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The Strange Case Of Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Analysis

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From the variety of themes and plot twists, Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ has become a worldwide classic and an insight into morals of the Victorian era – in particular Victorian London; the entire book is an eye opener of life at the time. An awful lot of this information can in fact be picked from the introduction which aims to put people in the position of Stevenson’s first readers – those with no preconceptions. From the very first page, the idea of dual nature is put forward in the introduction – “the term Jekyll and Hyde personality has entered our language, describing someone who lives a double life of outward sanity and secret iniquity”; the theme of dual nature being explicated before the novel even beginning highlights its importance. Originally, the tale was written as a ‘shilling shocker’ for Christmas of 1885 – a season associated with the supernatural and creepy tales such as Dickens’ classic, A Christmas Carol; funnily enough, Christmas is the complete opposite now. However, knowing that the Christmas period was associated with supernatural gives an insight onto how Victorians viewed Gothic tales – it was very much a form of enjoyment and pleasure and, in some forms, special. At the time, Stevenson tales generally were gothic and in the introduction , there is an overview of some pieces such as Olalla and the body snatchers. This is to presumably trigger the atmosphere of terror as having this mood from the very

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