Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
Morality
immoral actions lead to punishment
Victorians believed in a punitive God
has a didactic purpose, teaches what is right and wrong
right: abstinence, being morally/socially upright, God-fearing and remaining within the acceptable boundaries of natural order
wrong: playing God (deicide), lascivious/carnal pursuits, sins of indulgence, violent acts
outwardly respectable but inwardly enjoying guilty and repressed desires
Darwinism
man evolved from apes, characterisation of Hyde
'a masked thing like a monkey'
'thing' dehumanises him
Hyde is of a lower form of life
Physignomy
Stevenson uses it to criticise his readers social prejudices
deliberately makes Jekyll look comparatively good to Hyde
Victorian notion that deformity or disfigurement meant a person was evil as their inner deformity was visible on the outside
'He must be deformed somewhere'
Stevenson
good and proper in his public life but battling inner desire in his private life
whilst ill he became aware of another person within him and called it 'myself and the other fellow'
Psychoanalysis
Sidmund Freud was the 'Father of psychoanalysis'
Id, Ego and the Superego
idea came to Stevenson in a dream - the nature of dreams revealing the truths of the subconscious
Duality
idea that everyone is capable of good and evil deeds
pious nature of Victorian society meant that many people suppressed their desires and feelings
Jekyll is an embodiment of goodness
Hyde is an embodiment of evilness
'haunting sense of unexpressed deformity'
'every mark of capacity and kindness - you could see by his looks he cherished for Mr Utterson'