Jekyll and Hyde context Flashcards
When was it published?
1886
The industrial revolution…
led to large scale economic migration to cities like London which led to overcrowding, poverty and exacerbated the divisions between the rich and poor in society
Thick fog was caused by…
widespread use of coal to heat people’s homes
Christian upbringing
Alison Cunningham ensured that he was well versed in Calvinist doctrines which preached against vices like drug taking and homosexuality. Victorian readers believed these vices led to damnation and eternal suffering
Stevenson used a back entrance to his house in Edinburgh
to indulge in the very vices he was warned would lead to eternal damnation
Deacon Brodie
A notorious gambler and womaniser who used his skills as a locksmith to break into people’s homes. Stevenson had a wardrobe made by him in his bedroom which had two carved faces on its doors that are thought to have provided inspiration for the characters of both Jekyll and Hyde
Written at a time when Darwin’s books (‘On the Origin of Species’ and ‘The Descent of Man’) were published.
Many found his views blasphemous as they contradicted Christian creationism. His theory that mankind shared an ancestor with apes led Victorians to fear that man could regress and become beast-like once more
Freud…
- was starting to explore the dual nature of man’s conscious and unconscious mind
- Hyde represents what would be later known as the ‘id’ (the instinctive, child-like part of ourselves)
The book employs a number of gothic tropes such as the use of an
archetypal gothic villain (Hyde), the descriptions of moonlit locations, imagery surrounding eyes and the supernatural
What gothic novel influenced Stevenson?
Frankenstein
Why was the work of criminologist - Lombroso - influential?
He misused Darwin’s theories to prove that some people had evolved to be innately criminal and he said you could spot this by recognising certain physical features that were characteristics of those who were evil
Jekyll’s house is based on an actual doctor’s house in Leicester Square which belonged to John Hunter
Wealthy doctors often had a dissecting theatre and laboratory in their house and they would pay for grave robbers to steal corpses which they could then use to dissect in order to learn more about the workings of the human body
The Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885
was used to imprison homosexual men on the grounds of ‘gross indecency’
