How does Stevenson represent Victorian society in his novella?
“Dr. Jekyll and Mr HYDE”
Robert Louis Stevenson implies what Victorian society is like in his novella “the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde”, by providing the reader with facts and metaphors and using language to indicate that no-one is ordinary and everyone has a different side, or dark side, the difference between illusion and reality, implying to us everyone has a Mr Hyde side. What he tells the reader in his novella can be interpreted by the reader to be a microcosm of the Victorian era and an insight into how ordinary people who lived in London saw and did.
Stevenson’s descriptions of London are often dull and dreary, describing it as old and as if it has untold secrets, “bore in every feature the mask of a prolonged and sordid negligence” suggests that there is so much lying and deceit in London that people have just expected and aren’t trying to fix it, it also suggest that the city is run-down and no-one cares. In his novella Stevenson doesn’t mention much of outside Britain and in turn this can be interpreted that he uses London as a microcosm of Britain and indeed the British Empire and its colonies. He describes it with so much passion against London leaving hidden and subtle hints that it is falling apart and that everyone is hiding their true feelings and ambitions. He also hints that he believe London is a dying city “once crowded with eager students and now lying gaunt and silent” is Stevenson’s description of the labatory in his novella. This can be interpreted by the reader to mean that the pace and passion of which London used to work at, the scientific findings being discovered and the theories being put forward have stopped and the life is slowly being sucked out of London.
