Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde :: English Literature

Dr Jekyll and Mr. HydeI have been reading the book Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The book waswritten by Robert Louis Stevens on during in the 19th century. Thisbook was written during a time where Victorian hostelry had a lot ofstrong moral values. These codes were truly grim and controlled everyaspect of the Victorian lifestyle. citizenry in these times believed tosettle things verbally rather than aggression so fighting was lookeddown upon. People looked upon this agreeable of behavior as a sin and ofcourse they looked down upon sins as well. The upper class Victorian decree believed that everyone kept to this moral code that they had.People in this time believed that spate with very high status werevery moral and did not cause any sins. However, this book was in additionwritten during a time where there was a lot of hypocrisy around andpeople. The underbelly of this society showed what Victorian societywas really like. Though its polite and well-groomed exterior, we findpeople co mmitting sins and going against the moral codes. These sinswere however well hidden from the society and although theyacknowledged some of the evil that was happening, they still justshrugged it off saying that only the people committing evil were thesick individuals. The sick individuals also seemed to belong tothe lower class society. Victorian people were very physiognomous asthey judged people by their physicality and the word sick seemed todescribe the lower class society very well according to Victoriantimes.We know now that it wasnt just the lower class individuals committingsins, but they werent individuals either. Robert Luis Stevensonexplorers this very well and shows that the upper class rear end be eviltoo. Stevenson used Hyde very well to hide Dr Jekylls evil sidewell. Even the name is ironic. The upper class society had seemed toHyde all this very well. They kept their upper society life cleanbut they had an different side that committed sins. That is what Dr Jekyllan d Mr. Hyde is all about. The author (Stevenson) had based this bookon people in this era. He believed in the duality of man, which meantthat every person had two sides to their personality. He believed thatone side of a person would be nice and colorful whereas the otherwould be rude and dark. Stevenson who was brought up in upper classsociety, was fascinated with lower class society. With this, he seemedto become angry at what Victorian society was like and this is echoedin Jekyll.The book Frankenstein heavily influenced Stevenson heavily as the