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Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850-1894) - Life & main works

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Robert Louis STEVENSON  (1850-1894)


Life & main works :

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; Born in England;

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; Poor health > childhood in bed;

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; Calvinist family;



·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; Adolescence > he travelled a lot (in search for a more friendly climate) (Germany, France, Italy)

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; CONFLICT WITH THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT (respectable Victorian world);

Ž   &nbs 333g66d p;  He REJECTS his family's religious principles and the love for respectability

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; Married an American woman > they moved to Australia, Tahiti

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; Popular novelist:

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    TREASURE ISLAND

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE (1886)

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Short stories

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; Main characteristics in his works:

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    SUSPANCE, SUPERNATURAL WORTHY

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Strange titles

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Exotic settings.


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; Less ironical than Dickens (who used also more rhetorical devices and concrete language to talking about also ideals -as corruption in London fog-).


THE STRANGE CASE OF Dr. JEKYLL AND Mr. HYDE  (1886)


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; TITLE: unusual; "case" refers to the semantic field of investigation > CRIME, DETECTIVE STORY.

The people involved are the two mentioned here.

"Dr" in England refers only to a medical doctor; here the doctor is a scientific man who does chemical experiments.

"-kyll" and "Hyde" have symbolical meanings: Dr. Jekyll will commit suicide for killing his evil part, Mr. Hyde, who hides himself behind the gentle and respectable Doctor.


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; TYPE OF WORK: scientific, GOTHIC novel


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; PLOT: see the book


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; SETTING

§   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p;  Halfway between London (England ) and Edinburgh (Scotland), two capitals with a double nature: the respectable one and the poor, criminal slums.  >> DOUBLE NATURE

§   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p;  Jekyll's house: the front > respect the proprietor's good side; the rear > evil side.

§   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p;  NIGHT, DARKNESS, FOG > mysterious, anguishing atmosphere



·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; NARRATOR / POINT OF VIEW

Multi-narrational structure > complex series of point of view.

Four narrators:

§   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p;  Mr. Utterson: He's a friend of Jekyll and he has the role of a detective (similar to Sherlock Holmes)

§   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p;  Enfield: he's Utterson's distant relative with whom he has a strange relationship (>>central theme of the DOUBLE)

§   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p;  Lanyon: superficially a good man but he reflects Jekyll because at the end his curiosity prevails and allows him to be tempted by forbidden knowledge and he dies.

§   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p;  Jekyll: who narrates in first person only in the last chapter, where he reveals his final decision.


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; LANGUAGE: rather formal

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; CHARACTERS

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Dr. Henry Jekyll: He's a respectable man, with a virtuous life. He's a scientist.

He is searching for a potion (he finds it) that could separate the good from the evil present in each person because he wants find happiness and so to eliminate the sense of guilt that a good person feels when the evil side of him/her prevails. > see the passage of "JEKYLL'S EXPERIMENT" - first paragraph, page 116.



He's handsome (=good-looking), with white and well-shaped hands, his body is proportioned. He wears fine clothes.

At the beginning he's higher and larger than Hyde, because his life is controlled by this good side, but then his evil side tends to predominate and Hyde becomes bigger than Jekyll.

He's a kind of "Victorian Faust", because he has a sort of pact with his internal evil that at the end controls him. >see the passage of "JEKYLL EXPERIMENT" - line 54, page 117.


o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Mr. Edward Hyde: (see the passage of  "JEKYLL EXPERIMENT" at page 116, lines 45-87)

He's the dark, sinister and evil side of Jekyll, the result of his potion.

He's a criminal and he acts during the night.

Initially Jekyll still control the situation but day by day Hyde prevails.

He's smaller, slighter and younger than Jekyll.

He's pale, dwarfish (=nano), with dark and hairy hands. He gives the impression of deformity; his body is not exercised. At the beginning he's smaller than Jekyll but then he grows in stature.

Jekyll, when becomes Hyde, feels an extraordinary flow of energy. Initially he felt no repugnance for this monster, it (Hyde) was welcome, because it was one of tha real and defined images of his spirit. Hyde feels himself free because he has no conscience.

But at the and he comprehend that suicide is the only way to stop Hyde's control of his life.

People were terrified by Hyde because all mankind is constituted by both good and evil, but Hyde was only the pure evil.

Probably his description derives from Darwin's studies of man's kinship to the animal world. He's the primitive, the evolutionary forerunner of civilized man (Jekyll).

He's the symbol of repressed psychological drives.


o   &nbs 333g66d p;    No women; the only relationships are professional ones; the men are all bachelors and belong all to the same respectable world >>MALE PATRIARCAL WORLD OF VICTORIANISM



·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; THEMES

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    SPLIT, DOUBLE PERSONALITY

Men must accept the incongruous elements of their personality (Kekyll doesn't do that and dies)

>> hypocrisy, antithetical values and sexual repression of Victorianism; Victorian compromise;

Calvinism of the author's family (pessimistic, it underlines the guilt of a person and so it favourite the division of the self).


o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Man's SALVATION is based on the annihilation of one part of his nature if he lives in a civilized society.


o   &nbs 333g66d p;    GOTIC aspects (typical of the literature in 1880s-1890s) (setting, plot);


o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Jekyll's discovery may symbolize the artist's journey into the unexplored regions of the human psyche.



STORY OF THE DOOR - Chapter I


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; TITLE: the door is probably the door of the rear of Jekyll's house, where Hyde lives. (lines 99-101)

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; PLOT:

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Mr. Utterson's description (lines 1-17)

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    His strange friend Mr. Enfield and their Sunday walks (lines 18-32)

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    The place of one of these walks: a busy quarter of London and the building with the door(lines 33-52)

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    The story of the door narrated by Mr. Enfield (lines 54-114):

§   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; One night, at three o'clock. A "little man" "trampled calmly over" (=calpestņ) a girl of 8-10 years old (lines 60-72)

§   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; Mr. Enfield stops this terrifying man. The girl's family turns out (="viene fuori"). The doctor arrives. They all has a grate desire to kill this man. (lines 73-86)

§   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; Controlling their desires, they menace (=minacciano) to ruin his reputation, but he seems not frightened and asks how much money they want. 100 pounds. He goes into the door of the busy quarter and comes with 10 pounds in gold and a cheque, signed with A RESPECTABLE NAME. They thought it was forged (=false) (because a man like that cannot be a respectable person; a name like that seemed not suspect (=sospettabile); and he cannot have rubbed someone at that hour so calmly), but when they gave in the cheque, they had the prove it "was genuine". (lines 87-114).


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; SETTING: a Sunday morning, a street of a busy quarter of London;

The story of the door is set at 3 o'clock in one morning in the same street >>MISTERIOUS, ANGUISHING.


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; NARRATOR / POINT OF VIEW: Third person narrator, omniscient (lines 1-60); Mr. Enfield, a first person narrator, internal, omniscient but reticent (lines 60-114). Narrator's point of view in both cases.


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; NARRATIVE TECNIQUES

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Description (lines 1-32; 35-53);

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Narration (lines 33-34; 54-114);

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Delayed info (the reason why Mr. Enfield is there at that hour; the "little man"; the name of the cheque) >> SUSPANCE;



o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Some repetition in the last part that create a sense of anguish in the reader.


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; LANGUAGE/TONE

The language is REALISTIC, VIVID (a lot of details), EVERYDAY SPEECH, but REFINED (abstract adjectives and high words - ex. "mortify" line 8-), typical of a GENTLEMAN, not of a poor person.

The tone is anguishing, mysterious (delayed info and repetitions)


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; CHARACTERS

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Mr. Utterson: he's a lawyer of a good family. Very tolerant (lines 10-12); he looks serious but only in the evenings > probably he is shy. People respect him (lines 14-15). He chooses his friends not by his inclinations, but by their being his relatives or someone that he known for a very long time.

>> in general he's a POSITIVE  character.

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Mr. Enfield: Mr. Utterson's friend and one of his relatives. He's of a good family too (he's "the well-known man about town"). Strange relationship because they seem to have nothing to do or to talk about and nothing in common. They always have a Sunday walk together, even if during that they never talk and they seemed bored.

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    The girl: probably she's of an unrespectable family because she's alone in a bad street at 3 o'clock in the morning.

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    The doctor: (lines 82-86). Mr. Enfield presents him as a "sawbones"(=dispregiativo; "sega-ossa"). He's probably from Edinburgh and he's cold, but he hates the bad man too, as the other persons.

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    The "little man": We know he's Hyde. But here it isn't said. "little" is for his dimensions. He's defined as "IT wasn't like a man. IT was like some damned Juggernaut", "like Satan". He's cold, detached, he has the control of the situation, even if he seems to be a bit disturbed by the menaces and the hate for him.


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; THEMES

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Gothic aspects;

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    In the city there is something very strange and mysterious that frightens people;

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    HYPOCRISY: people doesn't report the man to the police, they ask for money;

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    NO JUSTICE: money can do everything.



JEKYLL'S EXPERIMENT - Chapter X (the last)

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; PLOT

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Lines 1-17: PHILOSOPHICAL part. Explanation of the reasons of Jekyll experiment;

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Lines 1-44: the discovery of the potion and the reasons of the decision to use it;

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Lines 45-87: the first transformation; HYDE.

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Lines 88-112: the first retransformation; JEKYLL. What happened to Dr. Jekyll using these potion. The results.


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; NARRATOR: Jekyll, in first person narrator.

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; LANGUAGE / TONE

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    First paragraph: ABSTRACT language; PHYLOSOPHICAL tone

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Second part: CONCRETE language; PASSIONATE, EMOTIONAL tone.


·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; CHARACTERS: see the presentation of the novel.

·   &nbs 333g66d p;   &nbs 333g66d p; THEMES

o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Jekyll's discoveries were incomplete: using the potion he had understood that this process of division of the self doesn't give happiness and there is no possibility to turn back. Day by day the evil side will take the power and kill the good side.

When Jekyll drinks the potion he suffers the pangs of dissolution (lines 45-48, 91-93)

>> the division of the self implyes pain, sufferings.

>> THE HUMANITY'S PROBLEMS WITH THE EVIL PART OF EACH ONE CANNOT BE SOLVED.


o   &nbs 333g66d p;    Jekyll is REMORSEFUL. Indeed he doesn't reveals the substances of his potion.


o   &nbs 333g66d p;    THE MIRROR (see also "Cat in the rain", "Il fu Mattia Pascal", "Gelusalemme liberata",..) as a sign of division of the self. Here Jekyll in the mirror sees for the first time his evil side, Hyde.






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