The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde

The theme that something or someone should not be judged on first appearances should be an obvious fact known to everyone. Appearances do not always reflect reality and our society is often too quick to judge human beings and objects by their visual appearance without discovering more about the person or object. This appears to be a prominent recurring theme throughout the novel “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson, the novel “Frankenstein” by Mary Shelley, the short story “The Monkey’s Paw” by W.W Jacobs and the short story “Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. These four texts convey this theme through the use of gothic

Everyone has to deal with some sort of temptations in their lives. Usually temptations are negative, but they may differ depending on the person. Some people may not like to admit this but everyone has a dark side and sometimes it shows. A person needs to let out some darkness at some points in their lives because nobody should bottle their emotions up. One man’s dark temptations are looked at in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. In this novel, it starts out introducing Mr.Utterson who is a lawyer. He is walking with his cousin Mr. Enfield and they find a door which leads them to a house. Mr. Enfield starts telling a story and that is how Mr.Hyde and Dr.Jekyll are introduced. “ All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at a corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground” (Stevenson 9). Mr. Utterson becomes curious as to who the person was and after doing some investigating he discovers that Dr.Jekyll is Mr.Hyde. Dr.Jekyll wanted a way to let out the bad that he had inside of him, but he didn 't want anyone to see him differently. He decided to make a potion, and when he drank the potion he would turn into Mr.Hyde.

In the novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, readers are shown the contrast between one’s personal desires and public desires or one’s good side and evil side. These are the things that help stimulate the psychological development of a person and are what keeps us humans balanced, personality wise. However, when one denies the significance of this by repressing them, things can definitely go wrong. Readers can apply this knowledge into one of the major characters, Dr. Henry Jekyll, who finds the need to repress his darker side due to fear of crossing social expectations. Upon doing so, Jekyll slowly becomes selfish, and full of pride. Also, the purpose of the potion he creates to help him transform into his evil doppelganger , Mr. Hyde, ultimately fails when he finds himself having to repress Hyde as well. Lastly, Jekyll’s repression also leads to the unfortunate end of the book, the disappearance both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Therefore, through Dr. Jekyll’s character, Stevenson proves that repressing emotions or desires does not make them fade away; they will eventually come up again stronger than before and can dominate a person completely.

Reinterpretations have played a major role in all forms of entertainment. They provide another, unique perspective on something old, something you may have read or seen. They make it possible to relive, or re-experience something that you cherished, or they can enable you to love something you hated. Reinterpretations have a lot of artistic power, as can be seen in a review of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, written by Robert Louis Stevenson, compared to The Incredible Hulk, directed by Louis Leterrier. The value of reinterpretations can be explored through the use of these two texts by looking at the theme of duplicity in man, and analysing the characters Bruce Banner and Dr Jekyll.

Dr. Jekyll, the protagonist in Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, is the ultimate embodiment of the standards of morality by which the upper class Victorians claimed to abide. In the novella, Dr. Jekyll is a righteous, upstanding member of the elitist

In this book, there exist a battle between good and evil in the main characters where we are bound to ask ourselves what is superior between good and evil? Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are easily seen as an allegory of the evil and good that exists in men. The book depicts the struggle with two sides of the human personality. Since Mr. Hyde seems to be taking over Dr. Jekyll, one could claim that evil is stronger than good. Nevertheless, Mr. Hyde ends up dead at the end of the story, which strongly shows the weakness and the failure of evil, so we have to ask ourselves whether good can be separated from evil. “Great people are involved in bad things this is the fact of life, yet this does not make them evil” (Stevenson pp 28-75).

During the latter portion of the nineteenth century, Robert Louis Stevenson published his novella, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The fin de siècle saw the rise of different thoughts and ideas surrounding science and society. These concepts and interpretations sparked the discourse surrounding the theory of degeneration; which was the concern that civilization would fall to a lower state of being. This chapter will be reading multiplex personality as a manifestation of this broader cultural fear. Stevenson’s story played upon the changes society was facing during this time and the interest in scientific explanations for mental illness. He creates the character of Dr Jekyll, a scientist who invents a potion to unlock his inner,

From its inception, the Gothic novel has prominently featured states of entrapment or imprisonment, but has seen a transition from entrapment as a state inflicted by others to a state constructed by the self within a society. The prisons are no longer Gothic dungeons controlled by powerful figures, but have shifted into a state of mind, and thus, the possibility of liberation from entrapment has become destabilised. Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde deals with several layers of entrapment – the physical, psychological and existential – but, unlike earlier Gothic novels, problematizes the possibility of escape as the entrapment has shifted to an internalized force. Henry Jekyll, is imprisoned by the

    Throughout Western literature, writers have created characters who act as perfect foils to each other with dramatically observable differences. Each pairing has a stronger and weaker in the combination, and usually one outlives the other. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the pairing exists in one body, and yet the struggle is heightened because both aspects of the identity are equal in strength. Ultimately, Stevenson emphasizes it is Jekyll who holds the power of life or death over Hyde. Hyde's "love of life is wonderful," but Hyde is also aware of Jekyll's "power to cut him off by suicide (Stevenson 101)." It is the awareness of each for the other which confirms that neither

To begin with, Dr. Jekyll is a well-rounded, well-respected man descending from a highly intellectual and respected Christian family of doctors and lawyers. He is nothing short of the ideal Victorian gentleman: tall, polite, honorable and refined, physically portrayed as being “a large well-made man of fifty,” and as having a “large, handsome face” (Stevenson, 19). Opposed to this seemingly impeccable man is none other than Mr. Edward Hyde, a short, hairy, ‘troglodyte’ man with a horrific

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886. The novel is set in Victorian England and follows a man by the name Dr. Jekyll, a respected doctor. Dr. Jekyll is a revered man in society and has every intention of remaining that way. However, one day he goes too far with one of his experiments and he creates a draught that unleashes a split personality within him. This personality goes by the name of Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll does not seek a cure at first because he enjoys having an outlet for all of his desires that are deemed unacceptable by society. Hyde commits evil deeds, such as murdering an old man and trampling a young girl, which Dr. Jekyll could never normally let himself go through with. Dr. Jekyll believes that he can remain a good, reputable man even when a part of him is doing wrong. However, he soon learns that this is impossible. Soon after, Dr. Jekyll loses control over his ability to transform into Mr. Hyde. At first, he would only change during the night. Then, he started transforming during the day as well. Dr. Jekyll finally admits that the problem is starting to get out of control. However, he cannot create a remedy any longer. Dr. Jekyll is eventually completely overtaken by Mr. Hyde and the reader does not hear from him again. In this novel, Dr. Jekyll illustrates the duality of human nature through his struggle to choose between good versus evil, societal expectations versus unacceptable desires, and

Gain and loss are intimately connected and in a constant struggle for balance. This pair of themes is intertwined through many works of literature, such as, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, William Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew, and Robert L. Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Each of these works consists of elements of gain and loss that serve a very crucial purpose to both the characters and the plot. For instance in Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde we find that, oftentimes, in order to gain understanding about life, one loses a lot in life. And in The Taming of the Shrew, readers see that someone’s gain can be another’s loss.

In the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson, Jekyll creates a drug that can turn him into Hyde, his alter ego. The drug Jekyll created, in his laboratory at home, allowed him to transform into Mr. Hyde, a rude man with an “unexpressed deformity” (Stevenson, 50) who seemed to have little to no control over what he did. Jekyll created Hyde because he was interested in the two personas in one person and believed it was possible to isolate the two. If he could isolate the two sides of a person’s character then it would be possible to get rid of the side that held his innermost desires which did not fit societies norm, his inner Hyde. Hyde indulged in actions that Jekyll would not have done because of his reputation.

Novels, plays, and movies often depict characters caught in a conflict with their doubles. Such collisions call a character’s sense of identity into question. Robert Louis Stevenson takes this idea of doubles to a whole new level in his novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Hyde. Upon closer examination of Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Hyde and his reoccurring theme of duality, we see that however constrained a society is, a person must break free, be multifarious, exploratory, and irresolute. A person must be able to see the “damage behind apparent failure” and the hypocrisy “behind worldly success.”

As it is described in the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the efforts to suppress the socially uncertain behaviors guided the members of the “upper” class to show a double identity throughout the Victorian time Period. Jekyll is labeled as a rich and good man, “He has always been known for charities,” and also, “He was no less distinguished for religion. He was much in the open air, he did good.”