The Lack Of Female Characters In Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

Essay Prompt 5 Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde was a mystery written by Robert Louis Stevenson and later published in 1886. Throughout the novel many people tend to notice the lack of female characters. When a female characters does appear in this novel they tend to play a lesser part and affect the story to a lesser degree and are portrayed as weaker and unassuming.

One of the first women we encounter in this novel was a young girl searching for a doctor. She is then trampled by Hyde and is then victimized and shown as weak and helpless. When this story was written women were seen as the weaker more helpless of the two sexes. They were not given the rights that the men had during the time and were often seen as second class citizens, right behind the first class citizens, men. The author used this scene to display how women were weak and helpless and actually needed many people to help them.

In the novel we notice the main characters Lanyon, Jekyll, Utterson and Enfield don’t so much

The woman witnesses the murder of a man and then passes out for quite sometime before she then awakes and reports the crime to the police. We notice this woman is quite similar to the one that was trampled by Hyde she is quite weak and helpless. They rely on the men to take of the business and don’t really contribute a lot to helping solve the crimes that have been taking place. The last woman we encounter was a servant to Jekyll. She is huddled in a corner with others and shown as scared and helpless to the danger that is in the house. She then begins to cry and endangers the whole mission. With her being the only female in the room at the time and being the only one to cry we see that the author portrays this woman as weak and someone who can 't control her emotions. Letting the author show us yet again that women are weak and helpless and that men need to take care of the