Society Pressure in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Essay

The Victorian Era women was vastly different than the female we think of nowadays. Women during that time were expected to fulfill more of a domestic and motherly role, one that stayed at home and took care of the house. They were confined within the private sphere of the world while the men toiled away in the public sphere. The ideal Victorian women was described as:

An integral part of the nineteenth century Victorian way of life was having strong morals. The women were seen as pure beings and therefore it was there job to keep the family unit moral. In The McGuffey’s it tells of how the morals were taught to kids

As humans, the hardships that are faced in life are inevitable events that are constantly trying to be avoided. In some cases, people look for an exit. To some, this exit may be family time or participating in their favorite hobby. In other cases, some people fail to have the same luck as others. Their desire to dodge their problems may result in drugs, violence, alcoholism, or possibly worse. The Strange Cases Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a novel about a man who needs an exit. Dr. Jekyll is a high class man that has an addiction fueled by his desires to become a different man, and to escape his bottled up anger and evil side that he cannot part with as Dr. Jekyll. This pushes him to create a potion that allows him to become this second man. This second man is Mr. Hyde, the evil dark side of Dr. Jekyll. Dr. Jekyll becomes addicted to being Mr. Hyde and wants to be him full time. Robert L. Stevenson displays a common pattern of addiction in The Strange Cases of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde through Dr. Jekyll’s initial desire to create something that allows him to escape his problems, without facing responsibilities, even though he ends up facing much heavier long term consequences.

“The modest virgin, the prudent wife, and the careful matron, are much more serviceable in life than petticoated philosophers, blustering heroines, or virago queens. She who makes her husband and her children happy, who reclaims the one from vice and trains up the other to virtue, is a much greater character than ladies described in romances, whose whole occupation is to murder mankind with shafts from their quiver, or their eyes” (Wakefield.) This quote shows how women were looked at in the nineteenth century. This goes back to the concept during that time that women can not have an urge to have sex. If they so happened to have an urge to have sex they were compared to as prostitutes. In this quote they compared a virgin to the highest of things but the next sentence goes along with making her husband and children happy. Women are always looked at as a caretaker or someone there to make their husbands happy. Never

The life of the Victorian people was a time in which people were prude because of their repression. Many of the people of that time had a lot of pent-up emotions, there was a time and a place for something and it solemn did any good for anyone, depending on your class you had to have a curtain way of carrying yourself, many of which was not the must enjoyable of ways and lacked some fun that many need in their life. This forced many to split their Public life from the Private one. Written in the Victorian Era, the works of The importance of being earnest by Oscar Wilde, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson ,and Frankenstein by Mary Shelley displays how

During this era men and woman was bound by Victorian codes that were strict on what they can and cannot do. Men

Victorian Morality - during the time of Queen Victoria the word Victorian morality was used to characterize the moral of the people. It is defined as a set of values that dominate sexuality, have little or no tolerance for crime and a robust ethics. Victorian values from where men would be the bread winner, wage earner and involve in politics, while female would be homemaker and child bearer.

Victorian England was not necessarily the best time to live in. With heavy pollution, unsanitary living conditions, as well as Jack The Ripper stalking the streets, it was not the

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

Social standing, and moral values were vital elements in Victorian society, and the fundamental doctrine of establishing this ideology, began at home. The home provided a refuge from the rigour, uncertainty, anxiety, and potential violence of the outside world. (P, 341) A woman’s role was to provide a safe, stable, and well-organised environment for their husbands and families. However, change was on the horizon with an underlying movement of business and domestic changes both home and abroad, with industrialization, and the suffragist movement. Women were beginning to gain autonomy and began to grasp their opportunities, thus significantly curtailing male supremacy and the definable acceptable ‘role’ of the woman.

Primarily, The Victorian era, during which the novella was published, valued appearance and reputation. The era encouraged and strived for propriety, mainly on the surface. It rejected anything that went against society’s rigid, restraining values. It resisted anything that appeared immoral and corrupt. The era was

In this century, the 3 categories of classes couldn’t be more different and separated. The upper class enjoyed leisure, operas, balls and everything what had to do something with luxury and what none of the lower classes could afford. Aristocracy was well known by their morals and etiquette in the Victorian ages. The Victorian Aristocratic views on morals were extinguished which was even prudish. Prudery went as far as sexuality was a taboo, human body must have been covered and talking about body was inappropriate. In the Victorian Era society started to have different values in morality. Upper class people had low tolerance for sexuality and crimes, and isolated from any of the lower class members. Thus sexuality, especially prostitution was not acceptable and eminently discriminates in the Victorian high society.

The woman’s place was in the home, caring for the child and meeting the whims of her husband. “The cornerstone of Victorian Society was the family; the perfect lady’s sole function was marriage and procreation (the two, needless to say, were considered as one). All her education was to bring out her “natural” submission to authority and innate maternal instincts (Vicinus x).”

The Victorian Age's morality also condemned any kind of sexual reference in literature. Victorian critics demanded from "serious" literature a didactic content and respect to the Victorian conventions which established that sex

Society may be defined as a group of people living in agreement, having the same moralistic and judicial rules and standards. To live in a society, one must accept these standards and adopt them as their own. For example, living in the United States indicates that you respect the life, liberty and property of each individual, and you decide to accept the punishment if you violate any of these natural rights. Although one may not always agree with these standards, they choose to make sacrifices for the well-being of others. Society is responsible for creating an image of the ideal person, family, environment, and way of life. Our modern day society has dictated its own definition of beauty, happiness, and success. It seems society has accidentally tied these three together, and since these definitions are not universal, different societies may assign different meanings to each concept. Unlike societies explain why there are so many contrasting beliefs and viewpoints throughout the world today. The growth and morals of society are exclusively dependent on those who choose to be a part of something greater than them. Societies tend to grow only when people come to an understanding to be involved. Society is an accumulation of majority rule and the goals of the majority.