Assignment about The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Course: Introduction to literature
Assignment: It is suggested that the text the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde is preoccupied with the theme of the divided self. Referring to structure, character and plot, analyse the way in which stevenson has conveyed the sense of division in this text.
In The strange case of doctor jekyll and mr hyde, R. L. Stevenson describes London during the nineteenth century. In that time the society was divided into distinct social classes and their corresponding communuties. If you were born in a low class there was a small chance you move up to a higher class and if you had a high status there were certain things you could never do, although you may want to do them. Because as a high class person it was rather easy to ruin respectable, good status into a bad one.
If you look closer to the word 'case' in the title 'the strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' you may wonder what it means in this context. It may be a case of a disease or to a case of investigation by the police or other detective agency. Both a medical as a detective case are appropiate in this context and are clearly available to Stevenson since as we see he uses both cases. The psycholical disease and the detective investigation case.
In the story, Henry Jekyll,is such a man of good status. He is a doctor who is rich, clever and successful in life. Loved and respected by all. But although he has it al, he always had a desire to forfill certain pleasures. Pleasures which a man of his postition in society cannot have. But he always wanted to carry his head high and to be considered a serious and important person. Therefore he felt ashamed to let people know of his pleasures. He is afraid that people might think he was no better than others. The pleasures that he had were such as many other men would have spoke proudly of, but from the high views that he had set before him, he looked upon them with shame. It was thus that he had great ambitions in live that the distance between good and evil were greater in him than in other man. Long had he ignored this desires of his second nature but when he gets the chance to forfill his pleasures and at the same time stay the same man of respect he grabes that chance. He had found that the connection between body and mind is not so strong as people believe and that certain chemicals have the power to seperate that body and mind apart. Seperate his two natures; the good, dr Jekyll and the bad, mr Hyde. Stevenson describes Hyde as short monster with animal features: "pale and dwarfish: he gave an impression of diformity, without any namable malformation..." "Something troglodytic, shall we say?' muses Utterson. [...] Hyde proceeds 'with ape-like fury'. While Jekyll is described as the most polite, respectable, tall and hansome looking gentleman. Perhaps jekyll changes during this experiment to his most basic form, in which evil takes control without paying attention to the constraints of the society.
