Robert Louis Stevenson 1850-1894
the life
became one of the first examples of the bohemian in Britain, openly rejecting his family's religious principles
born in Edinburgh, he was educated as a Calvinist
he started writing in 1875. he moved to Samoa
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) plot
these two beings are in conflict. when Hyde is freed he gains dominion over Jekyll so he only has two choices:
Mr. Utterson, a lawyer, investigates the life of Dr. Jekyll and discorvers that His friend has created a potion capable of releasing his evil side, Mr. Hyde.
a life of crime or kill Hyde . therefore Jekyll's suicide is the last choice.
setting
London in the 1870s. London had a double nature (hypocrisy of society): the respectable West End and the poverty of the East End slums.
sources
the family's Calvinism gave him a sense of man's divided self.
author's dream of a man in a laboratory who with a drug had transformed into a different being. (freud)
influences and interpretation
the novel is a reflection on art, as a psycological search
Darwin's studies
due to his poor health he remained in bed for the first years
double
london --> west / east end
Jekyll' house --> front (J) Vs back (H)
night (evil action) Vs Day (normal life)
Hyde is both primitive and repressed, while Jekyll is a kind of "Victorian Faust".