J+H theme analysis Flashcards
(24 cards)
Women and Femininity (General)
- Excluded from main characters: Stevenson wants to focus his criticisms on men, but also paints a negative picture of women – the first one we meet is H’s maid!
Women and Femininity (Maid’s description of Carew’s murder)
o “never had she felt more at peace with all men”: most of his readers would have been women (had free time), and he accuses them of being bloodthirsty!
o ridiculous description of the murder: “the bones were audibly shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway. At the horror of these sights and sounds, the maid fainted.”: she didn’t really faint (typical of Victorian gothic literature (+ penny dreadfuls) (commonly enjoyed by women particularly, and Stevenson pokes fun at it!)) – she actually enjoys retelling the story and has added this to make it more sensational; body “jumps upon the roadway”, but Hyde is “trampling” upon it!, “audibly shattered” – not true! She couldn’t even hear what they were saying
Women and Femininity (Utterson in Soho)
“many women of different nationalities passing out, key in hand, to have a morning glass” – is this humorous description fair or misogynistic?
OR does it show the violence of men? Prostitution was common in Soho. Perhaps the women are prostitutes who resort to drinking to cope with the violence they face from their clients?
COULD make the place seem SCARY to middle class Victorian women - alcoholism is immoral to them, and many were also deeply xenophobic
Hyde’s housekeeper (represents the female reader): “An ivory-faced silvery-haired old woman [… with an] evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy; but her manners were excellent” – women are just like the men (they are hypocrites in that they appear to have good manners but are actually evil) and it can be seen on their faces, “a flash of odious joy [at Hyde’s being in trouble]” – mockery of the female reader who is represented by the the housekeeper.
Christianity and religion (Descriptions of/reactions to Hyde)
“the slime of the pit”, “amorphous”, “the offices of life” – Stevenson uses overexaggerated and complex language to mock Christianity. Scientific discoveries disprove the bible at the time. Stevenson is an atheist.
o “some damned juggernaut”: “damned = Christianity, hell; “juggernaut” = Hinduism, suggests there is another way but Christian prejudice and interpretation of morality informs our view of Hyde. Enfield is out at the same time – is he just as bad? There isn’t much of a difference between the two – hypocrisy. There is something unnatural about Hyde – a product of the “”evil”” science.
o “I saw that sawbones turn sick and white with the desire to kill him”: everyone wants to kill H! They are much more evil than H at this point in the novel. Suggests to Christians that killing H is good – it is a moral Christian act getting rid of the evil in the world; but this highlights the hypocrisy of Victorian society – they want to kill him and they DO blackmail him!
Christianity and religion (Lanyon’s death)
- L dies because he morally objects to the science of J. He would rather be in heaven than in a world rejecting God. The christian reader praises this, a sophisticated analytical reader may see this as ridiculous
- Doesn’t report H to the police… oopsie bad christian moment
Appearance and reality (Hyde according to Jekyll)
“none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and bore the stamp, of lower elements in my soul” – J says evil is in him, but we only notice it in H because he ““looks evil””. We never learn what H looks like because he wants to highlight the stupidity of the contemporary ideas of atavism and physiognomy.
Appearance and reality (Hyde according to Utterson in Ch 2)
o UTTERSON: “I read Satan’s signature upon a face”: He has knocked a girl over and not apologised (no remorse), and perhaps blackmailed J (BUT HE HASN’T – U IS UNRELIABLE). None of the characters can describe his appearance – hypocrisy – Christian audience may assume he is almost supernaturally evil-looking. Hyde is the product of science, therefore science is bad!
have a break
have a kitkat (i cant figure out how to delete cards)
Appearance and reality (J in Ch 3)
- J: “large handsome face”, “a large, well-made, smooth-faced man”, “every mark of capacity and kindness”. These are attractive things to a Victorian reader! J is supposed to be attractive to prove that appearances don’t dictate the morality of a person. “a blackness about his eyes” – something is hidden under the surface
Setting as metaphor (Front of J’s house)
- House “wore a great air of wealth and comfort, though it were now plunged in darkness”: personification suggesting respectable properties contain people like J who appear to be good, but are not as good as they suggest.
Setting as metaphor (J’s deteriorating condition)
- “for even in the houses the fog began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth, sat Dr Jekyll, looking deadly sick”: As J becomes more evil, fog seeps in. Metaphor for confusion of respectable appearances and actual reality
Setting as metaphor (J’s backdoor)
- Back of the house: where H enters and lives
o “a certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the street” – thrust suggests violence
o “blind forehead of discoloured wall on the upper” – it has no windows, suggests secrecy
o “bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged and sordid negligence” – if you don’t pay attention to evil instincts they will take over. It will make you appear to be evil
o “blistered and distained”, “schoolboy had tried his knife” – everyone has some evil (the back is bad), it has been vandalised by a child (link to the Christian idea of original sin)
Hypocrisy of Middle Class Men (Soho (Why is this where H lives?))
Soho is near Leicester Square (where J lives)
Prostitution, drinking, and drug-taking was common in Soho
Many immigrants came to live here - made up ~40% of Soho’s population at the time. This would have been spooky for Victorian readers because they were xenophobic.
Proximity of J’s house to this area of “sin” demonstrates hipocrisy of middle class men and their moral corruption, as they would often enjoy visiting Soho.
Hypocrisy of Middle Class Men (Soho & Xenophobia)
“a low French eating house”, “many women of different nationalities”, Hyde is portrayed as hairy and brown (he is a foreigner) – Victorian society is racist and xenophobic. Stevenson doesn’t see this as a problem – later lived in Samoa. It wouldn’t bother him. The readers are hypocrites! Also pleases those with xenophobic views, as it confirms their opinions. Christianity makes them feel superior to foreigners
Hypocrisy of Middle Class Men (Soho and pathetic fallacy)
Fog: symbol of corruption. Cannot see around you – vulnerability to attack/fear. Image of not thinking straight – view of foreigners as something to avoid is a fog affecting the reader. The fog itself is “brown as umber”.
Drug-taking in Victorian society (AO3)
- Completely legal and COMMON in high society; addiction was a problem at the time
Not necessarily frowned upon though, even in high society.
Encouraged amongst creatives
Does Stevenson argue for or against drugs?
Against: Creates Hyde. Hyde bad. Eventually the drugs kill both Jekyll and Hyde, and arguably corrupt the supposedly wholly good Jekyll because he loses control by the end.
For: J says his only regret is that because he was in a certain state of mind when he first took the drug H was evil, but that he wants the research to be continued because it could create an “angel” rather than a “fiend”
Friendship’s role in the plot
IT CAUSES J’S DOWNFALL
If analysed as a tragedy, his loneliness could be his hamartia.
- The tragedy happens because he separates himself from his friends
o Conflicts: Christianity vs Science (J + L)
o “I have buried one friend today […] what if this should cost me another?”: U about to open letter – Stevenson asks what kind of friendship is built on lies? Society should be more open, have less taboos (eg: atheism, homosexuality) - Friendship could have saved J:
o “forever, despised and friendless”, “I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor, surrounded by friends” – friendship is more important than “secret pleasures”
Good vs Evil/Moral ambiguity (J’s opinions of himself)
“evil finally destroyed the balance of my soul”, “it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it” – we all lack the strength to prevail against evil all the time. Original sin, OR is the problem that society sees lots of things we enjoy as evil, but they are actually natural and human?
Good vs Evil/Moral ambiguity (Utterson)
- U withholds evidence from the police – doesn’t tell them that J+H know each other, or about his theory of blackmail between the two. He is a lawyer, but he breaks the law, aiding and abetting a felon. The contemporary reader would have understood and perhaps empathised with this – reputation was SO important at the time. Exposes readers to their own hypocrisy.
o J “forges for a murderer”: U still doesn’t tell the police, event though he thinks he is helping H!
Good vs Evil/Moral ambiguity (J’s opinions of H)
- Jekyll envies Hyde, who triumphs
o “his love of life is wonderful […] I find it in my heart to pity him”: Hyde was a murderer, but out of a passion for life. He is desperate not to die – contrast to J, who is happy to die because he will become H who is happy.
Good vs Evil/Moral ambiguity (repression)
Don’t repress all your desires. “my devil came out roaring” (referencing Ch4) – H wouldn’t have been murderous if J’s urges hadn’t been repressed. If society wasn’t so repressive, people wouldn’t be as aggressive. Enfield, Utterson, and the Sawbones are already perhaps criminal – they give into their urges.
* To Christians: be careful – evil is stronger than good. Be aware of them or they will take over and you will ROT IN HELL
* To a sophisticated reader: If we have a fully-rounded life, and give into our desires, we will be more powerful and better people. There is no more drug left – H is superior to J. Because of this, J kills himself.
Evolution (AO3)
Darwin’s Theory of Evolution had just been published
This upset Christians because it proved the Bible wrong
They feared that humanity could regress as it was “survival of the fittest”, not the most virtuous
Lead to silly ideas like atavism and physiognomy
Quotes: “hardly human”, “something troglodytic”, “ape-like fury”
Hypocrisy of middle class men (Ch 1)
- Why is Enfield out so late?
- “I saw that sawbones turn sick and white with the desire to kill him”: everyone wants to kill H! Sawbones is a symbol for the general middle classes - those outside of the immediate world of J. Shows Stevenson makes a commentary about SOCIETY as a whole. They are much more evil than H at this point in the novel. Suggests to Christians that killing H is good – it is a moral Christian act getting rid of the evil in the world; but this highlights the hypocrisy of Victorian society – they want to kill him and they DO blackmail him!
Hypocrisy of middle class men (Utterson)
- U withholds evidence from the police – doesn’t tell them that J+H know each other, or about his theory of blackmail between the two. He is a lawyer, but he breaks the law, aiding and abetting a felon. The contemporary reader would have understood and perhaps empathised with this – reputation was SO important at the time. Exposes readers to their own hypocrisy.
o J “forges for a murderer”: U still doesn’t tell the police, event though he thinks he is helping H!
