Dr. Henry Jekyll (and Mr.Hyde) was born in to a society of morality, respectability and religion.

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Matthew Bacon 4J                                                                            

Dr. Henry Jekyll was born in to a society of morality, respectability and religion. It was believed that ‘progress’ could only be made if everyone was self-disciplined and moralistic. Authors such as Samuel Smiles wrote “Self-Help” guides.  All this was aimed to help the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In an age of stern, industrious hypocrites, respect was everything to the upper and middle classes.  People denied themselves alcohol, gambling and prostitution to gain the respect of others. Jekyll refers to these denied as “pleasures”.  People lived without these “pleasures” but soon began to wonder what they were missing. This brought about the “slum adventurers”. These were middle and upper class men who wanted to keep the respect of their society but, through anonymity, still indulge in the “pleasures” the poor slums had to offer.  They would work by day in their offices and at night would journey down to the alleys of the slums.  

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   A person such as Mr Utterson, a London lawyer who does not wish to indulge in pleasures is of a vicarious nature. It is noticed that “…though he enjoyed the theatre, [he] had not crossed the doors of one in twenty years”. It is this vicariousness that helps him solve the case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde.  Utterson is the opposite of Jekyll in the way that Utterson keeps the respectability of the Victorian society, whereas Jekyll ‘rebels’.

   The rebellious nature of Jekyll leads him to discover how to transform his appearance.  Dr. Lanyon, a respectable conventional ...

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