Instabilities of Narration and Meaning in Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" (PDF)

Essay from the year 2020 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, , language: English, abstract: This paper is about the instabilities of narration and meaning in Robert Louis Stevenson's "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide".

Robert Louis Stevenson's late-Victorian novel "Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" takes place in London between 1883 and 1885, and deals with the dual life of a man named Dr. Jekyll. He secretly separates his second, immoral personality called Mr. Hyde with the aid of drugs, what enables him to live out his desires by violence.

His lawyer and friend, Mr. Utterson, aspires to figure out what is going on with his friend and the suddenly emerging troublemaker Hyde, after some indications, that Dr. Jekyll has dealings with him. The double personality of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde leads to an instability of characters, narration and meaning, what invites the reader to have a closer look at the novel's properties.

But the revealing figure is neither Dr. Jekyll nor Mr. Hyde. It is Mr. Utterson who enables the reader to follow the mysterious story of them, what often gets neglected by critics as well as the role of women for the presentation of instability of meaning and narration.