How does Robert Stevenson present Mr Hyde as a disturbing character to his reader ?
The story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde was written in the 19th century. This was a time when scientific advances were rapid and new discoveries taking place within a short space of time. This is also known as the post Darwinian Period. At the time people where still recovering from the previously published book by Darwin, ‘’Origin of Species’’. This basically depicted us as being descended from apes and being just the product of evolution, which contradicted all religious texts and beliefs. However, towards the end of the 19th century, within the post-Darwinian perspective, scientists such as Freud were also beginning to examine various influences on human morality and character including drug and alcohol addiction, multiple personality disorder, and regressive animality. These are questionable influences in the novella written by Stevenson and possible drives behind the writing.
One of the ways Stevenson portrays Hyde’s character is through his appearance. In the opening chapter when he is first sighted by Enfield he is described as ‘Some Damned Juggernaut ‘, as well as ‘not like man’. This puts across a huge sense of deformity in his figure and posture. Just from the word damned we the reader can deduce that he is evil and malicious. This suggests he is condemned or doomed to eternal punishment, beyond just this life and into the afterlife. We can further analyse that the term ‘juggernaut’ makes us see him as overpowering, destructive and warmongering.
Stevenson continues to describe his disturbing character with relations to being an ape.
‘’ In an ape like fury’’ ‘’Hairy Hands’’ are examples of this. From this we can ratiocinate that he is so different in figure and appearance that it is immediately distinguishable from anyone else. This also raised a chance for debate in the readers mind as at the time the theories of Darwin were still questionable, and these ideas about his appearance fuelled the opportunity for people to think about current affairs, it shows how it must have been quite a topical subject of the time if it is linked into fictional writing. Due to this profound popularity, Stevenson can show the disturbing character by relating it to current affairs in the real world making the reader have a closer connection to the ideas of Hyde’s character.
Stevenson continues to present Hyde as a disturbing character using the surroundings and locality. An example of this is the back door to Jekylls home home; it is a good reflection of the personality and appearance of Hyde. ‘Shabby and dilapidated ‘. This is closely collated to Hyde’s description of ‘scruffy and scrummy ‘. ‘Blistered and distained ‘also closely relates to Hyde’s character. Mr Hyde’s life is blistered and his soul distained due to the evil and sense of trepidation he emits into others around him. This is a very powerful effect used by Stevenson to show the disturbing character of Mr Hyde.
In the beginning of the story when Jekyll has relative control over Hyde his windows in his home are described as ‘Always shut and clean’. This is a reflection of Jekyll and shows how organised and civilised he is in the beginning and that his hold onto reality is quite tight. However as the story progresses and Jekylls grip on Hyde begins to weaken the windows are described as ‘Dusty and barred with iron ‘. The dusty description shows how he is starting to loose his grip over normality and how everything which he would normally do is dissolve. Everything which he once new in the past is starting to be covered over and gather dust suggesting he has moved on from what he once was. The iron bars make us ratiocinate a secretive sort of character which is evident in the story, as he begins to lock himself in his cabinet more often and be concealed from his friends and servants. All his deeds and actions are carried out secretly and this has made the reader become much more sceptical on his intentions.
The disturbing character of Hyde is reinforced further by the acts and deeds he commits during the novella. Right from the beginning the disturbing character is shown as he tramples over a young girl almost as if it was ok to do so. ‘Trampled calmly over the child’s body ‘. In this situation Hyde is seen as a monster and malicious, because he has done something as terrible as trampling an innocent girl much younger then himself, but not just the fact he did it but he did it with calm, as if she was almost unimportant and not noticeable. The fact he does it calmly is a contradiction in itself but this links onto further deeds suggesting this psychotic behaviour which plagues him. How he can do all these things with such cool as if it was all normal is unperceivable.
This is what i wrote so far is there anything which i should change or add ??
Asked by:kiddy_Clever
Steph__x posted: 01 Aug at 5:54 pm
Woahh, I must admit I didn’t read all that but it seems like you have already answered your question, just carry on if you need to write any more in the same way you have atleast then it is all your own work and ideas.
Feste posted: 02 Aug at 11:20 am
What you’ve got so far is pretty good. Picking up some good things – i like the window comment. (Notice that when Jekyll is in control his windows are ‘SHUT and clean’ – does this hint at the fact that Jekyll is hiding something? If we can apply this domestic/window metaphor to Jekyll’s person, it seems that he looks tidy and presentable, but he doesn’t let anyone see “inside” – he’s hiding something about himself. He’s hiding Hyde.)
I’d avoid the word ‘ratiocinate’ – I doubt it’s a word that you’d normally use, and sticks out like an attempt to sound too intelligent.
Here are some things that you might be interested in thinking about.
Hyde is also a distrubing character because, though we know that he is evil, we never know what he actually does. Do we?! HE IS ALWAYS GOING TO OR COMING FROM SOMEWHERE. When he tramples the litte girl or when he kills the rich man (the only two “evils” we actually see) he is coming back from somewhere. Where does he go? What does he do? I think he’s a disturbing character partly because we don’t know what the evil, disturbing acts are. It is an empty space in the book, a gap in the text, and we have to imagine what Hyde is doing. This is a good technique for an author to use: the reader imagines whatever is “evil” and “disturbing” in their own minds. Every reader imagines their own horrible acts, and thinks about the “evil” side of themselves, and the “evil” acts they may desire to commit. Hyde is disturbing because he does whatever is disturbing in our own mind. He is the evil side of ourselves!
(Legend has it that Stevenson wrote a first draft (based on a nightmare) which described what Hyde actually did, and his wife read it and threw it in the fire! So he wrote it again, but without the “evil” bits. Sounds believable to me. It’s a shame we don’t have that first draft to read — then we’d know what “evil” stuff Stevenson fantasised about and maybe performed…)
Also, you mention Darwin and On the Origin of Species, but could say a bit more about it. It’s a good point that Hyde looks ape-like. I’d say a bit more about that. The important thing to do with Darwin and ideas of evolution though is about an idea called “degeneracy”. I’ve put the wikipedia link for Degeneracy in the sources box below, but it’s not too great so I’ll give you a quick outline. Degeneracy was the nineteenth century scientific theory that certain people were “less evolved” than others. It was a ****** and classist idea: it was basically the idea that people who looked like monkeys were closely related to monkeys… so black people and working class people were “less evolved”. This gave Victorian people an explanation for why there was crime and poverty – some people were just less evolved, so couldn’t be as “civilised”.
This idea is important in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, because Hyde is almost the less-evolved side of Jekyll. Hyde is the link between Jekyll and his ape ancestors! This is why Hyde is always described as ape-like, and the reason why he is smaller. So Hyde, if you want to read it like this, is the “degenerate” side of Jekyll. Jekyll is civilised and scientific and intelligent, and he has to ignore and repress his uncivilised side – the side which just wants to act like an animal. So Hyde is disturbing in that he is meant to be the less evolved, degenerate side of Jekyll. This would be a scary idea for a Victorian reader — it would mean that inside every highly-evolved, civilised Victorian Gentleman was an evil, unevolved, monkey-like person. And so Victorian society might not be so “civilised”, “evolved” and secure as everyone thought — maybe there are Hydes inside all of us. (Jack the Ripper was the serial killer who popped up at about this time and scared people in much the same way — how could a doctor or a surgeon be an evil murderer?! He was meant to be civilised! The idea of an intelligent, civilised evil person didn’t make sense in those days.)
So Jekyll and Hyde might almost be about class war: between the good Victorian Gentleman and the evil, dirty member of the working class. Or a race war: between the scientific, civilized western world and the unevolved non-western world.
Good essay so far though. Hope this helped a bit, and good luck!