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Dr. jekyll and mr. hyde introduction essay
Critical essay jekyll and hyde character
Critical essay jekyll and hyde character
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The Detestable Mr. Hyde Hyde is a man of pure evil. The book states that “He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable.” He has specific qualities that make Utterson hate him. The story of Hyde running over a little girl is told in the first chapter. The reader is interested in Hyde because of his wickedness. In the beginning of the book, Utterson conveys the story of the first time he laid eyes on Mr. Hyde. The story is of a time late at night, when he trampled over a young girl. In the story, Utterson describes Hyde as a Juggernaut. He calls the man hellish. The reader is attracted to the cruelness of Hyde. Hyde then gets a key to open a door to a house
The criticism by Vladimir Nabokov, supports the claim that Stevenson uses symbolisms to express ideas and to create suspense. Finally Stevenson’s certain tone when he describes Hyde or the evil things the Hyde commit allowed him to express Hyde’s evil and created an unusual atmosphere. When Hyde was described he was described as small and the facial expression of his was very odd and hard to explain “Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with some sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering somewhat broken voice” (Stevenson 16). After Utterson’s first encounter with Hyde, he is just amazed and shocked because of Hyde’s physical appearance. Also in their first encounter, the setting was very dark and gloomy which adds to the claim. Also the description of Hyde symbolizes Hyde’s evil. Hyde’s ugliness and his deformed face symbolizes his evil, his small size symbolize Jekyll’s evil side inside him that was repressed for so long along with the dark setting. Another symbolism used in the book is between Jekyll’s laboratory and his house. Jekyll’s house is described as a place of wealth and comfort but his laboratory is described as “a certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the streets” (Stevenson 6). The wealthy house represents the respectable man Jekyll and the laboratory represents the corrupt Hyde. Normal people will not see the two structures as one just like how they won’t be able to see the relationship between Hyde and
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.
Stevenson starts the novella by introducing us to Mr. Utterson who is a discrete lawyer who is ‘never lighted by a smile’ and his enigmatic friend Mr. Enfield. He does this because he is using the technique of foreshadowing when the authors put in little hints to then explore in further detail later in the story. Further on we can see that Utterson is microcosm of the rest of the story; however this isn’t the only reason that Utterson is in the story because soon after this he starts to become the narrator along with Enfield. While they are talking to each other the audience is finding out what is happening. Next, later in the novella we find out that Utterson is actually representing schizophrenia and duality that is in the personality of Jekyll.
“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.
Mr. Hyde was pale ad dwarfish; he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and some what broken voice,—all these were points against him; but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him. (10)
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.
At a brief 70 pages and 10 chapters, Jekyll and Hyde is a quick read. The novel opens up with two men, Utterson and Einfeld, walking through London, discussing a recent incident that numerous people in the neighborhood witnessed. A small girl and a peculiar, dwarfish man rounded a corner at the same time, but instead of stopping or stepping aside to avoid colliding with the girl, the man proceeded to brutally trample the girl. It is revealed that this callous man is named Edward Hyde. This sets Utterson ill at ease because he is the lawyer for a reputable doctor, Henry Jekyll, and in his will, Jekyll has recently made this same Hyde his sole heir.
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the author Robert Louis Stevenson uses Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to show the human duality. Everyone has a split personality, good and evil. Stevenson presents Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as two separate characters, instead of just one. Dr. Jekyll symbolizes the human composite of a person while Mr. Hyde symbolizes the absolute evil. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, who are indeed the same person, present good and evil throughout the novel.
The description of Hyde in the story depicts a strong feeling of evil throughout the novel.During his walk with Mr.Utterson, Mr.Enfield tries to give a description of Hyde after telling the story of the door.“There is something wrong with his [Hyde's] appearance; something displeasing,something downright detestable” (Stevenson 11). The words used to describe Hyde develops a feeling of deformity to the reader. The use of tone in the
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Some attention has been given to Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. He claims that the brain was composed of several faculties, and that the brain and mind were connected in mysterious ways of madness. A trestle on insanity becoming a source of systematic perversion of the natural feelings, affections, inclinations, temper, habits, moral disputations, and natural impulses. Dr. Jekyll knew what he was doing when he made Mr. Hyde but he did not think about the consequences of making a duplicate of his insane side. As the story goes on, Dr. Jekyll becomes anti-social in some way for example, morbidly depressed or angry with everyone. Utterson soon knew that Dr. Jekyll was not telling him something when he read his will left up to a man name Mr. Hyde. Throughout the story Dr. Jekyll’s friends try and find out little by little who this man is and why are these crimes occurring and no names lead back to anyone. Even though Jekyll and Utterson are two totally different people, they are still somewhat the same because Jekyll is driving himself insane trying to keep Hyde alive but yet a secret to everyone. Mr. Utterson is also driving himself insane by trying to find out who Hyde is. These two men were obsessed with something made up and their obsession just grew stronger until neither of them could take it anymore. At the end of the story both Jekyll and Hyde become reckless as he locked up in the
In Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Hyde becomes Jekyll's demonic, monstrous alter ego. Certainly Stevenson presents him immediately as this from the outset. Hissing as he speaks, Hyde has "a kind of black sneering coolness . . . like Satan". He also strikes those who witness him as being "pale and dwarfish" and simian like. The Strange Case unfolds with the search by the men to uncover the secret of Hyde. As the narrator, Utterson, says, "If he be Mr. Hyde . . . I shall be Mr. Seek". Utterson begins his quest with a cursory search for his own demons. Fearing for Jekyll because the good doctor has so strangely altered his will in favor of Hyde, Utterson examines his own conscience, "and the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded a while in his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, lest by chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to light there" (SC, 42). Like so many eminent Victorians, Utterson lives a mildly double life and feels mildly apprehensive about it. An ugly dwarf like Hyde may jump out from his own boxed self, but for him such art unlikely creature is still envisioned as a toy. Although, from the beginning Hyde fills him with a distaste for life (SC, 40, not until the final, fatal night, after he storms the cabinet, can Utterson conceive of the enormity of Jekyll's second self. Only then does he realize that "he was looking on the body of a self-dcstroyer" (SC, 70); Jekyll and Hyde are one in death as they must have been in life.
The lie of not knowing who Mr. Hyde is spans the entire book. Dr. Jekyll lies about not knowing Hyde, leads to giving Utterson, a very good friend to Jekyll, a big shock when he finds out that his best friend had been deceiving him the whole time. Also the shock of the lie, kills Dr. Lanyon, another dear friend of Jekyll.
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...
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
In Robert Louis Stevenson’s the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde a scientist, Dr. Jekyll, creates an alter ego using a draught in order to escape the harsh views of society. As Mr. Hyde, he commits heinous crimes against citizens and becomes addicted to the perception of freedom from Victorian laws. Best stated by Norman Kerr about addiction, “there is an inebriety derangement of the mental faculties, so that the consciousness, perception, reasoning, power, and conscience are impaired” (Kerr 138). The character Dr. Jekyll illustrates the condition of addiction in the Victorian era through the motifs of the obsession with appearance and duality.