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The late eighteen hundreds was a time of abundant scientific discoveries, medical advances, and drug outbreaks (Wolf). Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson united all three happenings into a single novel. Stevenson grasped the fear of the Victorian people and the unfamiliar concepts and findings of scientific advances to create the novel as a horror (Wolf). Robert Louis Stevenson was one of the first authors to truly explore and inquire in the concept of the duality of man and how it affects us and our society Wolf. Stevenson’s mystery evolving into science fiction novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, fully elaborated on the deep dark side a person could conceal: “Poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan’s signature upon a face, it is that of [Mr. Hyde] your new friend” (Stevenson 30). Wishing to rid the world of evil is a complex concept which in the end has shown to miscarry (Wolf). …show more content…
Stevenson is most known for his many loved novels such as Treasure Island, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, A Child’s Garden of Verses, and Kidnapped (Life-Robert). The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was written in English, around the year 1884 and published shortly after in 1886 (Wolf 22). In the first six months, the story sold over forty thousand copies in England (“Robert”). Concerning the popularity of Stevenson’s fiction, "Explanation of: 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ' by Robert Louis Stevenson" informs that when the books were imported to America, many people became disturbed. The American people claimed that the book had blasphemous topics. Besides the controversy that Stevenson’s novel stirred up, today Stevenson is one of the most known and translated authors of our time
The novella, ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ was written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886. The author was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1850. His family included engineers, scientists, a professor of philosophy, and a religious minister. The scientific and religious sides of Stevenson's family reflected in both his personal life and in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (disapproval between Dr Lanyon and Dr Jekyll). In 1859 Charles Darwin published his famous book called the ‘Origin of Species’ which highly opposed the religious beliefs at the time; the novella itself was also published at such a time when there was extreme controversy between religious and scientific principles. The sense of conflict being created through disapproval portrays duality that the Victorians had at the period; it is almost as if they were in a dilemma and confusion in deciding which element of sanity to maintain. Stevenson wrote the story to articulate his idea of the duality of human nature sharing the mixture good and evil that lies within every human being. In the novel Mr Hyde represents the evil ...
Stevenson, Robert Louis. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. New York: Dover Publishing, Inc., 1991.
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”.
Thus in conclusion, the concept that texts are a reflection of their context is applicable in Robert Stevenson’s novella: “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”. This is due to the values of the nineteenth century Victorian England such as technological advances, reputation and masculinity being reflected through the main characters of the text through Stevenson’s use of literary devices support.
Stevenson focuses on two different characters Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but in reality these are not separate men, they are two different aspects of one man’s reality. In the story, Dr. Je...
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.
...ources of human nature, more faith, more sympathy with our frailty than you have done.... The scientific cast of the allegory will act as an incentive to moral self-murder with those who perceive the allegory's profundity." (qtd. in Steuart, II, 83) But Stevenson was nonetheless acting as a moralist. His "shilling shocker," conceived in a dream and written in a white heat, captured both his own deepest divisions and insights into the callous folly of late-Victorian hypocrisy. Stevenson had himself considered suicide at least three times and yet persisted through ill health to natural death.;(34) Far from counselling "moral self-murder," his dark story of monstrous alter egos was counselling integration. Far from starting another Werther-craze, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pioneered as a modern admonition of blind, self-destructive behavior. Stevenson's fictional lawyers and scientists show dangerous second sides because they have not persisted in self-knowledge. His fictional workers, like the butler, Poole, see masks in place of the "horrors" that their presumed betters have become because they have opted for distorted vision over clear-sightedness.
This essay will focus on how Robert Louis Stevenson presents the nature of evil through his novel ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’. Using ideas such as duality, the technique used to highlight the two different sides of a character or scene, allegories, an extended metaphor which has an underlying moral significance, and hypocrisy; in this book the Victorians being against all things evil but regularly taking part in frown able deeds that would not be approved of in a ‘respectable’ society. This links in with the idea of secrecy among people and also that evil is present in everyone. The novel also has strong ties and is heavily influenced by religion. Stevenson, being brought up following strong Calvinist beliefs, portrays his thoughts and opinion throughout the story in his characters; good and evil.
“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.
Duality is a recurring theme in literature; both modern and classic works reference in numerous ways. It is the idea that everything, no matter what, is two sided, hence it being called duality. There are two works of literature that are considered the best to represent what duality is and what it can stand for: Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. These two discuss the effects of duality and the duality of the human nature.
Duality has an impact on everyday life. Every action one takes could be intended to be a good action, but others might think of it differently Duality means things that appear to be purely good have a dark side. It could be good or evil, black and white.
“People couldn’t become truly holy...unless they also had the opportunity to be definitively wicked” -Terry Pratchett. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson clearly represents the quote by Terry Pratchett because of how the author portrays Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde throughout the novel. With the use of a door, Stevenson brings this idea into full effect. The purpose of the door in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is to display the dualism and transformation of Dr. Jekyll into Mr. Hyde and vice versa.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a riveting tale of how one man uncovers, through scientific experiments, the dual nature within himself. Robert Louis Stevenson uses the story to suggest that this human duality is housed inside everyone. The story reveals “that man is not truly one, but two” (Robert Louis Stevenson, 125). He uses the characters of Henry Jekyll, Edward Hyde, Dr. Lanyon, and Mr. Utterson to portray this concept. He also utilizes important events, such as the death of Dr. Jekyll and the death of Mr. Lanyon in his exploration of the topic.
Page, Norman. "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson." Encyclopedia of the Novel. Eds. Paul Schellinger, Christopher Hudson, and Marijke Rijsberman. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 1998.
Stevenson, Robert L. "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." The Norton Anthology of