Stevenson and Wilde: A Comparative Study of Two Victorian Literary Rebels, Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Stevenson and Wilde: A Comparative Study of Two Victorian Literary Rebels e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON Stevenson is one of the most important novelists of late Victorian age. He was born in Edimburgh and he had a difficult childhood due to his health problems. He grew up in a Calvinist family that influenced him a lot. Just like Hardy, Stevenson developed a pessimistic idea of world that originated from his Darwin’s studies and religion. Both of this subjects, in fact, push the reader to think that life is a survival thing, that humans travel to survive and that circumstances modify and determine the individual existence. Stevenson was also a boehimian: he was deeply in conflict with the Victorian society and world. He began gradually to reject his family’s religious principles and their love for all Victorian ideals. In his most famous novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he criticized the hypocrisy and the superficial respectability of Victorians. However, the central theme of the novel is the duality; everything turns around the double: from characters to the setting. Stevenson believed that the human being had a double nature: a good and a bad one. He imagined the human soul as the battleground for good and evil side. He analysed this theme in the novel through 2 main characters: dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. In the novel Dr. Jekyll, a respectable scientist, invents a poison which separates the positive and the evil side of a person and tests it on himself. His evil side, called Mr. Hide, is represented as a little man, like a juggernaut (as mr Enfiled says), so ugly and violent that he is impossible to be seen. By degrees Mr. Hide achieves domination over Jekyll and becomes bigger. At the end of the novel the protagonist has only 2 choices: he can eliminate Hyde by killing him or he can choose a life of crime. Jekyll decides to kill Hyde, but in this way he also kills himself. Mr Hyde is essentially the embodiment of pure evil. Some compare him to the primitive man and to the symbol of repressed psychological drives that Darwin talks in his theory. Jekyll, indeed, just he asserts in chapter 10, knows that his ambition has kept awake his evil side. (Is for this reason that Stevenson is considered also a forerunner of psychological novels) Stevenson in his book uses this theme of double also to criticize the Victorian superficial respectability: despite Jekyll is a handsome and well-established man in the community, he hides the worst. There is, in addition, a double nature in the setting of the novel. The story takes place in London, especially at night, in dark and foggy places. London, at that time, reflected the hypocrisy of Victorian society because the west end symbolized the respectable part of society, while the east end, with its slums, the poverty. This sense of double is strengthened by Jekyll’s house. It represents the 2 faces of the same man, in fact it has 2 doors. The front of this house, so the jekyll’s part, is fair and clean, while the other side, used by Hyde, is ruined and vandalized. OSCAR WILDE Oscar Wilde was one of the most important exponent of the English aestheticism. Just like Stevenson, Wilde was a rebel, he was against society where he lived and, for this reason, he called himself as a ‘Dandy’. The figure of Dandy was very similar to the bohemian one for what concerns the ‘rebellion’ and ‘isolation’, but the Dandy was an aristocratic while the bohemian was closer to poverty. In addition the dandy gave a lot of attention to his clothes, he was very interested in his own appearance. As a Dandy, Oscar Wilde accepted the majority of aesthetic features, in particular the motto ‘Art for Art’s sake’. Wilde believed that art had not a moral aim, it had a value that was independent of social or political aspect. (art is quite useless’ he wrote in the preface) The purpose of life, for Wilde, was the pursuit of pleasure and beauty, he wanted to make his life as a work of art. In ‘The picture of Dorian Gray’ Beauty is seen as a way to escape from the brutalities of the world. Dorian, since the conversation with Lord Henry, understands that youth and attractiveness are tools to achieve desires. He arrives to sell his soul to devil in order to maintain his beauty and he starts to live in an immoral way. Unfortunately there is no escape from the reality, neither beauty: when Dorian stabs the portrait he cannot avoid the punishment for all his sins. At the end of novel Art wins because is eternal and independent. In the same novel Wilde criticized the Victorian society. He accused Victorians of a superficial nature. Wilde believed that in his society people went criticized according to their appearance. Based on that beautiful people are automatically moral human beings. In the novel, in fact, Dorian, thanks to his reputation and beauty, is never suspected about his orrible actions. The picture of Dorian Gray is the Wilde’s novel that includes all these themes. The protagonist of the novel is Dorian Gray. He is an attractive and charming man, he represents the ideal of beauty and youth. Gray is the source of inspiration for Basil Hallward, his friend and the painter who realizes a portrait oh him. At the beginning of the novel Dorian is immature and Wilde writes about his purity and innocence. His character starts to change after the meeting with lord Henry. Lord Henry is an intellectual and a brilliant talker. He intervenes in the narration through epigrams that demonstrate his criticism against society in where he lives. Lord Henry is the symbol of the continuos search of beauty and pleasure without any sense of morality. During the novel he influences Dorian with his concept of pleasure and has the capability of change him. Dorian, infact, starts to have edonistic experiences, to live a life full of sins and without moral. The beauty becomes the only reason of his life, he arrives to sell his soul to devil in order to maintain his attractiveness. In this way he turns in an immoral being: he kills even Basil! When he decides to put an end to this horror, he stabs the painting, which has taken all the signs of his violence and that provides a representation of the degradation of his soul, and commits suicide. THOMAS HARDY He was one of the british naturalism exponent. As the majority of naturalistic he was influenced by Darwin’s theory and he suggested a philosophical pessimist. Hardy believed that life was a survival thing and thought that humans travel to survive, just as Darwin explained in his theory. His pessimism originated from a deterministic view of the world: circumstances modify and determine the individual existence. The perfect example of a cruel destiny is Tess, the protagonist of the most famous Hardy’s novel. Whatever she does in her life to improve her poor condition has no positive result, because everything is pre-determined. The human being, for Hardy, has to fight the difficulty of being alive with the other people. Hardy criticized the Victorian society because in it there was neither communication nor cooperation. He asserted that altruism and kindness along individuals were absolutely necessary because nature is totally indifferent to human being and because there is a strong opposition between man-made laws and nature laws. Tess of d'Urbervilles is the novel that includes all these themes. Its publication caused quite a stir because Hardy broke with the traditional novels. In Tess of d’Urbervilles he gave all his attention to a women, Tess, that he defended in front of all her adversities and he broke with the Victorian prudery and ‘sexual norms’. Hardy accused also the Church of being responsible for the degradation of spiritual values.