Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Themes in Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde
- Violence
- "he broke out in a great flame of anger"
- The metaphor compares him to fire, wild and
uncontrollable
- "trampled calmly"
- His violence was in the
act, not the way it was
carried out
- "the bones were audibly shattered"
- Hyde continued to beat Carew until his bones were crushed
- He is out of control and beat Carew until the effects
were deadly. He enjoyed beating Carew
- Science & the supernatural
- "some dammed juggernaut"
- Hyde is compared to a machine which crushes everything in
it's way.
- Re-enforces the idea that Hyde is not human and does not
display any emotions
- "It turns me cold to think of this creature"
- The mere thought of Hyde provokes a fearful physical
reaction. He puts people on edge without having to do
anything.
- Emphasises that Hyde isn't human. 'Creature' suggests that he is
not thought of as another human.
- The importance of reputation
- "No gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene"
- Nobody, even Hyde, wants to give themselves a bad name
- "professional honour and faith to his dead friend were stringent obligations"
- Although the envelope held the key to solving the mystery,
Utterson preserved his friends reputation by keeping the
letter closed
- "Signed with a name I can't mention"
- Enfeild does not want to give Jekyll a bad name for protecting Hyde
- Even knowing a bad person ruined your reputation in Victorian
morals
- The duality of human nature
- "in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins
should be continuously struggling"
- There is a battle between the two contrasting personalities for prominence.
- "Dammed juggernaut" TO
""smooth faced man of fifty"
- Shows that the two men have contrasting appearances
and highlights the different characteristics of the men
- "man is not truly one but truly two"
- Jekyll holds the belief that it is part of human nature to
have contrasting thoughts and personalities as part of you
- Jekyll has drawn a definitive line between good and
evil and separated them as two different parts
- Secrecy
- "he didn't look the lawyer in the face"
- Hyde tries to keep his face hidden from Utterson, and hence the reader.
- This leaves the reader guessing what Hyde looks like. Only unflattering descriptions from other people have been used to describe him so far.
- Religion
- "if I ever read Satan's signature upon a face"
- "really like Satan"
- "the unbelief of Satan
- Hyde is repetitively compared to the devil. For Christians,
Satan is the worst form of evil, so to compare somebody to
Satan is calling them pure evil.
- Stark contrast to the high reputation held by Dr Jekyll