Stevenson, Robert Louis - The strange case of Dottor Jekyll and Mister Hyde

Robert Louis Stevenson

The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

The search of Hyde

Case because it’s a detective investigation. He wants to test what he created and he hesitated before. Man has another nature, he has an alter ego. A long description of the transformation. Mr. Hyde has no pleasure. This explains what the revolutionary theory of Darwin is. Jekyll is better than Hyde because Hyde is ugly. Hyde is not totally innocent. Hyde’s body has a deformity that no one could describe and this makes him interesting.

Hyde is unable to respect the social role. Freedom is the representation of what everyone wants because there’s oppression. Mr. Hyde is evil. The doctor decides to kill himself; returning to Jekyll is impossible. You cannot reconquer your natural state. The two natures continue to live, but the drug makes little Jekyll, so Hyde was physically bigger.

Story of the door

There’s a reserved man, Mr. Utterson, who is different from Dr. Jekyll because, while Dr. Jekyll risks his life, Mr. Utterson is not able to do this. Mr. Utterson is the typical Victorian man. For him, respectability is important. Jekyll wants to experience pleasure, while for Utterson it is not respectable to have this experience. The job of Utterson is respectable. He is in the respectable middle class.

Utterson is devoted to his job; going to the theatre is a waste of time, only work is important for a Victorian man. Mr. Utterson is able to help, but he was characterized by a strong individualism. He is a model for the others and this makes him different from everyone else. He is a member of the upper class. His friends are like him. He with his friends seemed very, very sad. Relaxing activity, such as a walk, but they were silent. A kind of pleasure but not so much pleasure.

The inhabitants were all similar and they are similar to Mr. Utterson, they are of the same social class, they invested money. London and Edinburgh, two capitals, have a double nature; there’s the reflection of the hypocrisy which characterizes the Victorian age. New Town has the typical setting that Jekyll likes, Old Town is for Hyde.

Ugly side of the house and the good side of the house. There’s the description of the quarter and the east side is described, which is poor. From this point, there’s also Mr. Enfield, who is a small man, and together with a girl. Now there’s not the omniscient narrator but a first-person narrator who introduces a dialogue. There’s a multi-narrator structure; there are different points of view.

Mr. Utterson, Mr. Enfield, friends and Dr. Jekyll are possible narrators. Friends investigate the case, while it is the Jekyll autobiography. The omniscient narrator wants to describe the centre of the scene.