Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is a novel in which setting plays an important feature. In the book Dr Jekyll represents good and Mr Hyde represents evil, yet they are technically the same person and come to symbolise the good and evil in all of us. The novel is set in London but draws heavily on Stevenson’s knowledge of his hometown Edinburgh to create a chilling setting which emphasises the themes of good and evil. Show Setting is most important as a symbol for the characters of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Jekyll owns a fancy town house with a tumble down lab on the back. The town house is described as having an ‘open fire’ in the front hall. This represents Jekyll as it is warm and inviting and hugely welcoming – all things that match Jekyll’s character. The fact that he can build a fire in his front hall and not just his main rooms suggests he is wealthy and likes to display his wealth. Again it is a symbol for the man himself. We are also told that the street on which his house sits is filled with similar houses – his though is the only one kept clean and tidy and whole, the rest have become slightly messy. This is in keeping with Jekyll’s character as we know he is concerned with his reputation and making himself look good to other people which his house certainly does. Hyde on the other hand is a secretive creature who doesn’t so much lurk in the shadows as lives only in the night. He doesn’t hide from other people but he doesn’t really interact with them either, or encourage interactions. The lab door sums up his character perfectly. Unlike the main house it juts out on an alley street, its windows are covered and the door bears no knocker and hasn’t been cleaned for entry. The windows emulate Hyde’s private nature, he doesn’t want people prying into his business. The lack of a knocker shows he doesn’t want or expect guests. The untidiness of the doorway similarly keeps people from visiting. The text also describes the lab as a ‘sinister block of buildings’ – there is something off about them, just like we are told there is something off or ‘deformed’ about Hyde’s appearance. Setting here, in the form of the house, serves to reinforce the characters of Hyde and Jekyll and further highlights the theme of good versus evil. The Victorian London setting is important because it is what pushes Jekyll into making Hyde. Stevenson had apparently considered setting his tale in Edinburgh, with its sordid, poverty-stricken old town and glossy, illustrious new town making clear allusions to Jekyll and Hyde’s personalities again. However, in high London society a man’s reputation was everything and he had to behave. It is far easier to explain Jekyll’s actions against the backdrop of London society than Edinburgh’s. Jekyll is repressed by his lifestyle as a rich doctor, it is only as Hyde that he can do what he actually wants and so he creates Hyde. The setting is important here because it is what forces Jekyll’s hand into making an alternative persona for himself. Setting is important in the initial chapters where Utterson’s dream makes the minotaur and his maze a metaphor for Hyde and his London. We have already had descriptions of Hyde as a ‘juggernaut’ something huge and threatening. This image is built up further with his comparison to the minotaur, a monstrous beast that was used to control and terrorise the Greek town of Minos. Hyde similarly terrorises the occupants of London as he will trample and destroy any who get in his way – the little girl and Sir Carew. London’s twisting medieval streets and fogged new streets become the maze in which the minotaur was kept. You never know when the minotaur or Hyde might appear to hurt you. Setting then becomes a metaphor for the playground of evil. Setting is also important as Stevenson often uses dramatic epithet to show a change in the mood of a scene to show that something is about to happen. We are often told about the ‘rolling fog’ in the streets of London. It hides Hyde literally and cloaks the shady characters of the night. In the final chapters of the novel the fog becomes a horrible storm, rain lashes and the streets are empty. This adds a sense of foreboding as we know something is going to happen the streets are too physically quiet of people as if something bad is about to happen. Utterson is then escorted by Poole to Jekyll’s house and we finally discover that Jekyll and Hyde are the same person. Setting here was used to suggest and hint that the plot was about to take a turn for the worst. Dr. Henry Jekyll, nicknamed in some copies of the story as Harry Jekyll, and his alternative personality, Mr. Edward Hyde, is the central character of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. In the story, he is a good friend of main protagonist Gabriel John Utterson. Jekyll is a kind and respected English doctor who has repressed evil urges inside of him. In an attempt to hide this, he develops a type of serum that he believes will effectively compartmentalize his dark side. Instead, Jekyll transforms into Edward Hyde, the physical and mental manifestation of his evil personality. This process happens more regularly until Jekyll becomes unable to control when the transformations occur. Fictional character biography[edit]Doctor Henry Jekyll is a doctor who feels that he is battling between the benevolence and malevolence within himself, thus leading to the struggle with his alter ego Edward Hyde. He spends his life trying to repress evil urges that are not fitting for a man of his stature. Jekyll develops a serum in an attempt to mask this hidden evil. However, in doing so, Jekyll transforms into Hyde, a hideous creature without compassion or remorse. Jekyll has a friendly personality, but as Hyde, he becomes mysterious and violent. As time goes by, Hyde grows in power and eventually manifests whenever Henry Jekyll shows signs of physical or moral weakness, no longer needing the serum to be released. Stevenson never says exactly what Hyde does, generally saying that it is something of an evil and lustful nature. Thus, in the context of the times, it is abhorrent to Victorian religious morality. Hyde may have been reeling in activities such as engaging with prostitutes or buggery. However, it is Hyde's violent activities that seem to give him the most thrills, driving him to attack and murder Sir Danvers Carew without apparent reason, making him a hunted outlaw throughout England. Carew was a client of Gabriel Utterson, Jekyll's lawyer and friend, who is concerned by Hyde's history of violence and the fact that Jekyll changed his will, leaving everything to Hyde. Dr. Hastie Lanyon, a mutual acquaintance of Jekyll and Utterson, dies of shock after receiving information relating to Jekyll. Before his death, Lanyon gives Utterson a letter to be opened after Jekyll's death or disappearance. When Jekyll refuses to leave his lab for weeks, Utterson and Jekyll's butler Mr. Poole break into the lab. Inside, they find the body of Hyde wearing Jekyll's clothes and apparently dead from suicide. They find also a letter from Jekyll to Utterson promising to explain the entire mystery. Utterson takes the document home where he first reads Lanyon's letter and then Jekyll's. The first reveals that Lanyon's deterioration and eventual death resulted from seeing Hyde drinking a serum or potion and subsequently turning into Jekyll. The second letter explains that Jekyll, having previously indulged unstated vices (and with it the fear that discovery would lead to his losing his social position), found a way to transform himself and thereby indulge his vices without fear of detection. But Jekyll's transformed personality Hyde was effectively a sociopath — evil, self-indulgent, and utterly uncaring to anyone but himself. Initially, Jekyll was able to control the transformations, but then he became Hyde involuntarily in his sleep. At this point, Jekyll resolved to cease becoming Hyde. One night however, the urge gripped him too strongly. After the transformation, he immediately rushed out and violently killed Carew. Horrified, Jekyll tried more adamantly to stop the transformations. For a time, he proved successful by engaging in philanthropic work. One day at a park, he considered how good a person he had become as a result of his deeds (in comparison to others), believing himself redeemed. However, before he completed his line of thought, he looked down at his hands and realized that he had suddenly transformed once again into Hyde. This was the first time that an involuntary metamorphosis had happened in waking hours. Far from his laboratory and hunted by the police as a murderer, Hyde needed help to avoid being caught. He wrote to Lanyon (in Jekyll's hand) asking his friend to retrieve the contents of a cabinet in his laboratory and to meet him at midnight at Lanyon's home in Cavendish Square. In Lanyon's presence, Hyde mixed the potion and transformed back to Jekyll - ultimately leading to Lanyon's death. Meanwhile, Jekyll returned to his home only to find himself ever more helpless and trapped as the transformations increased in frequency and necessitated even larger doses of potion in order to reverse them. Eventually, the stock of ingredients from which Jekyll had been preparing the potion ran low, and subsequent batches prepared by Dr. Jekyll from renewed stocks failed to produce the transformation. Jekyll speculated that the one essential ingredient that made the original potion work (a salt) must have itself been contaminated. After sending Poole to one chemist after another to purchase the salt that was running low only to find it wouldn't work, he assumed that subsequent supplies all lacked the essential ingredient that made the potion successful for his experiments. His ability to change back from Hyde into Jekyll had slowly vanished in consequence. Jekyll wrote that even as he composed his letter, he knew that he would soon become Hyde permanently, having used the last of this salt and he wondered if Hyde would face execution for his crimes or choose to kill himself. Jekyll noted that in either case, the end of his letter marked the end of his life. He ended the letter saying "I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end". With these words, both the document and the novella come to a close. Adaptations[edit]While there are adaptations of the book, the section depicts the different portrayals in different media appearances: Television[edit]
The story was adapted into a stage musical simply titled Jekyll & Hyde, with music by Frank Wildhorn and book by Leslie Bricusse. It premiered on May 24, 1990 at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas, with Chuck Wagner playing the title role(s) and Linda Eder as Lucy Harris. The stage version includes several character changes: Jekyll believes the evil in man is the reason for his father's mental deficiencies and is the driving force of his work; he is also engaged to Sir Danvers' daughter, Emma, while her former lover, Simon Stride, is still longing for her affections. The musical also features a prostitute named Lucy Harris, who is the object of Hyde's lust. Hyde also murders seven people in the musical: each member of the Board of Governors at the hospital where Jekyll is employed and rejected his work, along with Lucy and Stride. Robert Cuccioli originated the role(s) for the first U.S. tour in 1995, and then in the original Broadway theatre version in 1997. Other notable actors to play the role(s) include: Jack Wagner, Anthony Warlow, Sebastian Bach, David Hasselhoff, Rob Evan, and Constantine Maroulis in the 2013 revival. What effect does Hyde have on Jekyll?Towards the end of the book, Hyde becomes the dominant side to Dr Jekyll's personality. Each time Dr Jekyll turns into Mr Hyde, Mr Hyde gets stronger and makes it more difficult for Dr Jekyll to turn to his 'original' self.
What is Jekyll's reaction to his transformation?3. What is Jekyll's reaction to his transformation? Physically Jekyll feels intense pain and sickness, described as 'the most racking pangs', beyond anything experienced at either birth or death, which hints at the extent of the metamorphosis, as if he were being re-born.
Why does Dr Jekyll become Mr Hyde?Jekyll is a kind and respected English doctor who has repressed evil urges inside of him. In an attempt to hide this, he develops a type of serum that he believes will effectively compartmentalize his dark side. Instead, Jekyll transforms into Edward Hyde, the physical and mental manifestation of his evil personality.
What is the main message of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde?Stevenson writes about the duality of human nature – the idea that every single human being has good and evil within them. Stevenson describes how there is a good and an evil side to everyone's personality, but what is important is how you behave and the decisions you make.
|