What Is The Setting In Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a novel written by Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson and published in 1886. It concerns a lawyer, Gabriel Utterson, who investigates the strange occurrences between his old friend, Dr. Henry Jekyll, and the reclusive Mr. Edward Hyde. This novel represents an ideology in Western culture; the perpetual conflict between humanity’s virtuosity and immorality. It is interpreted as an accurate guidebook to the Victorian era’s belief of the duality of human nature. This essay will explore Mr. Edward Hyde and whether Stevenson intended for him to be a mere character in the novel or something of wider significance.

This story is also a way for Stevenson to have a go at hypocroisy and

Stevenson's Use of Literary Techniques in The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

“Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” is a gothic novel written by Robert Louis Stevenson that was first published in 1886. It’s about a lawyer from London named G.J. Utterson who explores strange events that involves his old friend Henry Jekyll and Edward Hyde. The novel’s influence on language is extraordinary, with the phrase “Jekyll and Hyde” coming to the meaning of a person of diversity in moral character from one situation to the next (French literature).

The key ideas in chapter 1 of ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr

In the novel ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ Robert Louis Stevenson explores humankinds conflicting forces of Good and Evil. Through the central characters and the key theme of the duplicity of mankind Robert Louis Stevenson successfully portrays the theme of Good and Evil in the novel ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

During law school, he got an internship with the Southern Prisoners Defense Committee (Stevenson 5-7), which was inspirational and made law school seem much more relevant and interesting. After he graduated, he “went back to the Deep South to represent the poor, the incarcerated, and the condemned” (Stevenson 17). He was committed to providing social justice for everyone despite the corruption. Throughout his career, he worked with many different types of minorities, all of whom were misjudged and treated harshly by society and the criminal justice system. He represented children, who had grown up in terrible circumstances, and then were prosecuted as adults. He represented women who couldn’t afford access to healthcare, and then got charged with murder when they miscarried their baby. He also worked with mentally ill people who never got the help that they needed (Stevenson 17). Stevenson realized that mass incarceration is not the right answer. Almost everyone has to capacity to be a functioning member of society if they are given the chance. Locking people up has become the answer for almost any problem a person may have. As a society, we would rather imprison someone than get them the help that they need. Stevenson fought for social justice for these people. He did this work out of compassion, duty, and most importantly,

Stevenson was a single child who was much adored by his parents, Thomas Stevenson and Margaret Balfour. Stevenson’s mother had a respiratory disease which was also inherited by her son. The family hired a private nurse to assist them. The nurse, Allison Cunningham, would often read to Robert in the morning during his unpleasant coughing spells. Many of the stories Cunningham read were about hell and damnation. These frightening tales would cause Robert to have numerous nightmares (Stefan 215).

Throughout the whole course of the novel, readers can identify an unbreakable connection between Hyde and animalistic images as he was shown to be big, awkward and childlike. This kind of figure is regarded by Stevenson as parts of human nature. It also expressed Stevenson’s repression towards hypocritical society during Victorian times.

The sophisticatedly-constructed novel ‘The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ was devised in 1886, during the revolutionary Victorian era, by the author, Robert Louis Stevenson. Stevenson developed a desire to write in his early life and ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ cemented his reputation. The novel is widely known for its shocking principles that terrified and alarmed the Victorian readers. ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ plays with the idea of the dual nature of man, his two identities. On the surface, Dr Jekyll is a conventional, Victorian gentleman, but below the surface lurks the primitive, satanic-like creature of Mr Edward Hyde. One of the elements that play a significant part in the novel is setting. Stevenson subtly uses the setting to

This is the environment in which Stevenson places his novel, in which Hyde, the exemplification of the East Ender, thrives and commits his heinous and unspoken acts.

Stevenson's Use of Literary Techniques in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson was born on November 13, 1850, in the city of Edinburgh, Scotland. Throughout his childhood he was told morbid tales from the Bible, as well as Victorian penny-serial novels that he would carry with him throughout his years and what would place the greatest impact on his writing.[1] In 1886, he published a novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, based on a man with pure intentions, who ends up turning himself into a viscous murderer. Dr. Henry Jekyll is a well-known doctor and respected man, known for doing numerous acts of kindness and work for charities. However, since he was a young boy, he secretly engaged in wrongful behavior, and from then on, was determined to experiment and find a way to separate

“It was the first time that the lawyer had been received in that part of his friend’s quarters and he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with curiosity, and gazed round with a tasteful sense of strangeness as he crossed the theatre, once crowded with eager students and now lying gaunt and silent, the table laden with chemical apparatus, the floor strewn with crates and littered with packing straw, and the light falling dimly through the foggy cupola. (Stevenson

In the extract, Stevenson has used several stylistic devices like similes, repetition, metaphors and imagery. All these mentioned stylistics devices are used to describe Uma who is often compared to an animal or a child. Stevenson uses simile to describe her; A simile is used to make direct comparison, in order to show similarities between two dissimilar things. The female character is described to behave ‘like a child or a kind of dog’ and ‘as bright as jewels’. These words from Wiltshire proves to the reader that he is somehow physically attracted to Uma, despite considering her as ‘Other’ as she is a native, unlike him, a white. The author also makes use of metaphor. This is another mostly used stylistic device, which is a figure that makes comparison between two different objects which have a few similar characteristics between them. ‘She played kitten with