Stevenson and Conrad: The Duality of Human Nature

Robert Louis Stevenson was born on the 13th November 1850. He wrote Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in 1886, with that 40,000 copies of the book were sold in the first six months. This was designed to mirror the Victorian secret and based on good and evil. Stevenson later died in 1894 in Samoa.

Robert Louis Stevenson was born on November 13, 1850 in Scotland. He was a 19th century writer notable for novels such as Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In the novel Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson uses imagery, diction, and details to create an ominous mood.

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

Stevenson uses the characters of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde to expresses his beliefs about human duality by introducing them as two contrasting characters, instead of just one character. Using two completely different characters with different names and appearances gets his message of human duality across more effectively rather than using just one character that turns a different colour when its angry, for example.

In Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, as well as in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species of Natural Selection, man's dual nature is illustrated in terms of evolution and morality. In this essay I will argue that Stevenson's description of both the interior and exterior struggles of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde echo Darwin's theories of evolution and natural selection. Through close readings, comparisons, and the juxtaposition of the novel and theoretical genre, I will explain how Stevenson's physical description of Edward Hyde can be divided into three streams (the primitive being, the animalistic, and the childlike) and mirrors Darwin's argument that "man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible

As the Heart of Darkness snakes its way into the savage shadows of the African continent, Joseph Conrad exposes a psycho-geography of the collective unconscious in the entangling metaphoric realities of the serpentine Congo. Conrad’s novella descends into the unknowable darkness at the heart of Africa, taking its narrator, Marlow, on an underworld journey of individuation, a modern odyssey toward the center of the Self and the center of the Earth. Ego dissolves into soul as, in the interior, Marlow encounters his double in the powerful image of ivory-obsessed Kurtz, the dark shadow of European imperialism. The dark meditation is graced by personifications of anima in Kurtz’ black goddess, the savagely magnificent consort of the underworld,

Bryan Stevenson was born on November 14, 1959 in Milton, Delaware. His father, Howard Carlton Stevenson, Sr., had grown up in Milton, Delaware as well. His father left the area as a teen because there had been no colored high school nearby (Stevenson, 2014). He later returned with Bryan’s mother, Alice Gertrude Stevenson. Both parents would commute to the northern part of the state for work. His dad worked at a General Foods processing plant as a lab technician. His mother had a civilian job at an Air Force bar, she was a bookkeeper at Dover Air Force Base and became an equal opportunity officer. Stevenson has two siblings: an older brother Howard, Jr. and a sister Christy. As a child, Stevenson dealt with segregation and its legacy. He spent

Charles Frazier’s first novel, Cold Mountain, has earned him a great amount of notoriety. From having a film adaptation of his novel in 2003, to receiving a National Book Award in fiction in 1997. Cold Mountain opens with a quotation from a journal entry by Charles Darwin: “It is difficult to believe in the dreadful but quiet war of organic beings, going on in the peaceful woods and smiling fields.” And indeed, Frazier’s acclaimed novel describes a war of beings built of flesh and blood–of course not only in the sense of the Civil War. While man’s lone task in war is to destroy the opposition, Frazier’s novel is also dedicated to the struggle which an individual must face in order to survive in a natural environment. From Frazier’s standpoint, the usage of this particular quotation could be a confirmation of Darwin’s influence on his literature. The term naturalism describes a category of literature that applies scientific principles of detachment and objectivity to its reading of human beings. The literary movement of naturalism got its foundation from Darwin’s theory of evolution. In his novel, Frazier makes use of real historical backgrounds and geographical locations. Combined with a style following realism, amidst extensive passages of naturalistic descriptions. There are clear similarities between Darwin’s conclusions and the plot of Cold Mountain.

In Mark Twain’s essay, “The Damned Human Race”, Twain contrasts the different features between animals and human beings using the appeal to pathos and logos approach. He uses the appeal to pathos as the dominant appeal to connect with the audience and persuading them to feel and the see things the way he does. He uses the logos approach to support his conclusion. All of his comparisons have some truth behind them, making the reasoning behind his arguments successful. And although he uses false authority and hasty generalization, the argument was successful.

There is an abundance of literature in which characters become caught between colliding cultures. Often, these characters experience a period of growth from their exposure to a culture that’s dissimilar to their own. Such is the case with Marlow, Joseph Conrad’s infamous protagonist from ‘Heart of Darkness’. Marlow sets off to Africa on an ivory conquest and promptly found himself sailing into the heart of the Congo River. Along the way he is faced with disgruntled natives, cannibals, and the ominous and foreboding landscape. Marlow’s response to these tribulations is an introspective one, in which he calls into question his identity. This transcending of his former self renders the work as a whole a

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

“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis Stevenson and “Macbeth” by Shakespeare are novels that involve the theme of duality through good and evil aspects. Duality refers to having two parts, often with opposite meanings, like the duality of good and evil. In both the novels, the theme of duality is portrayed through setting, sleep, human nature and appearance. This literary technique is used to show the extremes of good and evil, and by using these elements, authors are able to cover an entire spectrum of good and evil through the several themes.

In 1837, the start of the Victorian era, Britain began experiencing massive changes in the culture of the nation and in the industrial sector. Cultural works began to move away from rationalism, and became more romanticized and more influenced by mysticism. Privacy became a hallmark of British life as well; the outer walls of citizens’ homes were transformed into a façade by which innumerable mysteries resided behind. This romanticized idea of mystery that seemed to lurk behind the doors of the common, everyday man became a prevalent theme in the works of many writers and artists throughout the time period. Robert Louis Stevenson uses this theme of not knowing the true nature of an individual, as well as the idea of duality, to develop his theme that an evil side lies within every man and that balancing both sides is vital to preservation of ones sanity.

The two major themes of Heart of Darkness are the conflict between “reality” and “darkness,” and the idea of restraint and whether or not it is necessary. Conrad’s passage describing the restraint of the hungry cannibals exemplifies both themes:  It describes how reality shapes human behavior, and contrasts the characters of Kurtz and Marlow.  “Reality,” as it is used here, is defined as “that which is civilized.”

It has been said that although Conrad may not have been 'the greatest novelist, he was certainly the greatest artist every to write a novel';. I feel that this is an apt description of Conrad's writing style in Heart of Darkness (1902), as he paints many verbal pictures by using expressive words and many figurative descriptions of places and people. An extensive use of words relating to colour, is evident throughout the novella. The idea of darkness (and light) is emphasized from the title of the novella, and continues to play an important role throughout in the story .