Book Review of The strange case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, Sintesi del corso di Inglese

Scarica Book Review of The strange case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Berzolla Alessia Rating: FATA 5°A 05.10.20 BOOK REVIEW Being a very notable reading, the plot-twist in the story called “the strange case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde” is considered common knowledge, that being said the book still surprised me greatly. In this book review I will analyze critically, objectively and subjectively, said book. Title: “The strange case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde”- It is a very front-forward title: it tells the reader immediately that they are about to delve in a weird and unexpectable case (not a simple story) about two subjects, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, treated separately since the very cover of the book itself. Plot: The novel begins with two characters: Mr. Utterson, a lawyer, and his friend, Mr. Enfield going for a walk. They stroll past a door, which somehow prompts Mr. Enfield to tell a sad and eerie story: a brute of a man knocking down a little girl without hesitation or remorse, being rightfully yelled at by everyone, offered to pay a lot of money as a response. He then disappeared through the door, only to return with a large check drawn from Dr. Jekyll's bank account. Who is this nasty man you may ask yourself? None other than Mr. Hyde. The book proceeds and we later get to know that Mr. Utterson is Dr. Jekyll's lawyer, and we also find out that, in the event of Dr. Jekyll's death or disappearance, his entire estate is to be turned over to Mr. Hyde. Mr. Utterson, who thinks highly of Dr. Jekyll, is extremely suspicious of this whole arrangement. He resolves to get to the bottom of this mystery. He hunts down Mr. Hyde and is suitably impressed with the evil oozing out of his pores. He then asks Dr. Jekyll about these odd arrangements who refuses to comment.Fast forward to "nearly a year later" the news is, a prominent politician is brutally beaten to death. Such murder is conveniently witnessed by a maid, who points to evil-oozing Mr. Hyde as the culprit. Everyone tries to hunt down the killer, but with no success. Meanwhile, Dr. Jekyll is in great health and spirits; he entertains his friends (among them one Dr. Lanyon), gives dinner parties, and attends to his religious duties.Two months later, both Dr. Lanyon and Dr. Jekyll fall terribly ill, and claim to have irrevocably quarreled with each other. Dr. Lanyon dies, leaving mysterious documents in Mr. Utterson’'s possession, to be opened only if Dr. Jekyll dies or disappears. Dr. Jekyll remains in seclusion, despite frequent visits from Mr. Utterson. Finally, one evening, Dr. Jekyll's butler visits Mr. Utterson's home as he's getting extremely worried about his master and is convinced of foul play. The butler persuades Mr. Utterson to return to Dr. Jekyll's house, where they break into his laboratory. They find the infamous killer, Mr. Hyde, dead on the floor, with Dr. Jekyll nowhere to be found. Mr. Utterson finds other several documents left to him, and goes back home to read both Mr. Lanyon’s narrative and Dr. Jekyll's narrative, which, turns out, are two parts of the same story. Stylistic choices: The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a gothic novella (short novel) written in third person with additional first-person perspectives (Utterson, Dr Lanyon and Dr Jekyll) in a very unique epistolary style. This specific way of writing adds a realistic element to the narrative, especially because different characters reveal different pieces of information. This creates a fragmented effect as these different forms can only reveal tiny parts of the whole. The variety of framing devices also pushes the reader to constantly question the reliability of the documents. The book is split into ten chapters and Stevenson has given each chapter a title to summarise such chapter's content, making it easier for the reader to navigate the text. Author Robert Louis Stevenson is known for having a writing technique from the Victorian Era. He uses vivid live imagery, figurative language, and really specific descriptions. A lot of suspense that almost makes the story seem real to the reader and literary devices to foreshadow what will occur among the characters. Stevenson is truly a tremendous writer: in just one single paragraph he used similes, metaphors, and personification in order to provide a visual setting for the reader. This is one of his fortes stylistically speaking as, similarly to romantic poets, he finds a beautiful and hyper realistic way to describe setting and place. Themes: Although the novel Stevenson writes is quite short, it is continuously in expansion theme-wise, these are some of them: - Duality - the notion of the “double” was widely popular in the 19th century, especially in German literary discussions of the doppelgànger. Fyodor Dostoyevsky's The Double dealt with this very subject, and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley's classic Frankenstein tale can be read in this light. The theme was explored explicitly by Oscar Wilde in The Picture of Dorian Gray and by H.G. Wells in both The Island of Doctor Moreau and The Invisible Man. Such theme is explored widely in the book under all kinds of light. We can so make 3 sub-categories: time that Stevenson was publishing his work. And indeed, much of this fits with the character of Henry Jekyll, who states that he was clearly not of the lower-class, and so feels as though those higher in society would consider him - most harshly - an abomination to be imprisoned, and - at best - mentally unwell. In the context of the late 19°" century, it is easy to see why Jekyll feels as though he must repress any homosexuality, and why he would feel the need to “conceal pleasures” or else be “plunged into shame”. Instead, Jekyll purchases his counterpart a place of residence in Soho, removing himself far away from the world of the upper-class. Due to the subtle nature of hiding sub context in plain sight, one could argue that the apparent homosexual undertones are not present. However, the more the story is read, the easier it becomes to read as a metaphor for homosexuality. For instance, upon Jekyll's first change into Hyde, he states that he was conscious of “current of disordered sensual images running like a mill race” ,which links his changing into Hyde with his sexuality, without specifically referencing female preference. Furthermore, the first time Jekyll loses control over his ability to change is - quite significantly - in his bed: “Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened Edward Hyde” a sentence which subtly implies that in bed Jekyll had “awakened” his homosexual duality. These are just some of the quotes but the whole book takes a completely different turn and meaning if read with this concept in mind. Stevenson’s suggestive phrasing and Hyde's criminal ambiguity, and finally the Gothic genre being used commonly to hide such issues in the 19° century, all point to the high probability of Jekyll's duality actually being that of his sexuality and less so of what is truly good and evil. societal pressure - The Victorian era was famed for its outstanding morals and social customs, and was often seen as being a period of peace and perfection for England. England's poster city, London, was said to be the pinnacle of excellence and a place of prosperity, where people behaved within the boundaries of the highest moral standards. In London, foreigners could see how wonderful it was to be a Victorian Englishman, and experience it in all its grandeur. Unfortunately, this perfection was a facade and often hid the reality of life in Victorian England, and failed to take account of the realities of human nature. The social code ignored and even shunned natural and essential components of people's personalities, even if they weren't harmful or violent. Because of this, undesirable aspects of people's personalities became suppressed and disreputable parts of the society they lived in were hidden. In The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson uses Mr. Hyde to show that Victorian people and society are imperfect and have dualities that Victorian values deny, ultimately leading to the destruction of the repressed person or society. During the Victorian era, the importance of being highly regarded by one’s peers stemmed from attitudes associated with the word “respectable.” To be respectable meant that one valued the ideas of sobriety, thrift, cleanliness of person, honesty, and chastity. The word spoke to the character of a person as well as to their status in the social and business world. These ideas left very little room for any form of expression of desires because people could not do recreational things like go to a tavern or express physical attraction. Social morality was also associated with this idea of respectability. The label came not only with the guarantee that a person’s peers thought highly of him or her, but also with the certainty that this was a good, honest, and moral person, labels that every upper-class person was expected to hold. Because reputation meant so much in this time, it was important to maintain respectability and keep up appearances. As a result of this, people were reluctant to associate with someone of lower status, which consequently lowered this person's credibility even further ack the ripper - Stevenson’s emphasis upon Hyde as an atavistic ancestor reflects nineteenth-century debates over degeneration, as the narrative taps into the reversal of progress through the exploration of latent animalistic impulses. The articulation of what may lurk beneath was carried to London’s Lyceum theatre in 1888, shortly before Jack the Ripper emerged. It is impossible not to identify crossovers between the novella and play with the Ripper press, with a general agreement that the murders caused the play to abruptly close.The story of Jekyll and Hyde had a profound impact upon the public's understanding of who ‘Jack the Ripper’ may have actually been. The Ripper is nearly always represented as an outsider, moving between high society and the dark and dirty streets of the East End. Some of the proposed suspects such as Walter Sickert, Lewis Carol and The Duke of Clarence embody the idea, garnered from Stevenson's tale, that a monster may lurk undetected within a respectable and successful man.The press began to frequently mix fact and fiction and the removal of some of the victims organs led to assumptions that the murderer must have medical knowledge, heightening the links with Stevenson’s story. It got so bad that Mr Hyde began to frequently be named as the Ripper despite being a fictional character. Some even went as far as to blame Richard Mansfield, star of the play, with The Pall Mall Gazette under the heading “Mr Hyde at Large in Whitechapel”. Needless to say the connection is inevitable not to make historically speaking - The limit of science - We now know that there are some things we, even with the most advanced and inimaginable tools, are not supposed to know. Science has a limit, and such limit is the human mind. Some things we have no way of comprehending and some are simply secrets of nature that no one will ever discover. It is interesting to know how, in this time period, with a boom in scientific knowledge and advance, scientists saw no limits. Often being bashed for trying to “play God” by religious individuals, they started to experiment on creating new life forms by reanimating the dead, a process that will have small successful experiments without an actual total reanimation of a corpse. Where science doesn't reach, art goes in depth: the first piece of literature that comes to mind is the story of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley but it is undeniable how this theme is also present in The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where one creates life form within itself (a more “realistic” way to achieve the results searched by the victorian scientific community). Both of the tails portray the created creature as a monster, a disgusting danger to society emphasizing that maybe scientists should not be pushing the limits of human nature as they were. Author: Robert Louis Stevenson - Behind a great book, there's always a great author, usually with some type of background that explains the masterpiece even further. This is the case of Robert Louis Stevenson who has lived a duality all his life: since his upbringing we can notice very radical duplexity given by the fact that his family was composed of engineers, scientists, a professor of philosophy, and a religious minister. Such complex environment exposed him to both scientific and religious influences that will stick to him and be reflected in his works. It is also important to note that The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin was just being revealed to the public eye when Stevenson was nine years old. This was such a controversial topic that it stuck with the author all his life and is very present in the book in question: - example 1 - The transformation of Jekyll to the ape-like Hyde links to this idea of a primitive nature inside us. - example 2 - Jekyll in the novel is a scientist that is “playing God” by creating Hyde (this can be seen also in Frankenstein by Mary Shelley as Dr. Frankenstein tries to create human life and “‘assembles” the monster which will then be his ruin) Closely linked to the Victorians' increasing sense of the conflict between science and religion was the idea that humans have a dual nature, an idea that the author explores in a number of his works: