Stevenson, Robert Louis - The strange Case of dr Jekill and Mr Hide

Robert Stevenson

He was born in Edinburgh in 1850. He was influenced by his Calvinist family about the concept of good vs evil. He was in conflict with his social environment and with the “respectable victorian world” for this reason he travelled a lot searching a friendlier climate, probably also for his poor healt. He denounce in his works the concept of appearance vs reality a typical problem of victorian period, also he rebelled against the social climate and he was considered the first English bohémien writer—> long hair and excentric manners. He gave up engineering study he graduated in law, that’s important because in his masterpiece “The strange case of dr. Jekyll and mr. Hyde” a character called Mr. Utterson was a lawyer.
The strange case of Dr Jakyll and Mr Hyde
-Mr. Utterson is a respectable London lawyer and friend to Dott. Jekyll. He “utters” his suspicious about relation between Mr Hyde and Dr jakyll. He has a distant cousin and friend, Mr Enfield. Like Utterson he is formal and reserved. The 2 friends often walk together without saying a world.

Utterson investigated on Jekyll and Hyde and he discovered that the strange behaviors of Dr. Jekyll were caused by a potion able to release his evil side (Hyde), the potion was created by Dr. Jekyll. Hyde, choose a life on crime and depravity, achieves dominating on Jekyll and Jekyll had to kill himself to eliminate Hyde.

Two different meaning about suicide—> eastern culture—>eroic jest, put end of horrific story \—>western—> sin against human nature.
Story takes place between London and Scotland, (London & Edinburgh). The 2 capitals have a double nature and reflect the hypocrisy of Victorian society.
• London: West End, respectable East End: slums

• Edinburgh: New towns: wide squares. Odd town: crime
The bleakness is reflected in the characters, only professional relation between people. There are no women, that’s a male patriarchal society, also the absence of women created a sadly clime.

Double nature on the settings

The dualism is reinforced by the symbolism of 2 facade Jekyll’s house:
• Front side, used by the doctor, is fair, handsome
• Rear door, used by Hyde, part of a sinister block (slums) with no windows, no life - Most scenes take place at night. No natural daylight, only artificial lighting.
- Most important events, 3 sinister facts takes place in darkness/fog:

Murder of a respectable member of Parliament; that’s represent a violent rebellion organized by hide part of the society against government.
Trampling over a child
Jekyll’s suicide 

Themes
- Reputation: Enfield and Utterson avoid gossip, (gossip as destroyer of reputation) It reflects the important of appearance in Victorian society (and not only).

Usually under a good appearance is hide a sordid underside, a clear example is Jekyll: good doctor (good reputation) hides Hyde (cruel monster).
- Duality of human nature: last chapter was fundamental

Jekyll images the human soul like a battleground for good & evil. This because Jekyll says that man isn’t truly one, but truly two. Jekyll creates a potion to purify himself but Hyde prevails on Jekyll and he has to kill himself to eliminate Hyde. —> so probably the man is truly one.
This why? Hyde embodied the primitive creature and civilization, law and conscience try to control him. Hyde was called troglodite as an animal, the potion strips away (spoglia) the civilized appearance, revealing the real man’s essential nature.

That’s a clear parallelism with the Darwin’s theory about evolution.
Good vs Evil
Jekyll and Hyde represent the people’s stereotypes about good and evil, generally we consider: • Good: people proportionated, white hands... Good=Beauty

• Evil: deformity... Evil=Ugly

Victorian Faust

Jekyll as Victorian Faust. He projected his hidden desires in Hyde, so Jekyll is as guilty as Hyde. Jekyll makes a pact with himself to know himself and it’s happy of this, for this reason he lost the control.

(Faust was avid of knowledge and strict a pact with. Mefistofele (Satan) to know everything)

Drug’s addiction

It seems that the potion is composed by opium. Jekyll became dependent of this potion, he tried to manipulate his friend Utterson to reach other drugs. The real friendship became a false friendship when Jekyll tried to manipulate his friend to reach drugs.
This to show the use of drug in the aristocracy. Use of poison loss identity, job, divorce, suicide.

Different point of view, 4 narrators. Mr Utterson (role of detective), Mr. Enfield, Dr. Lanyon (friend of Dr Jekyll, is great advocate of reason), Dr. Jekyll.

Sources

The novel has its origins in a dream. Stevenson wrote this dreams in his diary, he dreams about a men in a laboratory, who had swallowed a poison and he turned into a different bein.
Parallelism with Freud, Religion, Darwin. Freud—>Jekyll: Io
\Hyde: Inconscio
Darwin—> Jekyll: Civilized man Hyde: Prehistorical man Religion—>Jekyll: Good Hyde: Evil