In the story Jekyll and Hyde, Hyde got away with murder because he went for the poor just like the real life man Jack the ripper as he also went for the poor. He only went for the poor because nobody was bothered about them and they had no protection. Some people believe Jack the Ripper had read Jekyll and Hyde and got the idea of nobody caring about the poor and he was right.
Also at the time of the story was written some people stopped believing in god because they had such terrible lives and lived in terrible conditions so they thought there was no god that would help them. As they stopped believing in god they stopped going to church and that was like a crime at the time so they would have got fined and got even poorer than they already was.
Robert Louis Stevenson came from a wealthy and very religious family so the idea of the Jekyll and Hyde which involves monsters and murder was not very approved from his mother and father and maybe the rest of his family.
Things that make a good horror story like Dr Jekyll ad Mr Hyde are darkness, a detective, a villain, a murder and a mystery. Stevenson uses all of these aspects in his story. In the story the detective is Mr Utterson because he tyres to unravel the case. The villain was Mr Hyde because he did terrible things like murders people like he murders the 1st class MP
In Stevenson’s time, gothic horror stories were very popular and exiting, just like the films in the cinema and DVD are today. Many people enjoyed these kind of stories would read penny dreadful's which were short, thrilling, shocking and very cheap to buy. In this, Stevenson might have been influenced by a story like Frankenstein. Dr Frankenstein created Frankenstein like Jekyll created Hyde and in both stories they both came out of control.
In a story, settings are very important, this is because it shows the differences between people and the way they live. We know this is because in Jekyll and Hyde it says “The street shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood”. In that quotation it tells you that the rich and poor people were very close together. Another way setting is important in the story is the description of Dr Jekyll's house , it says “Prolonged and sordid negligence”. When they say this they are describing Hyde himself because this is his entrance to Dr Jekyll’s house. Robert Louis Stevenson’s settings to his story have dark and deserted streets to give his story horror and make it spooky.
In the story we first meet the character Mr Utterson. Mr Utterson and Jekyll are slightly similar in some ways; these ways are that they are wealthy, respectable and important people. Mr Utterson has a friend called Mr Enfield who is very sly. The relationship between Mr Utterson and Mr Enfield is very much like the relationship between Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Mr Utterson is a respectable man and Mr Enfield is not just like Dr Jekyll is respectable and Mr Hyde is not. Also Mr Utterson and Dr Jekyll are kind men and Mr Enfield and Mr Hyde are not because they are very mysterious and are usually looking for trouble.
Mr Edward Hyde represents the evil in men. The beast in people. Mr Hyde is very anti-social, instinctual, amoral, brutal and lacking in conscience. We know this because in the book it says he tramples all over a young girl and if Mr Enfield did not approach him he would just have carried on and not paid the family of and the little girl would have died. Mr Hyde looks very mysterious, it says in the book “He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance, something downright detestable.” Robert Louise Stevenson could have been influenced by Darwin and his theory of evolution, which was that man was once ape and if he was right Stevenson was suggesting that Dr Jekyll evil side was the less evolved side of him which was acting like the ape and this was Mr Hyde.
