How Does Stevenson Suggest Both Scientific Peril And Victorian Hypocrisy In Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde??

Joe Grix 10H 12/01/03

INTRODUCTION

This is an essay to show how Robert Louis Stevenson suggests both scientific peril and Victorian hypocrisy in Dr jekyll and Mr Hyde. The story that R.L.Stevenson writes is about a man who goes further than the boundary of science to create a potion that will separate the 2 persons inside you, the good and the evil. Dr Jekyll believes that the potion he makes is to put the two persons inside you into different bodies, when really he puts the to separate bodies in 1 body where both are fighting to be the 1 in control. When Dr Jekyll takes this potion, his body becomes 1 with 2 personalities. Also when Dr Jekyll changes into the other person within him (Mr Hyde), his features all change as well, from a tall and skinny person (Dr Jekyll), into a small fat person (Mr Hyde). Dr Jekyll is a man of peace; where as the other person within him is violent and evil, not caring for anyone or anything. As the story moves on, and when the body is as Mr Hyde, he does evil things, such as stamp on a little girl for no reason at all; maybe Dr Jekyll has done to much good for the world and Mr Hyde is being bad to make up for all of the good. By the end of the story Dr Jekyll tries to get ride of Mr Hyde because too much damage was being caused and everyone was after Mr Hyde to arrest him because he killed many people and his face was now well known. Dr Jekyll couldn’t ever go out because he wasn’t in control of when the change happened. Dr Jekyll ended up having to poison himself so the body would be destroyed and so would have been Mr Hyde.

This is a preview of the whole essay

Robert Louis Stevenson was a man who was born and brought up on the outskirts of Edinburgh in New Town in the house at 8 Howard close. He was born in 1850, and died in 1894. Stevenson was ill most of his life; at one point in his life when he lived in Bournemouth, he was very ill and wrote the story Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He was very wound up at the time of finishing his first draft of the story a; also he wasn’t too happy about his first draft, so he through it on the fire. Then other three nights, Stevenson managed to rewrite the whole story but better they say he had a feverish spell of writing during these three days, to produce the whole book. The story of Jekyll and Hyde kind of relate to the life of Stevenson. He was ill most of his life; he maybe wanted to express what he felt like and wanted to get the bad out of his body. Or maybe had these urges to but not as bad. Maybe where he hadn’t been out much, he wanted to be more excited and go to these brothels.

ANSWER TO TITLE

There are things in the Jekyll and Hyde story that are taken too far over the limit of scientific boundaries. Creating a man of 2 where 1 is all good and the other is all evil, in the task to destroy all evil in every 1 was a disaster’. He didn’t look at all angles before he took the potion, or even before he started the project. The scientific peril of the story that Stevenson suggested is in the example above; where Dr Jekyll has gone too far over the boundary of science, and has lost his life in doing so.

The Victorian hypocrisy that Stevenson suggests is where he says about the urges of Dr Jekyll, and where he wants to be able to do these things that he’s always wanted to do but without getting caught or losing his reputation. So instead of Dr Jekyll losing his reputation he splits his body in half where he has a bad half which he call Mr Hyde goes out and does the dirty deeds that jekyll has been urging. Maybe these where not urges but something to make him feel good, for doing the world good he wants to repay by doing something bad but without losing the good reputation. There is more proof that these were urges, because Dr Jekyll didn’t want any one to know that him and Mr Hyde were related in any way, so Dr Jekyll goes round the front of the house, and Mr Hyde goes round the back.

THE FILM

Since the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde book has been out, there have been many films produced. Some of the films were the actual story, and others were different ones that have the same sort of story line, but have different characters, e.g. nutty professor. This is where a fat man wants to look skinny so he makes a potion. The potion makes him turn skinny, so there is a skinny man and fat man in one body; but the skinny person turns evil and tries to over power the fat person and kill him. In the end the fat person stops taking the potion, and the skinny person ends up not coming back into the body. This is just like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, but Dr Jekyll doesn’t end up surviving and taking back over the body. The films that have been produced have been in black and white, but there is a cartoon styled film version, that is in colour.