The Strange The Strange Case of Dr. Case of Dr.

Jekyll and Mr. Jekyll and Mr. HydeHyde

By Robert Louis StevensonBy Robert Louis Stevenson

Historical Background

• Written during the Victorian Age (1830-1900)

• Hard work, respectability, repression of self-expression, and religious conformity

• Significant changes in the field of medicine and scientific experimentation occurred

• Primary characters are all bachelors (prudery)

John Utterson• Respected lawyer and central

figure in the novel• Longtime friend of Dr. Jekyll• Intrigued with the tales of

Edward Hyde• Concerned about Dr. Jekyll’s

erratic behavior• Discovers truth about the

enigma involving Jekyll and Hyde

Dr. Henry Jekyll

• Wealthy, handsome, prominent middle-aged physician

• Covers inward sensual desires with outward facade of respectability

• Engages in transcendental experiments that eventually reveal his dual personality

Edward Hyde• Jekyll’s other

nature

• Pale, small, with impression of deformity

• Evil, occasionally compared to an animal

GOOD & EVIL

Dr. Lanyon

• Respected physician

• Friend and former colleague of Dr. Jekyll who views Jekyll’s experiments as nonsense

Poole• Dr. Jekyll’s faithful servant

• Concerned about his employer

• Seeks Utterson’s help

Plot I

Through the eyes of Mr. Utterson, the story of Dr. Jekyll’s dual personality unfolds. Dr. Henry Jekyll is enthralled with questions concerning good and evil. While experimenting with various mixtures of drugs, he creates a concoction that enables him to separate the good and evil within himself.

Plot II

When Jekyll first drinks the potion, the evil Edward Hyde emerges, but the respected Jekyll returns when he drinks the mixture a second time. Jekyll’s physical changes symbolize his moral deterioration. As Hyde continues to emerge, his capacity for evil increases and culminates in a brutal murder.

Plot III

Jekyll and Hyde struggle for mastery, and Hyde gradually becomes the dominant figure. After Hyde commits murder, Jekyll realizes he can no longer control his other “self.” Finally, Hyde’s dead body is found in Jekyll’s laboratory.

Facts I

• Setting: London, England, mid-to-late 1800s

• Date: Written in 1886

• Narrator: Mostly 3rd person omniscient; also 1st person via letters and other documents

• Themes: Good vs. Evil, Hypocrisy, Duality of Human Nature

Facts II• Conflict: Individual vs. Self,

Individual vs. Society

• Style: Narrative

• Tone: Mystery, Horror, Pessimism

ANALOGIES BETWEEN STEVENSON’S & MARY SHELLEY’S NOVELS I

THE FIGURE OF THE OVERREACHER - The two protagonists are scientists who,they overcome the limits and borders imposed to them by ethics, nature or God. Their punishment is death by exhaustion in one case, by self-destruction in the other. Both are OVERREACHERS, rebels who go beyond the limits imposed to Mankind by God or Nature, who have their prototype in Prometheus, the mythical Titan who defied Zeus stealing the fire from the Olympus.

ANALOGIES BETWEEN STEVENSON’S & MARY SHELLEY’S NOVELS II

FORBIDDEN SCIENCE - Both Mary Shelley, who is considered a forerunner of science - fiction, and Robert Louis Stevenson reveal deep interest in science in these works and reflect on what is now called bioethics.

ANALOGIES BETWEEN STEVENSON’S & MARY SHELLEY’S NOVELS III

COMPLEX NARRATIVE STRUCTURE - The two stories are told by different narrators and the reader shares different points of view. Mary Shelley's work is an epistolary novel with three narrating voices, whose narration doesn't follow a chronological sequence. It is also designed as "Chinese boxes"

Stevenson's "Jekyll and Hyde", too, has a multi - narrational structure: four different narrators and a series of different points of view are proposed to the reader: 80% of the story is told by a third - person external narrator but Enfield's, Lanyon's and Jekyll's contributions are necessary, essential, to the completeness of the puzzle Mr Utterson is trying to re-compose.

ANALOGIES BETWEEN STEVENSON’S & MARY SHELLEY’S NOVELS IV

THE DOUBLE - In Frankenstein we can recognize two examples of these fascinating theme. Captain Walton can be considered Victor Frankenstein's "alter ego", his double, since they manifest the same ambition. Walton and Frankenstein try to go beyond human limits and are punished in the end as are all overreachers: Walton's punishment is the imprisonment in the ice and the rebellion of his crew; Frankenstein's punishment is definite, it is death. The second example of double is Frankenstein and the creature/monster he created.

The theme of the double in Stevenson's mystery  story is based on the double identity / personality of a single human being. As Henry James said: "It deals with the relation of the baser parts of man to his nobler - of the capacity for evil that exists in the most generous nature..."

“I stole through the corridors, a stranger in my own house;and coming to

my room, I saw for the first time the appearance

of Edward Hyde.”

Robert Louis Stevenson