Lack of Female Characters in 'The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde'

“It brought home to me the deeply Jungian possibilities of a Dr Jekyll-Mr Hyde double life for women.” Atwood makes a psychoanalytical allusion to Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which tells of a

First published in 1885, Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr.Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story about a distinguished Victorian doctor, Henry Jekyll, who discovers a way to transform himself into another persona, Edward Hyde, who unlocks or amplifies thoughts, feelings, and desires not normally expressed by Dr. Jekyll but are the norm for Mr. Hyde. A scene of the text will be analyzed. A comparison will be made as to the motives of Hyde’s actions between Darwin’s theory of evolution and an evil nature as described in the Holy Bible. Both of these were hot topics of culture in the Victorian era as Darwin’s views were starting to challenge the Bible as the

In her 1945 article, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Margaret Fuller illustrates a world in which “there exists in the minds of men a tone of feeling toward women as toward slaves”, and where men hold “the belief that Woman was made for Man”. Two books, Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and Woman in the Nineteenth Century, provide male and female perspective in the 19th century. These separate texts exemplify two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, Woman in the Nineteenth Century provides perspective of the feminine experience in a male dominated world while Moby Dick portrays a society from a male point of view and experiences woman as subservient to himself.

As the perception of women changes constantly, society is the only factor in creating their ideal image. These societal views are the basis of their treatment, with the expectation that it is beneficial for them. However, societal expectations of women in the Elizabethan and Victorian eras severely limit their freedoms and rights. William Shakespeare’s Othello and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein portray most women in their typical roles. Both authors depict the level of injustice in society’s treatment of women through the passivity of women causing their deaths, the silencing of vulnerable women and the portrayal of women as more humane than men.

In the Victorian era, men continued to act as the superior gender to their female counterparts. Because men were usually more educated and wrote more works of literature, women were often absent from the bookshelves of the past. In The Stranger Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, the evident lack of women in the storyline elucidates the social roles they had at that time— to be maids, prostitutes, or innocent witnesses. Simultaneously, the lack of attention paid to women paradoxically bring more awareness to the topic. There are a few female characters in the novel, but they only play as observers, serving minor roles to the central plot of the story. Written at a time when gender roles were unstable and shifting,

Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein seems to focus on the characterization of men yet what is ironic is the fact that she is a woman. After the birth of Shelley, her mother Mary Wollstonecraft who was one of the first and most important feminist advocates had died, leaving Shelley to continue in her footsteps (“Feminism & Women in Frankenstein”). Growing up, she was exposed to the work done by her mother and this led her to become exposed to feminist ideals at a very early age (“Feminism & Women in Frankenstein”). In Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, it is controversial of why she chose to characterize both sexes in the way she did and this controversy on women’s roles held of one the central themes in the text. Some critics argue that

The role of women in works of literature as well as in life has changed significantly. Previously, women were seen as needy and dependent on the men in their lives. Women were only important for raising children and doing work around the house, while men were off

Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein does not seem like a novel that empowers women. Based on the doormat-esque female characters and entitled male protagonist, one might easily assume that Frankenstein is a typical male-penned, patriarchy-saturated 19th century work. However, when examined with feminist ideals in mind, Shelley’s novel actually makes a progressive argument about the role of women. Though the female characters are certainly lacking in both number and substance, this absence hinders Victor and his goals and does not merely assert that women are useless. In addition, the role of maternity and maternal figures amplifies the meaning of Frankenstein; the creation and caring for of life manifests as an immensely important process with both benefits and consequences, not as merely “women’s work”. Through an analysis of the existing female characters and the lack thereof, as well as by understanding the maternal figures present and how they further the novel, one can see how Shelley’s Frankenstein reveals that feminine roles are necessary for a functional society.

Women in the Victorian society had two main goals which were to marry a respectable man and to have/raise children. The society had a vision of the “perfect woman” who did what she was told and did not question it. She did what her mother did before her, and her mother did what her mother did before her. They were constricted, as if they lived in a box. They couldn’t go too far forward or backward and they couldn’t tray too far off the sides. There were high standards and a true Victorian woman upheld those standards no matter how she felt about them. Victorian women were not their own; they were property-- property that was owned by their husbands or fathers.

In the late nineteenth century, when the book takes place, women were defined by society as completely subordinate to men. The sole purpose of women was to tend to the whims of their husbands and children (of which they were expected to birth many). This role is characterized by the

Jekyll and Mr. Hide suggests that Stevenson provides such a profound contrast between the two to point to the absurdity of the male gender roles in the Victorian Period. In his article, Hyding the Subject: The Antinomies of Masculinity in the Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and My. Hyde, Ed Cohen argues,

In Phillip’s film adaptation of The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, Mabel embodies the effects of society on an individual through the stereotypes imposed on her as a servant. This extremely lower class character in the film is expected to conform to the standards of a servant to a gentleman of utmost respect right after being picked up from the streets. This is seen at the very beginning of the film when Dr. Jekyll tells Mabel “a servant is there to serve, they don’t exist” (Phillips). Not only do Mabel and all other servants of the Victorian Era have very limited power and rights, but they are barely even seen as human. Dr. Jekyll is not the only one who sees servants like this, it is the shared view of

Robert Louis Stevenson today is best remembered as a writer of the Victorian Gothic and in particular for his novella, Jekyll and Hyde (1893). In this work, Utterson, a lawyer, discovers the horrible secrets his friend, Dr. Jekyll, has been hiding from him and the consequences that result. Straying away from mainstream science, Jekyll pursues his own catastrophic interests in order to separate the two sides of his morality and thusly creates his brutish double, Hyde. This text introduces the idea of human duality and brings forth the question of morality. However, duality, although important, is only one aspect of this novella, and there are other points of intrigue. An example of this intrigue is the role of women or rather the lack of

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, written in the 885 in Bournemouth, England, and publication 1886 by Longmans, Green and Co. the book is in third person a narrative and Jekyll and Dr. Lanyon, each speaks in the first person in the via a confession letter in the novel. Though the nineteenth century was second great awakening swept the nations, mass exponential growth in the industry, horse-drawn carriages, and science, and what seems to be the most important in society at that time was that men still continued to rank as the superior gender jst because of women lack a certain genital. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde did not flow that awakening.in the novel is limited the female characters with passive and weak. Mysterious literature was a mans reading or book. When famous literature and stories came out during that time, they did not want to feature women in there writing. a great example would be Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

The Victorian ideal elevates women in the moral sphere. Hughes explains that it was the job of women “to counterbalance the moral taint of the public sphere [while] also preparing the next generation to carry on this way of life” (Hughes 1). Women were expected both a better sense of morality and a strong educational background, exemplified by Jane’s job as a governoress. Brontë manages to subvert women’s moral