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The strange case of dr. Jekyll and mr. hyde

The strange case of dr. Jekyll and mr. hyde. “All human beings are commingled out of good and evil.”. Victorian London – Social Classes.

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The strange case of dr. Jekyll and mr. hyde

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  1. The strange case of dr. Jekyll and mr.hyde “All human beings are commingled out of good and evil.”

  2. Victorian London – Social Classes • Victorian society was highly stratified; classes did not mix, and behavior, especially among members of the upper class, was expected to be exemplary at all times • The unrealistically rigid morality of upper class Londoners led many to live double lives • Upper class = they, along with their homes, were expected to be proper and elegant at all times

  3. Victorian Style – Upper Class

  4. Victorian London – Setting • London’s social classes led to divided communities • People were uncomfortable and often unwelcome in parts of town that were not inhabited by their own social group • Cavendish Square, the area in which Jekyll, Utterson and Lanyon live = wealthiest part of London • Only a few blocks away = ghettos, such as Soho where Hyde kept his residence

  5. Victorian Style – Lower Class

  6. Victorian Novels • Emulates the conservative values of Queen Victoria: earnestness, moral responsibility, domestic propriety, respectability, and restraint • Seeks to faithfully represent society and the classes;seeks to represent a large social world with a variety of classes • Attempts to be more realistic than Romantic worksOften features a main character who strives to earn love or social status • Presents the human condition by following its characters' physical, emotional, and psychological quest • Characters are rewarded by being virtuous and punished for being otherwise

  7. Robert Louis Stevenson • Born in 1850 in Edinburgh, Scotland and died in 1894 in Samoa • Only child from a wealthy family • Ill as a child; spent a lot of time reading • Strict Christian and moral upbringing; theme of good vs. evil (strict repression of “evil” actions and evil thoughts) • As a student, liked visiting the ghettos of Edinburgh; would put on a false identity • Studied engineering and law in college but became an author

  8. Robert Louis Stevenson • Based J&H from Edinburgh • Old Town = dirty, disease ridden, overcrowded, full of poverty • New Town = prosperous, middle class, clean, ordered • William ‘Deacon’ Brodie – well respected craftsman by day, criminal by night – hanged in 1788

  9. Robert Louis Stevenson • Interested in what made up a person’s character: why they could be bad as well as good • Fascinated by the "dregs of humanity", something that the upper class pretended never existed • After a nightmare, Stevenson wrote the novella in just three days

  10. Themes • Good vs Evil / Duality of human nature • Jekyll asserts that “man is not truly one, but truly two,” and he imagines the human soul as the battleground for an “angel” and a “fiend (evil spirit),” each struggling for mastery • Importance of Reputation • avoid gossip at all costs; they see gossip as a great destroyer of reputation • also reflects the importance of appearances, facades, and surfaces, which often hide a sordid (shameful) underside

  11. Symbolic Names • Jekyll • “Je” = “I” in French • Kyll = kill • Hyde • hide

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