is point of view and the changing of narrators throughout the book. Many critics such as Alice D. Snyder, Peter K. Garett, and Vladimir Nabokov wrote literary criticisms about Stevenson’s use of language. Lots of the evidences come from the book The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in order to support the critics’ claim. Peter K. Garett’s claim of Stevenson’s use of language is that the relation between Jekyll and Hyde is played out in terms of grammatical and narrative positions. Vladimir Nabokov’s claim was that Stevenson creates suspense and mystery by
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll’s struggle between two personalities is the cause of tragedy and violence. Dr. Jekyll takes his friends loyalty and unknowingly abuses it. In this novella, Stevenson shows attributes of loyalty, how friendship contributes to loyalty, and how his own life affected his writing on loyalty.
To conclude the way that Stevenson has described Hyde and what Jekyll has done in most parts he has related it to the devil which in Victorian times was considered very dangerous, even though today he’s not considered that powerful it would still make a big impact. Stevenson has been successful in using many elements of a shocker/thriller to write a novella with a much deeper moral significance because every aspect of the story relates back to the Victorian morals of 1837 till 1901 and for a 21st century reader some parts of the novella will make them think what is really happening around them now and whether it is right or not!
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.
Stevenson’s most prominent character in the story is the mysterious Mr Hyde. Edward Hyde is introduced from the very first chapter when he tramples a young girl in the street, which brings the reader’s attention straight to his character. The reader will instantly know that this person is a very important part of this book and that he plays a key role in the story. This role is the one of a respectable old man named Dr Jekyll’s evil side or a ‘doppelganger’. This links in with the idea of duality. Dr Jekyll is described as being ‘handsome’, ‘well-made’ and ‘smooth-faced’. On the other hand, Mr Hyde is described as being ‘hardly human’, ‘pale and dwarfish’, giving of an impression of deformity and ‘so ugly that it brought out the sweat on (Mr Enfield) like running’! These words all go together to conjure up an image in the mind of an animal, beast or monster. During the novel...
...ve duality of man;… if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both” Thus, Stevenson creates in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, two coexistent, and eternally opposed components that make up a “normal” individual. However, here, good and evil are not related but are two independent entities, individuals even, different in mental and physical attributes and constantly at war with each other. Evil now does not require the existence of good to justify itself but it exists simply as itself, and is depicted as being the more powerful, the more enjoyable of the two, and in the end ultimately it is the one that leads to Dr. Jekyll's downfall and death. Stevenson creates the perfect metaphor for the never-ending battle between good and evil by using Jekyll and Hyde. However, this novella is perhaps one of the few that truly show the power of Evil.
...(43). The reader is draw to the wishes of Dr. Jekyll, each person wants to better themselves and each person finds themselves straying from the correct path in life. In trying to better mankind, Jekyll destroyed the decent man he was before.
Stevenson creates suspense in “The Last Night” by withholding information from the reader and by creating a gothic setting which reflects contemporary fears in London in the19th century. He also uses the character of Mr Hyde to create suspense by referring to the ideas of Darwin.
wrong, a lot like the way Mr Hyde was thought of. So to Mr Utterson,
How does Stevenson maintain the reader’s interest in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Stevenson keeps the readers interested by using the supernatural and horror side of things to make it scary because when the story first came out, they weren’t used to scary stories. He also uses mysteries to keep the readers wondering, guessing and wanting to know more. He includes moral messages in the story to keep people/the readers questioning themselves, wondering if they are more similar to Mr. Hyde than they think. Stevenson sets all the action in the story during the night.
In the novel “The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” a number of
choose the setting as London due to the fact that during this time London represents a division within essential unity with the the divide of old and new culture. This rightfully represents Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It is also the original setting for the book (Stevenson 2).
Jekyll and Hyde match most of the criteria needed to produce. traditional gothic novel, Stevenson builds up tension and keeps the reader gripped by certain things in the novel. Firstly mysterious violence keeps the readers well gripped. “ the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground.” ... ...