Literary Essay: "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"

In the subject Language Through Literature Writing, we studied how to write a Literary Essay, to write we should write about the themes, tones,etc from the story "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", which we read it in the subject Literature. To write it we had to write it between 350-400 words. This is my work:

I did with Lola Louro

Literary Essay: "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde"

"The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", written by Robert Louis Stevenson, tells the story of a man called Henry Jekyll, who is interested in the duality of human nature, and creates a potion which reveals his dark side, which finally kills him. The themes of this story, Violence, The Duality of Human Nature and The Importance of Reputation will be analysed in this Essay.

The story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde has powerful violence scenes. In each situation Mr. Hyde is guilty and te victim is an inoscent person. For example when Mr. Hyde hurts the young girl and later on he hits Mr. Carew to death. Hyde´s final victims are both, himself ans Jekyll, in the moment he commits suicide. In this case neither victim is inoscent, clearly Dr. Jekyll is guilty because he is the one who creates Hyde and lets him free. For example, in the story says "And then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child´s body and left her screaming on the ground", this explains the violence that the story has.

In the theme duality of human nature Jekyll says that "Man is not truly one, but truly two" and he imagines the human soul has an "Angel" and a "Devil" side. In the story his good side is dominant, but along the story his dark side gains power. This dark side, Hyde, is described like an animal so as to show man´s essential nature.

The last theme of analysis is The Importance of Reputation. Utterson and Enfield avoid gossip at all cost for example when Utterson suspects Jekyll first of on black mailed and then of sheltering Hyde from police, he did not sys nothing because he is Jekyll´s frind and because of Jekyll´s reputation. The Importance of Reputation in the novel also reflects the importance of appearances, and surfaces. In many instances of the novel Utterson wishes to preserve Jekyll´s reputation but also Enfield wants to preserve Hyde's by, after telling the incident of the window to Utterson, saying this: "Here is another lesson to say nothing. I am ashamed of my long tounge. Let us make a bargain never to refer to this again"

The story has very interesting and catching themes which make the reader continue reading it. I think it is very well written with a formal language used in Victorian Times. It describes in detail every aspect or characteristics about the characters, situations or places so you can imagine it.