The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Bern., Cap., Guidi

Louis stevenson's

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

By: Bernardini Ludovica Capuani Cristina guidi chiara

Louis Stevenson

The author's life (1850-1894)

Louis Stevenson was born on November 13, 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland.In 1867, Stevenson entered Edinburgh University as a science student, where it was thought that he would follow his father's footsteps and become a civil engineer. However, Louis spent much of his time studying French Literature, Scottish history, and the works of Darwin and Spencer. In the fall of 1873, Stevenson fell ill, suffering from nervous exhaustion and a severe chest condition. His doctor ordered him to take an extended period of rest abroad. On his return to Edinburgh, he spent much of his time writing book reviews and articles and experimenting with short stories. He earned a name for himself in journalism and his pieces began appearing in distinguished journals such as The Fortnightly Review.

Louis Stevenson

The author's life (1850-1894)

While establishing his name as a writer, Stevenson met an American married woman, Fanny Vandergrift Osbourne, he eventually followed her to San Francisco, where she divorced her husband and married Stevenson in May 1880. 1880-1887 was a period of time was marked by great literary achievement for him. Upon his father's death in 1887, Stevenson chose to leave England and sailed for America, where he stayed for a year. In May 1888, accompanied by his wife, stepson, and mother, he set sail for the South Seas. Stevenson grew so enchanted by the life of the South Seas that in December 1889 he bought an estate in Apia, Samoa. Stevenson lived in the hills of Apia until his death in 1894, when he suffered a brain hemorrhage and died at the age of forty-four.

Louis Stevenson

The author's works

• Treasure Island (1883)
• Prince Otto (1885)
• Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)
• Kidnapped (1886)
• The Black Arrow (1888)
• The Master of Ballantrae (1889)
• The Wrong Box (1889)* The Wrecker (1892)
• Catriona (1893)
• The Ebb-Tide (1894)
• Weir of Hermiston (1896)
• St Ives (1897)

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The social context

Stevenson lived and wrote during the Victorian era, when Queen Victoria ruled England. The Victorian era brought great -technological progress, -advancement of the European power throughout the world. However, at the end of the nineteenth century, artists, writers and intellectuals were beginning to move away from the celebration of "progress" that had so defined the times, and were questioning the relevance and permanence of the global domination of Western culture. As a part of this increasingly pessimistic group of writers, Stevenson based this book on his own experiences. He focused on the upper middle class highly social world of powerful men in which issues such as appearance and dress are extremely important. Stevenson targets the hypocrisy of social strata and the danger of allowing the innate evilness of human nature to run free in his narrative of a respectable doctor who transforms himself into a savage murderer.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The structure

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is split into ten chapters and Stevenson has given each chapter a title:1. Story of the Door 2. Search for Mr Hyde 3. Dr Jekyll was Quite at Ease 4. The Carew Murder Case 5. Incident of the Letter 6. Remarkable Incident of Dr Lanyon 7. Incident at the Window 8. The Last Night 9. Dr Lanyon's Narrative 10. Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case Stevenson has created chapter titles to summarise the chapter's content, making it easier for the reader to navigate the text. From looking at the chapter titles, it is noticeable how tension peaks during chapters in the middle of the narration and then lessens onwards as the narrative is resolved.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The plot

The tale begins with an urbane conversation between Utterson and his friend Mr. Richard Enfield, telling how returning home in the early hours of the morning, he witnessed a “horrible” incident: a small girl, running across the street, was trampled by a man named Mr. Edward Hyde, who left her screaming on the ground. After being caught, Hyde agreed to pay the child’s family, and he retrieved from a dilapidated building a check from the account of a respected man. Enfield assumes that Hyde is blackmailing that man, whom Utterson knows to be his client Jekyll.Utterson has in his files a will in which Jekyll gives everything to Hyde. The lawyer visits Dr. Lanyon, a longtime friend. Lanyon says that he has seen little of Jekyll for more than 10 years, since Jekyll had gotten involved with “unscientific balderdash,” and that he does not know Hyde. Utterson waylays Hyde at the old building and introduces himself and then goes around to Jekyll’s house (the neglected building is a laboratory belonging to the house), only to learn from the butler, Poole, that Jekyll is not at home and that his servants have orders to obey Hyde.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The plot

Almost a year later a maid witnesses Hyde beating to death a prominent gentleman who is also a client of Utterson’s. Utterson leads the police to Hyde’s home. Though he is absent, evidence of his guilt is clear. Utterson goes to see if Jekyll is harbouring Hyde, and Jekyll gives Utterson a letter from Hyde, in which Hyde declares that he will be able to escape. Lanyon’s and Jekyll’s documents reveal that Jekyll had secretly developed a potion to allow him to separate the good and evil aspects of his personality. He was thereby able at will to change into his increasingly dominant evil counterpart, Mr. Hyde. While the respectable doctor initially had no difficulty in returning from his rabid personality, he soon found himself slipping into Mr. Hyde without recourse to his drug. He temporarily stopped using his potion, but, when he tried it again, Mr. Hyde committed murder. After that, it took a vast amount of potion to keep him from spontaneously becoming Mr. Hyde. Unable to make any more of the drug because of an unknown but apparently crucial impurity in the original supply, Jekyll soon ran out of the drug. Indeed, he took the last of it to write a confession before becoming Hyde permanently.

The Main Characters

Dr. Henry Jekyll/Edward Hyde

Dr. Lanyon

Mr. Utterson

Poole

Sir Danvers Carew

Rirchard Enfield

The Main Themes

Repression and the Loss of Self-Control

SplIT PERSONALITY

THE EFFECTS OF the victorian society ON THE INDIVIDUAL

REASON VS SUPERNATURAL

LEARNING EXPERIENCE

Quiz

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Richard Enfield

Richard Enfield is Mr Utterson's acquaintance. He is the person who mentions to the lawyer the actual personality of Jekyll's heir, Mr Hyde. Enfield witnessed Hyde walking over a little girl in the street, and he, with the girl's parents and other residents, force Hyde into writing a cheque for the girl's family. Enfield discovers that the cheque was signed by Dr Jekyll. He said Hyde was disgusting looking.

Split Personality

At various times this novella seems to recount a war existing within a self among stages of evolution. Utterson sees Hyde as having something "troglodytic" in his face, which would make this a war between cave man and modern man. However, when Jekyll refers to Hyde as "younger," the war would seem to be between a younger, passionate self and a more mature and disciplined self.

The most obvious and literal divided self is Dr.Jekyll. He consciously splits himself into two people, so he can retain the good reputation of his public self, Henry Jekyll, while indulging his dark passions as Edward Hyde. These divided selves at times it seems like it might be a simple good/evil split: Jekyll is good, Hyde is evil. Other times, though, it is more complicated. When Hyde tramples a little girl in the first chapter, he still wants to retain a gentleman's good reputation. In the final chapter, Jekyll explains his perspective: Hyde is pure evil, while Jekyll is a composite of good and evil. This particular division has occurred because of his intention when taking the drug. If he'd wanted to create a purely good version of himself, the potion he made would have done so rather than creating the evil one.

Dr. Lanyon

A former friend of Jekyll's, He disagrees with his "scientific" concepts. He is the first person to whom Hyde's identity is revealed (Hyde transforms himself back into Jekyll in Lanyon's presence). Dr Lanyon helps Ulterson solve the case. When Lanyon witnesses the transformation process, (and subsequently hears Jekyll's private confession, made to him alone), Lanyon becomes critically ill and later dies of shock.

Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde

A doctor who has covered up a secret life full of cruel deeds. After drinking a potion of his own creation, Jekyll is transformed into the remorseless, evil Edward Hyde, representing the hidden side of Dr Jekyll's nature. As time goes by, Mr Hyde grows in power. After taking the potion repetitively, he no longer needs it. The same potion that turns Jekyll into Hyde also turns him back into Jekyll. He finds himself spontaneously turning into Hyde and requiring greater doses of the potion to turn himself back. When the original batch runs out, Jekyll frantically scours the pharmacies of London looking for the same ingredients he originally used, but ultimately realizes one of the original components had a unique imperfection that could not be duplicated. Realizing he will soon be Hyde forever, he committs suicide.

Repression and the Loss of Self-Control

As one can see, what begins as Dr. Jekyll simply “experimenting” turns into a situation where he has completely spiraled out of control. Ultimately, Dr. Jekyll’s loss of self-control leads to the loss of himself. He becomes consumed by his negative urges and temptations (in the form of Mr. Hyde), and loses sight of his other half, the esteemed and accomplished doctor. While Dr. Jekyll may have controlled himself for years and years, it took an incredibly short time of him not controlling himself to allow himself to self-destruct.

A key piece of Dr. Jekyll’s demise in the book is his complete loss of self control. When he begins transforming into Mr. Hyde he is in control, doing so when he pleases, and he has the ability to return to his former self. In the form of Dr. Jekyll, he is somewhat able to repress his desire to turn into Mr. Hyde. This begins to change, however, and Dr. Jekyll loses his control and his ability to repress his desire to be Mr. Hyde. He begins turning into Mr. Hyde frequently unable to stop himself from taking the potion, and eventually turning into Mr. Hyde completely subconsciously. Dr. Jekyll’s demise is a metaphor for how quickly one can fall when they lose their self control and their ability to repress harmful wishes or desires.

Reason VS Supernatural

Jekyll's goals frighten and disgust the men of science, such as Lanyon, with whom he used to friends. Behind all the action of Jekyll and Hyde in the novel, a fear lurks for all the characters –the threat of madness and the threat of a new world, of new science, new traditions, new disorders that traditional science and reason can't comprehend or deal with.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde creates a tension between the world of reason and science and the world of the supernatural, and seems to suggest the limits of reason in its inability to understand or cope with the supernatural phenomena that take place. Jekyll confesses at the end of the novel that he has been fascinated by the duality of man and has taken to both chemical and mystical methods to try to get to the truth. This inclusion of a spiritual side to Jekyll’s philosophy shows his to be a mind unlike those of the lawyers and doctors of his society, who restrict themselves to traditional reason. The result of Jekyll's explorations (Mr. Hyde) is something beyond reason, which shocks and overwhelms the sensitive intellectual dispositions of the other characters and leaves Dr. Jekyll permanently removed from his educated, medical self.

Mr. Utterson

Gabricl John Utterson, a lawyer and friend of Jekyll's (and Lanyon's), is the character the narrator focuses on, and follows in his quest to discover the identity of Hyde. Utterson is described as a mcasured, and at all times emotionless, bachelor; who is nonetheless believable, trustworthy and indeed likable.

The servants in the story also highlight the strong hold the notion of class has across all of society. Even when terribly concerned about Dr. Jekyll, his servants refuse to cross any lines of propriety. And the strength of Poole's character in particular shows just how artificial are the ideas labeling people as different in their abilities to think and feel according to their class.

The effects of Victorian society on the individual

In Victorian England people were expected to act in certain ways as defined by the class to which they belonged. As a member of the upper class, Dr. Jekyll is expected to behave carefully and properly and, indeed, to do so willingly as a true gentleman would. This is part of the reason his decision not to repress his lower urges is so shocking to his peers. They react based not only on a disgust for evil but also on shock that one of them would be so careless. Dr. Jekyll's action flies in the face of social rules and values by letting out his base nature in the form of Mr. Hyde, whose violence and unchecked sexuality show a complete disregard for strict codes.

Poole

Poole is Dr Jekyll's butler who, upon noticing the reclusiveness and changes of his master, goes to Mr Utterson with the fear that his master has been murdered and his murderer, Mr Hyde, is residing in his chambers. Poole serves Jekyli faithfully, and attempts to do a good job and be loyal to his master. Yet events finally drive him into joining forces with Utterson to discover the truth.

Sir Danvers Carew

A kind old man and important member of Parliament. He was killed in the streets of London by Mr Hyde in a murderous rage. In many adaptations of the story, Sir Danvers is the father of Jekyll's fiancée. The book makes no such connection and Hyde's murder of Sir Danvers is described as a wanton act of violence.

Repression and the Loss of Self-Control

As one can see, what begins as Dr. Jekyll simply “experimenting” turns into a situation where he has completely spiraled out of control. Ultimately, Dr. Jekyll’s loss of self-control leads to the loss of himself. He becomes consumed by his negative urges and temptations (in the form of Mr. Hyde), and loses sight of his other half, the esteemed and accomplished doctor. While Dr. Jekyll may have controlled himself for years and years, it took an incredibly short time of him not controlling himself to allow himself to self-destruct.

A key piece of Dr. Jekyll’s demise in the book is his complete loss of self control. When he begins transforming into Mr. Hyde he is in control, doing so when he pleases, and he has the ability to return to his former self. In the form of Dr. Jekyll, he is somewhat able to repress his desire to turn into Mr. Hyde. This begins to change, however, and Dr. Jekyll loses his control and his ability to repress his desire to be Mr. Hyde. He begins turning into Mr. Hyde frequently unable to stop himself from taking the potion, and eventually turning into Mr. Hyde completely subconsciously.Dr. Jekyll’s demise is a metaphor for how quickly one can fall when they lose their self control and their ability to repress harmful wishes or desires.