Aurora Lorenzetto Stevenson 5A

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

• His life influenced his literature

• Only child of a wealthy civil engineer — enrolled at the university to follow his father’s wishes but he had
an artistic temperament snd he didn’t complied his parents expectation (respectability, reputation)

• He expressed his rebellion against parental authority by posing as a bohemian dandy but found a
compromise with his dad and studied law

• 1870 — respiratory illness and got his degree but he realized he wanted to became a writer — joined a
company of young artists in France and began write accounts of his travels.

• He travelled around the world, also with his wife — spent first 10 yeas of marriage traveling to different
resorts because of his tuberculosis — still go on with his literary career — collection of essays “Virginibus
Puerisque” showed the author’s defiance of both difficulties of human life and the restrictions imposed by
Victorian bourgeois mentality

• Father’s death — back in America — treated for his disease

• Then sailed for the South Seas. He began a campaign against white exploitation of native Samoans — his
standpoint on European colonialism emerges in “Beach of Falesà”

• His taste for travel manifests in his exploration of literature — variety of popular genres

• However in a period dominated by long works of resist fiction — never a traditional novel, preferring to
deal with fantasy and the world of imagination, stirring the interest of the public rather than that of the
critics.
He captured reader’s attention — atmosphere and suspense and by a constant observation of human
nature

The strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (1886)

• short novel — established Stevenson as an influential Gothic writer

• Structure :
- Gothic tale takes the form of an ingenious detective story and it is told in retrospect by an eyewitness —
Mr. Utterson — narrative shifts to Utterson’s friends and relative — adds clues for the solution of the
mystery.
only at the end readers gain a full understanding of Hyde or Jekyll — letter
- Shifting of the point of view — third person to first person narrator — suspense and reinforces novel’s
theme of duplicity — narrators only have a partial view of what happens — UNRELIABLE NARATOR —
only at the end — Jakyll’s confession
- coincise style — story concentrated and rapid, increase the feeling of tension in the reader
- the form of detective story is enriched by the constant preoccupation with process and psychology
rather than simple facts
- letter at the end adds a confessional tone o the story consistent with the psychological analysis of the
protagonist

• Themes and motifs :

- Stevenson manipulates in an original way the theme of Doppelgänger (“double”) — german, “double
walker” — experience of meeting someone double (folk tees and fairy tales around the world), as a literary
motifs fascinated writers in the nineteen century
Doppelgänger in this novel makes a scientist succeed in separating his own impulses for good and evil
into two distinct personalities
- some critics read the story as a moral allegory of the nature of evil
- other stress the depth of his psychological analysis — reflections on the consequence of repressed
desires and on the effects produced on individuals by the expectations of society
- anticipated some of the most recent developments in the study of human behavior
- some details gain symbolic significance
Aurora Lorenzetto Stevenson 5A

1) Jakyll : frozen (Danish)

2) Hyde : sense concealment
A hide = pelle
Hyde in two senses
Mr Hyde = second skin to the real man
to hide = it shows a hidden part of our personality- description of London — suspence and sense of
danger
- alternation of indoor and outdoor spaces, light and darkness, wealthy quarters and sordid streets
symbolize the lurking in the city itself
- Gothic motifs are therefore exploited — touch on other victorian preoccupations : cultural degeneracy,
criminal insanity and atavism — novel a fascinating and thought provoking exploration of the recesses of
human mind

• Form of social criticism (Dickens a form of realism)

- romances — story not completely realistic, imagination
Dickens — critic to the utilitarian creed, aspect of society (not critic to the whole progress)
Frankenstein — society produce outcast because some elements are rejected by the society
Dr Jackyll — we find difficult to come to terms with our evil side and so we keep it hide, we fake to
acknowledge this aspect of us, we are afraid of judgment — REPUTATION +++ aspect of the victorian life
— in the novel they want to avoid gossip

• Frankenstein — structure of the two books — complex (letters, confession…)

• Dr Jakyll - considered as a first psychological story — analyze ourself and recognizing duplicity

Symbol of compromise Victorian age :

• period of scientific discoveries and progress with the aim to improve human conditions, although there
were disadvantages — people go on with a poor life, poor sanitation, criminality — duplicity
Double moral standard (due pesi due sure) — most things are allowed to rich people, although crimes or
thing they do against the law they get what they want — eventually are poor people to pay for everything
even though they are not responsible
double side of the most progress (?) city — unpleasant side of the society
• Dr Jekyll may represent the appearance of the progress
• Mr Hyde downsides of Victorian age
• London described as a growing city
Stevenson is criticizing the fact that normally people categorize into bad and good and we should bc
each of us has both side
Distinction between civilize and uncivilized — regress to primitivism
the two characters embodies the two side of victorian society

What makes 'The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde' a product of Victorian England?

- In this era of scientific and technological progress and of the rapid expansion of the British Empire, many
writers began to doubt the ideals of progress and civilization. A sense of pessimism and anxiety developed
in a society that was full of contrasts, as Dickens so clearly showed: the creation of wealth, the spread of
’civilisation’ that came with imperial expansion, was accompanied by desperate poverty, criminality and
double moral standards.
The inner duality between Jekyll and Hyde perfectly epitomises the dichotomy between the triumph of
science and progress on the one side, the 'pleasant’ side of Victorian society, and the degradation, social
aberrations and economic hazards on the other, the dark and 'unpleasant’ side.

- Dr Jekyll appears to be the embodiment of the respectable Victorian gentleman: reserved, formal and
known for his charitable works. Physically, he is a handsome and agreeable man. Hyde, on the other hand,
is the embodiment of the uncivilized part of humanity that ’hides’ beneath the formal bonds of civilization.
He is small and extremely ugly.
Aurora Lorenzetto Stevenson 5A

Symbol of compromise Victorian age:

• period of scientific discoveries and progress with the aim to improve human conditions, although
there were disadvantages → people go on with a poor life, poor sanitation, criminality → duplicity.
• Double moral standard (due pesi due sure) → most things are allowed to rich people→ even crimes
→eventually are the poor people who get to pay for everything even though they are not
responsible.
• London — first example of metropolis — contrast between metropolis and country life, dichotomy.
• City → associated with unpleasant side of the society and urban depravity.
• Country→ good side associate with important moral values.
• Dr Jekyll→ may represent the appearance of the progress.
• Mr Hyde→ downsides of Victorian age→→ regress to primitivism.
• Distinction between civilize and uncivilized→ the two characters embodies the two side of Victorian
society.

Setting meaningful to the story

• London — first example of metropolis — contrast between metropolis and country life, dicotomie
City life symbol of evil , country a life which respects the modal standard according to morality
- How the London portrayed be Stevenson is a symbol of urban depravity?
Presence of the fog ??

TEST
Introduction to victorian age (democracy, England lead the world, institution of parliament admired all over
the world, industrial revolution, progress, Victoria being a symbol of this large empire) pp 12-17 — focus on
the things commented
Bronte
Dickens
Stevenson
Focus on the extract
Straight to the point question ( 4 lines )
Also stalemates with a gas sentence to be completed
True and false and correct them

The duality of man

• Letter found after Jekyll’s death→ analysis of his personality.
• Jekyll showed to be inclined to industry→ man of success→ importance of a good reputation.
• He had to fight with contrasting aspects of his character — we live in a community — must repress some
drives
• He understood that man consist of two opposing entities, but it might be more
• He recognizes the conflict between good and evil as the main source of anxiety for every human
being→ perennial war among my members.
• He compares evil and good to two twins who fight without pause in their mother’s womb.
• (he worked on the moral nature o human being)

The Transformation
• Jekyll’s reflections on the nature and results of his research.
• He knew that this discovery could kill him→ but the temptation to discover something important
was too strong.
• Painful process→ sickness.
• He felt better in his evil part→ younger, lighter happier in body.
• He felt free because he has dissolved everything that restrained him→ social conventions.
• regression to a primitive monkey like form→ less developed, ugly and smaller→ part less exercised of his
soul.
• Jekyll was not afraid of his evil part because it seemed something natural and human→ he admires
Hyde because it houses the undivided identity of man he has always dreamt of achieving.