Jekyll and Hyde: Key Concepts

Jekyll and Hyde: Key Concepts

• The novella reveals the conflict between the id and the superego through a Freudian lens.
• Physiognomy is used as the art of judging character from facial features within the Victorian era.
• Moral duplicity is the hypocrisy of maintaining a respectable facade while indulging in vice.
• Gothic Atavism is represented by Hyde as a regressed, primitive being, embodying fears of devolution.
• Hyde embodies predatory amorality, showing a complete lack of moral restraint.
• The manifestation of the id is Hyde, who acts as the unrestrained, primal force within Jekyll.
• Hubristic delusion is Jekyll's overconfidence in controlling his darker self.
• Loss of volition describes Jekyll's loss of will when transforming.
• Victorian fears of addiction are reflected in Jekyll's fate, mirroring anxieties about opium or alcohol abuse.
• Faustian circumstances involve compromising beliefs for success.
• Phrenology is the study of the skull's shape to determine personality and mental abilities.
• Urban gothic genre contrasts contemporary gothic stories, demonstrating that the unknown lies in closer proximity.
• The novella explores the duplicity between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, highlighting societal respect for one and disdain for the degenerate other.
• Stevenson indicts ideas of respectability and the weight it holds by undermining rigid social constructs.
• The novella intermingles ideas of respectability with the reality that it is a facade.
• Stevenson critiques repressing desires, creating Hyde as a physical embodiment of detrimental impacts.
• Hyde's predatory amorality is a consequence of mass repression of instinctual desires
• Stevenson conforms and rejects physiognomy. Hyde has a "deformity" making him appear "detestable" according to Victorian society. Jekyll's physiognomy gives no indication of his duplicity.
• Freud's psychoanalytic theory: The id is the animalistic part of man; the superego adheres to moral and social conventions.
• Darwinism, outlined in 'On the Origin of Species', led to disillusionment with religion and fear of uncontrollable animalistic instincts.

Jekyll and Hyde: Literary Devices

• Hyde is representative of the id as he demonstrates instinctual and basic human desires, uncontrollable with no understanding of morals.
• Jekyll represents the superego, extremely socially aware and trying to uphold moral conventions.
• Darwinism is clear through Hyde's ape-like actions, violence done with "ape-like fury" suggesting these primal links, regressing back into his primitive form.
• Stevenson utilises Darwinism paired with a nightmarish setting.
• Jekyll is punished for his exploration of prohibited scientific experiments.
• Hyde's immoralities and sins were too strong of a temptation for Jekyll.
• Stevenson references the story of Cain and Abel via Utterson, reflecting God's mercy for Cain.
• Free from guilt obligation and punishment, through anonymity achieved via his alter ego of Hyde, Dr Jekyll is absolved
• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde can be seen as an allegory for the idea that hiding one's true nature can lead to dire consequences.
• Mr Hyde is Dr Jekyll's alter-ego.
• Dr Jekyll is an anti-villain, a character who is not wholly evil but commits villainous acts.
• Dr Jekyll is an archetypal anti-villain and Victorian gentleman
• Mr Hyde demonstrates his barbarity in his cruel behaviour
• Dr Jekyll lives a life of debauchery through Mr Hyde
• Stevenson questions which one of Jekyll's identities is the façade
• Dr Lanyon, Mr Enfield and Mr Utterson are genteel with exaggerated politeness or respectability.
• Stevenson implies that evil is innate to human nature as personified through the character of Hyde
• Jekyll's escape into Mr Hyde via the use of drugs can be a considered a modern retelling of the Ring of Gyges from Plato's Republic
• Dr Jekyll's pursuit of the drug he uses to transmogrify into Mr Hyde is an allusion to Adam's eating of the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in the Bible
• The use of an eerie setting is a trope in gothic literature to add suspense

Jekyll: Key Aspects

• Microcosmic for Victorian gentlemen, Jekyll represents an archetype of a respected gentleman with a sanitised appearance.
• He maintains an unblemished facade and illusion of respectability, showing a dual identity and duplicity.
• Jekyll is deceitful and succumbs to temptation, acting impulsively and pursuing hedonistic pleasures.
• He experiences transmogrification and hubristic delusion, believing he can control the transformation.
• Jekyll suffers a loss of volition, compromising morals to achieve scientific success.
• Stevenson portrays Jekyll to demonstrate Victorian norms, highlighting how societal expectations led to the creation of manufactured, sterilised gentlemen.
• The novella serves as a cautionary tale against moral purification, suggesting that denying duality is detrimental to the individual and society.
• The "smooth-faced man of fifty" description is paradoxical.
• Jekyll's sanitised appearance becomes an ironic counterpoint to Hyde; his unblemished façade suggests mastery of social performance.
• Stevenson satirises the paternalistic nature of Victorian society with Jekyll's hubristic delusion.
• Jekyll's internal struggle reveals the ambiguity between morality and immorality, good and evil

Hyde: Key Aspects

• Amoral and beastly, Hyde embodies predatory amorality and animalistic inhumanity.
• Hyde is depraved, iniquitous with a callousness that causes harm, displaying barbaric and heinous behaviour.
• The character is primal, malevolent, and degenerate, representing a physical manifestation of repressed desires.
• Stevenson uses Hyde to critique rigid Victorian social constructs and warns against repression.
• Hyde's "something displeasing, something downright detestable" appearance is from physiognomy.
• He is the looming danger of Victorian society.
• Hyde is physical manifestation of desires.

Quote Analysis

• "My devil had long been caged, he came out roaring"
  • Shows how the verb "caged" means toxic austerity
  • Use of the verb "caged" not only signifies societal and religious repression but also perpetuates the theme of suffering and toxic austerity
  • The idea of being "caged" and "roaring" carries animalistic allusions linking with Darwinism, critiques the suppression of these primal and hedonistic urges by societal norms and religious dogma, reflecting the ongoing battle between civilisation and primary instincts
  • His transmogrification into the evil was because his indulgence into pleasure was incoherent with the expectations of his society
• "Agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling"
  • Highlights the dueling struggle of good and evil in one person.
• "I am the chief of sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also"
  • Shows he battles with indulging in his sinful, darker desires while undergoing the suffering imposed by societal repression as a result of rigid social structures.
• "Clothes of the doctor's bigness"
  • Highlights the repression and denial of his true desires.