Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde

Stevenson writes ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ with the intention of showing the reader the duality of man and explores this through the juxtaposition of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In this novella, Stevenson also uses the environment and setting of the story to represent the contrast between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

“I tend to think that good and evil exist and that the quantity in each of us is unchangeable. The moral character of people is set, fixed until death,” a quote from Michel Houellebecq, who is a French author, filmmaker and poet, is a theme represented in the novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson. Robert Louis Stevenson is a author who presents the good and evil in this novella, explaining the roles of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is having no impact whoever he was on the life of the two, also thinking in the way that he could choose who he wants to be, and being perfect, and showing a theme of perfection along the way. In this novella there were two different personalities, conjoined in one person, with

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.

Every story needs a good villain. Villains and heroes are often portrayed in media as being very black and white, but in reality people are much more complex than that. Robert Louis Stevenson does a good job in portraying the complexity of human nature in his books, especially in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and Kidnapped. The former is about a lawyer named Mr. Utterson seeking out the truth of Dr. Jekyll’s very strange will. He finds out that Jekyll was transforming himself into Mr. Hyde so that he could have the freedom to do whatever he wanted no matter how evil. By the time Utterson finds all this out and findsJekyll, he is too late and Jekyll has already killed himself. The latter is about David Balfour and his journey to take his rightful inheritance from his villainous uncle Ebenezer. Along the way he meets Alan, who is a highlander obsessed with vengeance. They help each other grow to be better people, and in the end, with the help of Alan, David reclaims what is rightfully his. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Kidnapped, Stevenson explores the characters´ villainous deeds and the philosophy that humans have two natures.

Frequently overlooked in favor of discourse on the duality of man or the dubiousness surrounding the characters’ interactions with Hyde, Jekyll’s portrayal of his transformations into Hyde in Robert Lewis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde has an indubitable parallel to symptoms of drug addiction. This allegory fits seamlessly into the narrative once the reader becomes aware of its presence. Not only does Henry Jekyll present symptoms paralleling drug addiction, his transformations into Hyde and how the other characters in the novel react to them are also typical of situation involving an addicted person. Finally, the ease with which a respectable member of the bourgeoisie lapses into such a degenerative state serves the

In his novella "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", Robert Louis Stevenson explores the dual nature of Victorian man, and his link with an age of hypocrisy. Whilst writing the story he displays the people of the time and what happens behind closed doors. In Jekyll 's suicide note he makes the following observation " I have observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at first without a visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil: and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil." The underlying moral of this novella suggests that all people consist of good and evil, and that they possess the ability to control and acknowledge the darker side of them.

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.

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

Every person is born with bright and dark personas that people moderate due to the standards of society. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jekyll and Hyde battle for the power to stay alive in the story. As Jekyll continues to try and take over his evil persona, Hyde tries to stay alive and cause evil in the world. In our society, many people will struggle with self control and Dr. Jekyll has trouble controlling his alter ego by performing his evil pleasures. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Stevenson explores the theme that the dual natures, good and evil, of an individual person’s humanity are constantly struggling for control through the development of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 's personas.

Stevenson's views on human nature are similar to that of The Bible, which consistently cites the life-long struggle Christians face between the flesh “evil” and the spirit “good”. Man can never be good because they are tainted by sin. Even Jesus says that only God is good in Mark 10:18 which reads, “‘Why do you call me good?' Jesus answered. 'No one is good--except God alone.' Jekyll is the archetypal example of this. Jekyll knows what his desires are but once he falls from grace by creating Hyde he is forced to grapple with his evil side until it kill him. Doctor Jekyll knew his inevitable demise was rapidly approaching because he pleads with Utterson asking him to “help [Hyde] for my sake, when I am no longer here” (39). Jekyll's actions were evil when he created his potion

As Norman Kerr once wrote “there is an inebriety derangement of the mental derangement of the mental facilities, so that consciousness, perception, reasoning, power, and conscience are impaired.” In Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the character Dr. Jekyll illustrates the comprehension of addiction, in the Victorian era, through the motifs of the obsession with appearance and duality.

Critical Analysis: The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde In the novel, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson demonstrates the battle between good and evil that occurs within the individual. The novel is essentially an allegory for the internal struggle between these two sides of the human personality. The story is centered around a chemist named Henry Jekyll, who composes a concoction that allows him to shift between his typical, well-mannered self and an alternate evil identity that allows him to give into his sinful pleasures. In their critiques on the novel, Joyce Carol Oates and Henry James discuss Stevenson’s presentation of good vs. evil, as well as the significance of his message on the subject.

“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).

Frankenstein by author Mary Shelley is a Gothic science fiction novel written in Switzerland between 1816–1817, and published January 1, 1818. Set in eighteenth century Geneva, Frankenstein tells the story of a young man by the name of Victor who goes away to college to study natural philosophy, chemistry, and alchemy. When armed with the knowledge he has long been seeking, Victor spends months constructing a creature out of old body parts, and in the secrecy of his apartment, brings his creation to life. The monstrous abomination later disappears, and when a mysterious series of deaths start to occur in Victor’s family, he is certain his creation is the cause, and devotes his life to vanquishing the savage fiend. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde written by Robert Louis Stevenson and published in 1886, is a mystery thriller about a respectable man by the name of Henry Jekyll, who takes a potion to occasionally become a dark and evil character, which he so cleverly calls “Mr. Hyde”. Meanwhile Mr. Utterson, Dr. Jekyll’s lawyer and close friend, tries to figure out why his dear friend Dr. Jekyll is acting so suspiciously, while simultaneously trying to uncover the origin of Mr. Hyde for himself. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde shares common themes with Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein such as dangerous knowledge, monstrosity, and the use of doppelgängers. Both Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde, develop the idea of the doppelgänger to emphasize how social

Hyde. In this way, Jekyll becomes monstrous himself as he wishes to pass on his evil parts into another person. Jekyll’s concoction is a threat to cultural morals and values as it enables someone to set evil free. Consequently, there is no obligation and interest in adhering to any moral standards. In the end, he is a split person, one-half is represented by Jekyll and the other one by Hyde. Stevenson used the different standpoints in the story to create the feeling that Jekyll and Hyde are two different individuals: “‘The Master Hyde, if he were studied,’ thought he [Utterson],’must have secrets of his own; black secrets, by the look of him; secrets compared to which poor Jekyll’s worst would be like sunshine.” (Stevenson 22). Thus, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a story where the line blurs. As Hyde and Jekyll are one and the same person, the reader realises that they together are both moral and immoral and both good and