Both books have an object to represent something. For example, In Jekyll and Hyde, a door is used to show how horrible Hyde is. Stephenson describes this door very vividly, saying it is ‘blistered’ and ‘distained.’ Stephenson uses the door to introduce Mr Hyde, so people can get an image of his personality. I personally think he does this very well, and forces me think of what kind of person he is.
In the Fifth Child, the big table is used to show the togetherness of the family. This is shown by the Christmas, Easter and summer parties Harriet and David have. For example, when David and Harriet have these sleepovers, all the adults sit around the table with the children playing by the sofas and furniture.
“All the adults were still around the table, fifteen of them. The children played among the sofas and chairs of the sitting-room area.”
At the end, however, Harriet is alone thinking about the family that Ben has destroyed.
In both books, there is an outsider. They have similarities and differences to each other. First I will go through the similarities.
They are both freaks who look different from the rest of society. For example, Hyde is not described fully, but Enfield says:
“He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives the strong feeling of deformity, although I scarce know the point. He’s an extraordinary-looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way.’
Stephenson also describes him:
“Mr Hyde was pale and dwarfish; he gave an impression of deformity without any namable malformation, he had a displeasing smile”
The language Stephenson uses to describe Hyde is horrifying. The idea of him being deformed is bad enough, but saying he is dwarfish makes Hyde sound as though he is from another planet. The description of Hyde being deformed but not knowing what is deformed about him is sinister and keeps the reader gripped to find out what is wrong with him.
Doris Lessing also uses similar horrifying language to describe Ben. She says:
“He was not a pretty baby. He did not look like a baby at all. He had a heavy-shouldered hunched look, as if he were crouching there as he lay. His forehead sloped from his eyebrows to his crown. His hair grew in an unusual pattern from the double crown where started a wedge or triangle that came low on the forehead, the hair lying in a thick yellowish stubble, while side and back hair grew downwards. His hands were thick and heavy, with pads of muscle in the palms. He opened his eyes and looked straight up into his mothers face. They were focussed greeny-yellow eyes, like lumps of soapstone.”
Doris Lessing makes this language more horrifying because she is describing a newborn baby, who is supposed to look sweet and innocent. The fact that he was extremely muscular as a newborn shows how much of a freak he is. The ‘pads’ of muscle on his hands are another freak-like description. His hair is ‘unusual’ and it is ‘a thick yellowish stubble.’ I have a younger brother that is five months old who has very soft hair, like any other baby I have seen. ‘Thick yellowish stubble’ is not normal baby hair. His eyes being ‘lumps of soapstone’ just show that his eyes are emotionless, which shows that he is autistic, as he does not recognise his mother, which is worse than hating his mother. Friends of the family notice these deformities. Even John, an unemployed man who is also considered as an outsider, describes Ben as a ‘troll’, ‘goblin’, ‘dwarfey’, ‘dopey’, ‘hobbit’ and ‘gremlin.’ At one point, Harriet thinks of Ben being an underground caveman that has come from outer space! This sounds completely ridiculous, but I think it is effective description from Lessing to show how much of a freak Ben really is. This is what Harriet asked herself:
“Did Ben’s people live in caves underground while ice age ground overhead, eating fish from dark subterranean, or sneaking up into the bitter snow to snare a bear, or a bird – or even people, her (Harriet’s) ancestors?”
Ben and Hyde are extremely aggressive people. They also do not have any remorse for their victims. For example, Hyde tramples over a little girl, like a ‘human juggernaut.’ This is very aggressive, to trample over a small girl. Yet he does not have any remorse for the little girl, he has ‘a black sneering coolness.’ This is terrible, someone who walks over a child and does not care, who is completely cool about it. The language also shows that Hyde is a terrible person, his coolness being ‘black and sneering’, as if he is satisfied with what he has done.
Ben is the same. Doris Lessing writes:
“Paul went into Ben’s room by himself. Of all the children, he was the most fascinated by Ben. Dorothy and Alice, who were together in the kitchen, Harriet having gone off to take the older ones to school, heard screams. They ran upstairs to find that Paul had put his hand in to Ben through the cot bars, and Ben had grabbed the hand and pulled Paul hard against the bars, bending the arm deliberately backwards. The two women freed Paul. They did not bother to scold Ben, who was crowing with pleasure and achievement. Paul’s arm was badly sprained.”
This incident that Lessing describes is chilling and shocking. Ben had ‘grabbed’ Paul’s hand and ‘pulled’ it, then ‘bending the arm deliberately backwards.’ All these phrases have strong words in them, to show how abnormal Ben is. The fact that Ben was ‘crowing with pleasure’ also stresses how abnormal and freak like he is.
Both characters have relationships or a special bond with their creators. Hyde definitely has a bond with Hyde, as Jekyll tells Utterson that Hyde ‘will never more be heard of.’ However, Jekyll keeps taking the potion and chooses to keep the evil going. This is like Harriet and Ben. Despite Ben hurting Harriet so much during pregnancy, and the fact that he is destroying everything that Harriet has, Harriet still brings him back from the institution.
There is one difference between the two outsiders: Jekyll chooses to release his outsider, but Harriet has no choice over Ben. Some people might say that Harriet should have had an abortion or should of taken the contraceptive pill after having Paul, to prevent any more children. However, this was against David and Harriet’s views and ideals.
Hyde, who is the outsider in Jekyll and Hyde, is scared of the consequences that might arise because of his actions. I consider this to be the same with Ben in The Fifth Child.
This is what Hyde says, after he tramples over the girl:
“I am naturally helpless. No gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene.”
“Name your figure.”
What Hyde says is quite sinister. He does not care about the situation the girl is in, only cares not to have a scene, so everyone can forget about it. He is described as ‘quite easy and sneering.’ This proves further that Hyde considers hurting people as an everyday occurrence, and his victims being toys that he could play with as rough as he wanted.
This is the same with Ben. Not too long after he is born, he is sent to an institution. This place is horrifying, the children in this place who had ‘the human template wrenched out of pattern, sometimes horribly, sometimes slightly.’ This is terrible enough, yet Lessing goes on to describe:
“A baby like a comma, great lolling head on a stalk of a body…then something like a stick insect, enormous bulging eyes among stiff fragilities that were limbs…a small girl all blurred, her flesh guttering and melting…a doll with chalky swollen limbs, its eyes wide and blank, like blue ponds, and its mouth open, showing a swollen little tongue.”
David and his mother and stepfather, Molly and Frederick send Ben to this institution. This description of the institution is sickening, and going here mentally scars Ben. Harriet uses this mental scar to control Ben. When Harriet asks Ben to remember where he went to ‘in the van’, Ben goes ‘rigid.’ He starts ‘trembling’ because he remembered the institution and how horrible it was. Ben now fears any place that looks like the institution that he went to. This is a useful control of Ben, to tell him not to do such things as this:
‘Ben had suddenly gone berserk and attacked a bigger girl in the playground. He had pulled her down, so that she fell heavily on the asphalt, bruising and grazing her legs. Then he had bitten her, and bent her arm back until it broke.’
The language Lessing uses to describe this incident is quite shocking. The girl does not just slip on to the asphalt; she falls ‘heavily.’ Lessing shows how strong Ben is by saying he pulls a ‘bigger girl’ down.
Both of the outsiders are progressively released. Both books show this. In Jekyll and Hyde, you are not told straight away the appearance of Hyde. I think this is clever from Stephenson, as the reader is told bit by bit, to keep him/her interested. With Ben, you are told of his appearance as soon as he is born. However, he is progressively released through the fact that the things he does get worse and worse. He starts doing evil by bending Paul’s arm back in his cot. When Ben gets older Harriet believes that he rapes women with his friends. The fact that Ben gets older is also evidence he is being progressively released.
Many issues are raised in both of the books. Most of them are different because of the books being written in different time periods. However, one issue is prominent throughout both books: how people should deal with outsiders. In Jekyll and Hyde, the general consensus was to hide away any bad people or things, or kill them in front of the public. In Jekyll and Hyde, people wanted to kill Hyde. This is because he killed a member of parliament, Sir Danvers Carew.
Ben is differently treated. During Harriet’s pregnancy, his kicking would spoil Harriet and David’s parties. The groans from Harriet and the pain she suffered stopped people from coming:
“Jessica took herself off, and Deborah with her. James followed. Frederick had to finish a book.”
People only started to flock back after Ben was born, when everything seemed normal.
When Ben is born, he is treated with pity, with people calling him ‘hobbit’ and other names. David calls him a ‘poor little chap.’ I think he does this because he knows he does not understand that he is so abnormal. After killing the cat and the dog, he is treated with caution, and the sent to the institution, or some might call it, to his death.
An issue that has popped up in the fifth child is that you cannot always rely on authority, and when you cant, what are you supposed to do? This is what Harriet faced. Dr Brett and Dr Gilly would not even admit to Ben having a problem. Mrs Graves, Ben’s primary school teacher would not admit to it, just saying sidetracking comments like:
“He is hyperactive, perhaps?”
Dr Brett and Dr Gilly are the same:
“He is in the range of normality. He is not very good at school, I am told, but often slow children catch up later.”
The doctors and the headmistress did not admit to Ben having a problem, because if they did, they would have to find a solution to it.
Because Dr Jekyll uses chemicals to create Hyde, some might say one issue is ethics of doctors involving cloning and medicine. This arises from Jekyll losing control of Hyde, as Hyde gets stronger and stronger.
In my opinion, I will find the fifth child most memorable. This is because I find the language more simple to understand, and the issues more modern. Stephenson’s book, Jekyll and Hyde, has words that I have never come across before; meaning that reading it was quite slow. Also, when something happens, Stephenson describes what other people think of it. For example, Enfield says:
“It was nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see.”
Lessing usually describes exactly what happened and rarely puts an opinion into what she writes:
“They ran upstairs to find that Paul had put his hand in to Ben through the cot bars, and Ben had grabbed the hand and pulled Paul hard against the bars, bending the arm deliberately backwards.”
