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The Duality of Human Nature in Robert Louis Stevenson Novel "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"
Nr. | Название главы | Стр. |
Introduction | 4 | |
1. | Chapter 1: Robert Louis Stevenson | 5 |
1.1. | Biography of the author | 5 |
2. | Chapter 2: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde | 7 |
2.1. | Analysis of major characters | 7 |
2.2. | The duality of human nature | 8 |
2.3. | Repulsion and distress | 10 |
3. | Chapter 3: Motives in the Novel | 14 |
3.1. | Gothic in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” | 14 |
3.2. | Female role in the novel | 16 |
Conclusion | 18 | |
Theses | 19 | |
References | 20 |
The narrator of the novel is Mr. Utterson, a middle-aged lawyer and a man in which all the characters confide throughout the novel. He is an old friend of Jekyll and first recognizes the changes and the strange occurrences of Jekyll and Hyde; further, Mr. Utterson resolves to investigate the relationship between the two men. He is; perhaps, the most circumspect, respected, and rational character in the book; therefore, it is significant that we view Hyde's crimes and Jekyll's hypocrisy through his observant and generally sympathetic perspective.
Mr. Utterson has a cousin, Richard Enfield, a young man who is assumed to be slightly wilder than his respectable and sedate relative. It is assumed that Enfield will play a large role in this novel, as he is the witnesses of Hyde's initial crime; Enfield only appears in two scenes. In both, he walks past Hyde's mysterious door with Mr. Utterson.
One more significant character of the novel is Dr. Lanyon, a former friend and colleague of Dr. Jekyll. Ten years before the events in the novel, he suspended his friendship with Dr. Jekyll, because of a disagreement over scientific endeavors. Dr. Lanyon is highly respected, rational, and values truth and goodness above everyone else.
Major character of the novel is Dr. Henry Jekyll, a prominent middle-aged doctor described as tall and handsome and extremely wealthy with a fortune well over two million dollars. Everyone who knows him describes him, as a respected and proper man. However, as the novel progresses, we become acquainted with his hypocritical behavior, which Rpbert Louis Stevenson claimed as Jekyll's fatal flaw. Doctor believes that within each human being there are forces of good and evil, which lead him to his experiments of trying to separate the two. …
Each person has its own Hyde inside him, every one of us has a “good” and a “bad” side, someone shows it and lives the rest of his live free, but someone does not. The novel “Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” is telling us about the undeveloped evil side of human nature which was set free. Through the lines of the novel Robert Louis Stevenson tried to show how a man may set himself free from moral composure, become beast-like, subhuman and develop pure evil inside him. With gothic elements Stevenson created horrendous atmosphere in the novel. Through these elements he tried to show that even in an apparently respectable man there is a potential of the evil and that nearly everyone is leading a double life within oneself.