Dr Jekyll And Hyde Essay

“The Mad scientist” is “a character who is described as ‘mad’ due to a combination of unusual and unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly ambitious, taboo of his or her experiments” (Wikipedia). Also, “Mad Scientist” is the main theme of the class and Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Glaspell’s The Verge definitely help to illustrate the theme of Professor Ngyuen’s class. Glaspell and Stevenson handle the “Mad Scientist” by describing Claire and Dr. Jekyll’s uncommon experiments, atmosphere of the book, setting of the Era and their urge to be free.
In the two books, setting plays a huge role in understanding the characters and books. Susan Glaspell’s novel is written in 1921, when feminism was arising. Women were seeking for their rights and wanted equal treatment as men. Claire, her main character gets chastised for not doing her feminine role, which was to take care of her family, loving her daughter, and doing household duties. Claire is obsessed with her experiment but a man would not be rebuked if he acts same as Claire does because in the era, when the story was written, only women were restrained. The common belief in 1920s is women should be in house, caring
Jekyll, who is a prominent scientist with a good reputation, seems normal to others until his experiment has some unexpected errors. Dr. Jekyll invents a pill that will change him to a different person. The creation, Mr. Hyde, comes out as a person, possessing evilness, darkness, and hidden side of Dr. Jekyll. Transforming into Mr. Hyde becomes Dr. Jekyll’s escape route of reality. Dr. Jekyll always has to behave as a gentleman with good manners. This is not a real Jekyll, who gets angry, sad, and crazy sometimes. However, Dr. Jekyll cannot openly behave in this manner so he does an experiment to free himself. Mr. Hyde is dangerous, monstrous, and disrespectful. Claire and Dr. Jekyll both conduct crazy experiments to be free from their constraints that choke