Gothic Horror - The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

Gothic Horror 

For the next term of uni we will be studying the unit of Gothic Horror. For the first part of the research for the unit Gothic Horror we had a choice between a few books which were gothic horror novels.

The book I have chosen to use as a base to this unit is called The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. I read the summery of this book and it seemed exactly the type of book I would normally read, something with a bit of mystery, crime and horror.

We were also to whilst reading the book choose a character that draws our attention, while reading the book The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson my attention was taken by the Character called Mr Hyde, who I have decided to base this research on his character. 

Throughout reading the book i gathered a few quotes which describe Mr Hyde's appearance- 

Mr. Enfield - "There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable."

Mr. Enfield -"He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point. He's an extraordinary-looking man"

Mr. Utterson - "he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat broken voice"

Mr. Utterson- "the man seems hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say?"

Mr. Utterson-  "if ever I read Satan's signature upon a face, it is on that of your new friend."

"must have secrets of his own; black secrets, by the look of him;”

“Haunting sense of unexpressed deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.”

"Did i ever tell you that i once saw him, and shared you're feeling of repulsion"

"is a tall fine build of a man, and this was more of a dwarf" 

These are a few of the quotes from the beginning of the book which is ways that the characters described Mr Hyde to look like. They repeat over and over again the word "Creature". "The creature was so doubled up" page 41. They mention creature throughout the book to describe Mr Hyde. Victorians saw animals as beneath them, saw them as dirty creatures, they use this description to create imagery of Mr Hyde and how it could look almost animal like. There is also another quote quite far towards the end which relates Mr Hyde as ape like, this comment in the book is quite interesting because when Robert Louis Stevenson was 9 Charles Darwin wrote a book which questioned religion and said how we have evolved from animals throughout the years. This made many people question religion and most people felt like they had to choose between the two. So maybe Stevenson was questioning if science was the creation of animals/creatures not religion and this was a part to the story that isn't made as obvious.

Hyde is also described to be "dwarfish" but young this might have also been an attraction from Dr Jekyll's behalf because he might have felt more alive and young as Mr Hyde.

There is one thing that I find slightly strange about the description of Hyde in the book is that there is no specific feature about him that mades his appearance horrifying. For example there are a lot of quotes above and throughout the book which explain Mr Hyde as unpleasant and when people see him they are in discuss but never see a word that actually describes exactly what he looks like. Its as if there is something about his presents that emotionally affects people.

Another thing I learnt about Mr Hyde is that he has no guilt for anything that he does or any of the crimes he commits. He's emotionally unconnected in a way and I think this also links back to the animal like because when a lion kills his pray they don't feel guilty for killing because it's to survive but the difference between Hyde and an animal is that he kills because he cannot because its in order to survive. 

At the beginning of the book, Dr Jekyll liked and enjoyed being Hyde, giving in to his urges and evil side. Then in the end it changes to Dr Jekyll trying to fight off the beat within him but Hyde started to take over Dr Jekyll. Stevenson is trying to point out the every human has a bad and good side but the choice is yours if you decide to let the evil out or not.