Robert Louis Stevenson Influences
Essay by review • March 23, 2011 • Research Paper • 1,191 Words (5 Pages) • 2,056 Views
External Influences on Stevenson’s Writings
“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” by Robert Louis
Stevenson was a familiar title to me and prior to reading it I
believed I was well versed about the story. I knew that Dr.
Jekyll was an intelligent man who experimented with the idea
of creating a more powerful version of him that would release
his deepest inhibitions. In addition, I believed that the
people of the town were not fully aware of Mr. Hyde, only that
there was a monster running about the city creating havoc. The
townspeople would not be directly affected by Mr. Hyde and I
most certainly never thought that Mr. Hyde was capable of
murder. Furthermore, it was my thought that when people
referred to another person as being like Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde that they could switch from being kind one minute to
being irrational and short tempered the next. I never believe
the clichÐ"© to be in reference toward one’s physical aggression
or anger. Finally, prior to reading the novel I believed that
the novel was am indication to the times and the medical
maladies that were present at the time that Stevenson wrote it.
Upon my completion of the book, I learned that while in some
aspects I had the right idea on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the
novel was much more insightful that I had ever imagined. Not
only was Dr. Jekyll an intelligent man but he was very popular
around his town as well as reputable in his society. Others
assumed he was an average man who was being blackmailed by Mr.
Hyde for some misdeed that he had committed in his earlier
years and that was their only connection. Furthermore, the
townspeople were unaware of the happenings of Dr. Jekyll’s
experiments and the consequences of drinking the concoction
that transformed him into Mr. Hyde. Perhaps the most shocking
difference between what I perceived to be true and what the
novel revealed was the fact that split personality disorder
was not even a thought at the time this novel was published.
There had been no prior research as to why a person may act in
two different ways, so in a way Stevenson may have uncovered a
common problem in society and given it recognition in a hidden
message through the novel. Overall, the novel was similar as
to how I previously believed it to be, but Stevenson made it
more relatable to human life rather than incredibly
science-fiction as I had thought it to be. Even though “The
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” may have been
Stevenson’s attempt to allude to a medical disorder of Dr.
Jekylls, Stevenson’s intriguing youth and external influences
during his time period made him one of the most timeless
authors in history.
The idea that Stevenson may have been to allude to the idea
that medical malady of Dr. Jeykll’s is one of the most common
rationales as to why Dr. Jekyll did what he did. There are a
number of medical explanations as to Dr. Jeykll’s behaviors
such as double consciousness, moral insanity, and a number of
other plausible ideas. During the 19th century it was
considered taboo to be suggesting or mentioning sexual
happenings in society and even medical excuses for people’s
actions was still questionable. On the other hand, people at
the time would be much more susceptible to the idea of a
medical excuse for one’s behaviors rather than the
supernatural explanation of Mr. Hyde’s existence. Double
consciousness is the idea that a man is not fully in control
of himself and there is an awareness of those secondary
desires deep within (Stevenson 146). In that, many people of
the time were heavily involve in the use of “spirits” or
alcohol in order to release their own inhibitions much like
Dr. Jekyll used Hyde to release his own inhibitions. The
inhibition that a person struggles with is their internal
battle between good and evil in them but as Stevenson
exaggerates, Dr. Jekyll physically separates his good side
from his evil side (Stevenson 21). Moral insanity during the
mid-19th century became a new field of study that was used to
diagnose unusual behaviors in people rather than their mental
illnesses (Stevenson 147). When a person would begin to act as
Dr. Jekyll did toward the end of the novel and locking
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