Dr Jekyll

Other critics link The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to a particular concern of the post-Darwinian world of the late nineteenth century: the fear that British society had become too civilized, too cultured. British men, it was feared, had become effete and no longer able to lead the British Empire. This fear that British men were not “manly” enough had the potential to destabilize England’s sense of leadership and cultural superiority. After all, the British defended their subjugation of other nations (particularly the “darker” peoples of Africa, India, and Asia) by insisting that the British were more highly evolved and more moral than other races and ethnicities. Hyde, who is darker, stronger, and more primitive than the effeminate Jekyll, might represent either a devolution of the human species or an interpolation of the primitive other within the confined and controlled world of British men. In either case, the logic of what is today called social Darwinism can be shown to underpin the racial and gender anxieties of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Hyde is an other whose very presence threatens the safe and secure world of these men. Other critics link The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to a particular concern of the post-Darwinian world of the late nineteenth century: the fear that British society had become too civilized, too cultured. British men, it was feared, had become effete and no longer able to lead the British Empire. This fear that British men were not “manly” enough had the potential to destabilize England’s sense of leadership and cultural superiority. After all, the British defended their subjugation of other nations (particularly the “darker” peoples of Africa, India, and Asia) by insisting that the British were more highly evolved and more moral than other races and ethnicities. Hyde, who is darker, stronger, and more primitive than the effeminate Jekyll, might represent either a devolution of the human species or