The strange case od Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Temi di Inglese

Scarica The strange case od Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde e più Temi in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! The part of the book that I chose is from the last chapter, where we find the Henry Jekyll’s full statement of the case. Here Jekyll is the narrator but he is not the only one in the story: in fact it is a multi-narrational novel and the narrators are five (the main one who speaks in third person, Enfield Utterson, Lanyon and Jekyll). Stevenson uses this method so that the story is told from different points of view and each narrator gives us some hints/clues/details that give us a more complete description of the situation, finally all these hints/clues/details are summarised/put together by Jekyll in this last chapter, where he tells us the whole story. (Particularly) In this part we see Jekyll’s considerations right after his first transformation into Hyde. He goes to his room in order to see himself in the mirror and realises that Hyde is much less developed that Jekyll. He explains this saying that his good part has always been dominant and has always controlled his evil part, which he has never exercised, and because of this Hyde is shorter and younger than Jekyll. As he keeps transforming into Jekyll it becomes harder to return back to himself because Hyde grows and take always more control on Jekyll; we see this change even in his physical appearance as he gets taller and even his voices develops. Jekyll also realises that even if his younger he is deformed and as, Stevenson wrote, “Evil besides had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay” (line 20-22), but he does not feel repugnance when he sees it (as other people do) because he recognises him as a natural and human part of himself. So we see the theme of the double nature of man, in fact Jekyll explains us that man’s personality is divided into two: a good and an evil part. He takes this idea of the duality from Darwin: Hyde represents the primitive side of man and he is the lowest evolutionary level, while Jekyll represents the civilised man. The theme of duality is the most important theme of the novel as it reflects in many elements, for example: the two doors of Jekyll’s house (the main one on the square and the back door in the backstreet), dark and light (bad action and crimes always happen at night, in the darkness, and light is only present artificially in Jekyll’s house or when we see Jekyll walking in Regent’s Park) and even the contrasts between Jekyll and Dr Lanyon (there are some common elements, as they are both doctors, both narrators in the novel and they will die because of their curiosity, but there are also differences because Lanyon is more rational and conventional while Jekyll is an overreacher). The theme of overreaching is another important theme, overreaching means going beyond science limits, that is what Jekyll does: he wants to separate his personality in order to eliminate the evil part from humans. Initially he achieves this aim but this ambition will make him loose control and lead(s) (lid) him to death (like a punishment). The theme of respectability is also present: Enfield considers Jekyll’s respectability false, he just seems to be an honest man but Enfield thinks he is not, right from the begin of the novel. These theme connects to the theme of the double and to Victorian society, where under Calvinism and Presbyterianism people pretended to be honest and respectable in their public life but in their private life they were not like that. (Stevenson did not agree with this kind of society, even tough he grew up in a Presbyterian family, and when he admitted to be agnostic he ended his relationship with his father.) This reflects also in the town of Edinburgh, as it has the New Town, which is a respectable area, and the Old Town, where criminality is present. For this novel he took inspiration from one of Stevenson’s nightmare and as he woke up he started writing; the novel had a lot of success and it was dramatised on stage and even turned into many film versions. Stevenson was born in Edinburgh in 1850 in a Presbyterian family, he spent most of his childhood in his bedroom as he had a lung disease that made him move to countries with a better climate like Central America, Italy, France or Germany. From this journeys he took inspiration for his adventure