A Tale of Terror The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

So what? Robert Louis Stevenson’s dark psychological fantasy gave birth to the idea of the split personality. The story of respectable Dr. Jekyll’s strange association with ‘damnable young man’ Edward Hyde; the hunt through fog-bound London for a killer; and the final revelation of Hyde’s true identity is a chilling exploration of humanity’s basest capacity for evil. -Book Jacket Description, Penguin Classics

About R.L. Stevenson Born in Edinburgh, Scotland in Son of a civil engineer. Studied law at Edinburgh University (though he never practiced). In his early twenties he suffered from a respiratory illness that would affect him throughout his entire life. It was during this illness that he decided to become a professional writer. In 1879, he travelled to California to marry Fanny Osbourne, an American who happened to be ten years his elder. He settled in Samoa (because of the climate) and died there in 1894.

RLS Continued Stevenson started as an essayist and travel writer. However, the success of Treasure Island (1883) soon gave him a place among fiction writers. Stevenson’s Calvinist upbringing gave him a fascination with predestination and the presence of evil. Stevenson wrote a great deal about power struggles in society, and even those in his family, mirroring his own rocky relationship with his father. Fanny Stevenson dies in 1914.

More. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the work that made his reputation. However, he wrote many other notable books including Kidnapped and The Body Snatcher. He also published collections of short stories and other tales.

The “Gothic” Novel This is not what I mean

Continued. The “Goths” were originally a Germanic tribal culture. "Gothic" has come to mean quite a number of things by this day and age. It could mean a particular style of art, be it in the form of novels, paintings, or architecture; it could mean "medieval" or "uncouth." It could even refer to a certain type of music and its fans. What it originally meant, of course, is "of, relating to, or resembling the Goths, their civilization, or their language" ("gothic"). -UC Davis

Continued. The term gothic, after the tribal people it was associate with were long gone, came to represent a new style of architecture.

Then… Many more centuries later, the word was used to describe novels. “The Gothic novel took shape mostly in England from 1790 to 1830 and falls within the category of Romantic literature. It acts, however, as a reaction against the rigidity and formality of other forms of Romantic literature. The Gothic is far from limited to this set time period, as it takes its roots from former terrorizing writing that dates back to the Middle Ages, and can still be found written today by writers such as Stephen King. But during this time period, many of the highly regarded Gothic novelists published their writing and much of the novel's form was defined.”

Setting The setting is greatly influential in Gothic novels. It not only evokes the atmosphere of horror and dread, but also portrays the deterioration of its world. The decaying, ruined scenery implies that at one time there was a thriving world. At one time the abbey, castle, or landscape was something treasured and appreciated. Now, all that lasts is the decaying shell of a once thriving dwelling.

Archetypes of Gothic Literature The Gothic hero becomes a sort of archetype as we find that there is a pattern to their characterization. There is always the protagonist, usually isolated either voluntarily or involuntarily. Then there is the villain, who is the epitome of evil, either by his (usually a man) own fall from grace, or by some implicit malevolence. The Wanderer, found in many Gothic tales, is the epitome of isolation as he wanders the earth in perpetual exile, usually a form of divine punishment. The plot itself mirrors the ruined world in its dealings with a protagonist's fall from grace as she succumbs to temptation from a villain. In the end, the protagonist must be saved through a reunion with a loved one.

Calvinism RLS railed against the ideology of his Calvinist parents. Broadly speaking, Calvinism stresses the sovereignty or rule of God in all things – in salvation but also in all of life.

More Calvinism stresses the total depravity or total inability of humanity's ethical nature against a backdrop of the sovereign grace of God in salvation. It teaches that fallen people are morally and spiritually unable to follow God or escape their condemnation before him. It is seen as the work of God (divine intervention) in which God changes their unwilling hearts from rebellion to willing obedience. In this view, all people are entirely at the mercy of God, who would be just in condemning all people for their sins, but who has chosen to be merciful to some. Thus, one person is saved while another is condemned, not because of a foreseen willingness, faith, or any other virtue in the first person, but because God sovereignly chose to have mercy on him

Our Book Dr. J and Mr. H has been coined as one of the greatest horror stories of all time. It is up there with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. This book has infiltrated the language and become part of popular culture. It raises the issue of private self vs. public self. Or at least outward self vs. inward self. This idea inspires doubt. This book, unlike many we have read, was actually written for market popularity. It sold 40,000 copies in 6 months.

Issues This book is written as a detective story of sorts. Setting plays a symbolic role. Watch out for (metaphorical) vampires Keep in mind the idea of “human evil” or collective evil from the past. Watch out for “gay” issues and blackmail. -Sic. Oscar Wilde Is this a parable or an allegory or just a “schilling shocker”? Biblical allegory?

More Issues An evolutionary issue? Hypocrisy and secret sin. A gothic/romantic novel in the Victorian era? How much of our lives are governed by the opinion others have of us?