Bitesize - Context Flashcards
Who was Robert Louis stevenson
Born in Edinburgh, Scotland 1850
Family of engineers, scientists, professor of philosophy and engineers
We can see the scientific and religious sides of Stevenson’s family reflected in both his life and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
His childhood
Stevenson was a sickly child
Tuberculosis
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A combination of his love of adventure and ill health led him to spend many years as a writer travelling the world in search of a climate that was healthier than Britain’s.
Samoa
in 1890, he went to live in the remote Samoan Islands in the South Pacific.
He died there in 1894 at the age of 44
Religion and science in the 19th century
In 1859, when Stevenson was nine years old,
Charles Darwin published The Origin of Species.
This book became famous for introducing the Theory of Evolution to the public.
Many people saw it as an attack on religion, because the book made it impossible to believe that God created the world in seven days.
Darwin put forward the theory that all life, including humans, has evolved from more primitive forms.
The books release
The book’s release came at a time when many people saw science and a belief in religion and the supernatural as being at odds with each another.
A lot felt they had to choose between the two.
And many believed that science had become dangerous and was meddling in matters which only God had control over. This is what Jekyll does in the novel.
Nature vs the supernatural
Closely linked to the Victorians’ increasing sense of the conflict between science and religion was the idea that humans have a dual nature.
On the one hand, they saw the calm, rational, everyday normality of family life and employment; on the other, fantasies, nightmares, anger and violence.
It was the explainable versus the inexplicable;
the natural versus the supernatural; good versus evil.
This is the duality the novel explores. (For more on this, see the notes on Themes.)
The notorious Jack the Ripper murders occurred in London in 1888. In the minds of the Victorians, they underlined the Jekyll and Hyde duality of human nature, especially as there was discussion about the murderer being highly educated, or even of royal birth.
