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The Stange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde
(R.L Stevenson)

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The characters

The structure of the story introduces some main characters that evolve around the double character of Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde. The narrator is Utterson. he appears as a serious and clever man and the story is seen through his point of view. ?Mr. Utterson, the lawyer was a man of rugged countenance, that was never lighted by smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary, and yet somehow loveable. He had an approved tolerance for others and in any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove.? (P. 9) He is automatically presented as the perfect person, ready to be confronted with Jekyll?s problems. The author uses a narrator to explain the mystery of the metamorphosis and to show how various people react when confronted with such a case. This fact also proves the ambiguity of the character Jekyll/Hyde and the hesitation on which rests the fantastical effect. The reader?s questions are asked by Utterson and he embodies the courage, the curiosity, the reader would like to have. Utterson is the narrator but he is not an omniscient narrator: he reacts exactly as the reader would react. (Example p. 15)
Utterson represents the perfect Victorian gentleman.


The main character is the double Dr Jekyll/Mr Hyde. Can we say he is one or two characters? He is the character but also the subject of the story. In the first part he is the subject of investigation: the reader is not aware of what truly happens, he only has Uttersons? point of view. After chapter eight, when Utterson comes into Jekyll´s house, the reader discovers more and more about what happened in Jekyll´s intimacy. At the end, the letter-confession of Jekyll makes the reader understand the whole story through the eyes of Jekyll. This story is very interesting because of the two points of view: evil is shown through the eyes of sane people and through the eyes of perverted people.
The description of Mr Hyde is the perfect antagonism of Dr Jekyll: ?he is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man so disliked and yet I scare know why. He gives a strong feeling of deformity. He?s an extraordinary looking man. P.15 p.50 a thing that cries to heavens ? him or it or what ever it is.? Hyde is described as a monster, a creature or an insane and abnormal human.
One sentence is very important in order to understand the relationship between Utterson and Hyde p. 23 ?O my poor old Harry Jekyll, if ever I read Satan?s signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend?. It proves that Stevenson chooses to give to Utterson the capacity to have an intuition at the first sight and thus to provoke the events. If Utterson did not act, the story would not have existed in the same manner.
Hyde appears as a punishment towards Jekyll, a condemnation, a burden p.25 ?the ghost of some old sin, the cancer of some concealed disgrace; punishment coming, pede claudo, years after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned the fault?. In fact, Hyde was created through the regrets of Jekyll because of his being enable to accomplish rather bad things and to be dizzy.
As in the majority of Gothic texts, the creation takes parts of the bad side. Automatically it is identified as a monster. Hyde is morally and symbolically the bad and his body reveals this. The description by Utterson shows that Hyde inspires repulsion and fear. He is almost disgusting.
The reader can easily see the monster in Hyde when Utterson tells the story in the beginning: Hyde is like a beast, he is insane, mad. He embodies the bad side of human nature.
One question: are Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in fact a single character? Until the end of the novel, the two persons seem nothing alike?the well-liked, respectable doctor and the hideous, depraved Hyde are almost opposite in their personalities. Stevenson uses this marked contrast to make his point: every human being contains opposite forces within him or her, an alter ego that hides behind one's polite facade. Correspondingly, to understand fully the significance of either Jekyll or Hyde, we must ultimately consider the two as constituting one single character. Indeed, taken alone, neither is a very interesting personality; it is the nature of their interrelationship that gives the novel its power.
Despite the seeming diametric opposition between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, their relationship in fact involves a complicated dynamic. While it is true that Jekyll largely appears as moral and decent, engaging in charity work and enjoying a reputation as a courteous and genial man, he in fact never fully embodies virtue in the way that Hyde embodies evil. Although Jekyll undertakes his experiments with the intent of purifying his good side from his bad and vice versa, he ends up separating the bad alone, while leaving his former self, his Jekyll-self, as mixed as before. Jekyll succeeds in liberating his darker side, freeing it from the bonds of conscience, yet as Jekyll never liberates himself from this darkness. Jekyll and Hyde are called ?polar twins?. That expresses the ambiguity of the relationships between the two aspects of the main characters.



Resumos Relacionados


- Dr. Jekyll Y Mr. Hyde

- Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

- O Médico E O Monstro

- O Estranho Caso Do Doutor Jekyll E Do Senhor Hyde

- O Médico E O Monstro / Dr Jekill And Mr Hyde



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