Robert Louis Stevenson’s story, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde offered an intricate web of thrilling plot points, rich, multi-dimensional characters, and erotic themes that were surprisingly forward for a horror film of that era. Fredric March superbly plays both the protagonist, Dr. Henry Jekyll (pronounced Gee-kel) as well as his diabolical alter ego/antagonist, Hyde. March fluidly sways between the two characters, giving credibility to Jekyll’s theory that there are two selves to every person, one good and one evil, battling for internal control of (what Freud would later call in his Structural Model of the Psyche) the ‘self’. This premise of the two selves serves as the foundation in which the rest of the film’s moral/ethical…
Robert Louis Stevenson's novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde the classic reading is that the two characters Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde symbolise the struggle between good and evil in each person.Yet, in an age where the view of criminality shift the focus from lower classes to higher classes, created a change in perspective where men's reputation was not as easily kept as it was before. Therefore, another reading of the text is that it exposes the changing late Victorian society in…
The Strange Cases of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in Fiction and Film Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) and the film adaptation, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (2003), directed by Maurice Phillips, are accounts of the same story but told differently. Stevenson’s novella, as well as Phillips’ film version, follows a respected English physician and scientist named Dr. Henry Jekyll as he secretly struggles to suppress his dark side, and the experiments he…
In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, it revolves around the point that there are two sides to a person. There is the kind and rational side, which is represented as Dr. Jekyll, and the hateful and indulgent side, which is represented by Mr. Hyde. In the novel, the Dr.’s Hyde side made him do things that any person would regret doing. “Both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day,…
Henry Jekyll, a highly regarded doctor, struggles to repress his darker side. In Robert Stevenson’s novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Jekyll is faced with the archetypal theme of struggling between the two forces of good and evil. From early on in his life he chooses the former, but his mind is still tempted by dark urges. It’s this suppression of his second nature that causes him to go to extremes to escape the life he feels trapped in. Despite this, he is still internally torn…
In the book, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” written by Robert Louis Stevenson, it is about one man with two different personalities. Dr. Jekyll is the protagonist in the story and Mr. Hyde is another form of Dr. Jekyll, who plays the antagonist. They are the same person, but with two different personalities. The character struggles in the story because he is unable to control the other personality in the actions he takes. The two different personalities are different from each…
Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde”. “I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two.” – The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The metaphor, “…such a dreadful shipwreck” hyperbolises the psychological conflicts of Jekyll and Hyde. The word, “doomed”…
philosophy that affects the view of a person. Dualism leaves people with a double personality that is taken as a new persona that the person has created with their own mind. One of the most famous works that uses Dualism is The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde plot have inspired similar plot for movies such as Fight Club and Secret Window. The dualism that is shown in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is like the dualism in the films Fight Club and Secret Window because…
There are many themes that can be found or interpreted from the text of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. One that is most apparent is the idea of filth which is explained in the city and the characters. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines filth as foul, putrid or moral corruption (“Filth”). Examples of this filth are established in both the setting of the story as well as in the development of the characters. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde provides many opportunities…
The novel deals with the two main characters Jekyll and Hyde who are opponent characters in their characteristics but identical regarding the identity. The villain of this story is Mr Hyde, he is the evil alter-ego of Dr Jekyll, a well-known and accepted member of society. At some point in the story Dr Jekyll confesses that he has a dark part in his soul which is acting evilly and also influences his good side: ‘Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from…