Scarica The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (short) e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Robert Louis Stevenson was born in 1850 in Edinburgh. Despite his bronchial trouble, he has been a very prolific author. His most important work is “The Strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”. The work was born from a dream of the author. It is an example of Victorian narrative, with obvious references to Gothic. The tale begins quietly, with an urbane conversation between Utterson and his friend Mr. Richard Enfield. The latter tells how, returning home in the early hours of the morning, he witnessed a “horrible” incident: a small girl, running across the street, was trampled by a man named Mr. Edward Hyde, who left her screaming on the ground. After being caught, Hyde, who has a face that inspires loathing, agreed to pay the child’s family, and he retrieved from a dilapidated building a check from the account of a respected man. Enfield assumes that Hyde is blackmailing that man, whom Utterson knows to be his client Jekyll… The story lasts a year and three months and takes place in the 19th century in London. The city is an uninvited place, full of criminals and prostitutes. The protagonists are Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hide. The first is kind, helpful and benevolent. The second is cold, evil, ugly. The duality of the protagonists is evident. They are symbols of good and evil. Of a conscious and hidden part, and they are present in each one of us. The human being is characterized by both sides, which alternate and prevail among themselves. The author’s aim is to show the duality of every human being. Jekyll uses Hyde to hide that brutal, well-intentioned aspect of human nature to hide in a puritanical, respectable society. As in Frankenstein, science rebels. Hyde is born from Jekyll after he hired a drug that changed him forever: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person. Sometimes the work has been considered “Domestic Gothic”: a metaphor of the evil within each of us, metaphorized as evil in the narrow alleys, at home or in your own studio. This is the “Door Metaphor”: the human unconscious divides the public from the private, where the worries reside. In the work there is also the theme of scientific progress, which however leads to negative implications. At first the doctor is happy with the results of his scientific experiments, but then he repents because he fears for his own mental and physical health. He ends up destroying himself with the drugs he invented. Unfortunately, in addition to destroying himself, he destroys many other lives, under the identity of Mr. Hyde. Dr. Henry Jekyll feels he is battling between the good and evil within himself, thus leading to the struggle with his alter ego, Edward Hyde. He spends his life trying to repress evil urges that are not fitting for a man of his stature. He develops a serum in an attempt to mask this hidden evil. However, in doing so, Jekyll transforms into Hyde, a hideous creature without compassion or remorse. Jekyll has a friendly personality, but as Hyde, he becomes mysterious and violent. As time goes by, Hyde grows in power and eventually manifests whenever Jekyll shows signs of physical or moral weakness, no longer needing the serum to be released.
