Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Setting Analysis

Setting Sets the Standards In Robert Louis Stevenson’s timeless novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he uses setting and characterization to emphasize the idea that a person will act a way if they are expected to. In his novel, the character of Dr. Jekyll alludes to the mostly good people. Mr. Hyde, however, specifically shows the bad people in society. For these two characters, the constantly changing gothic setting of this novel and the different extremes between light and dark represent their characterizations. First impressions, in any situation, are critical in knowing the natural state of a person or character. In this novel, Mr. Hyde is introduced before Dr. Jekyll. Hyde is first seen committing a crime. This obviously is not a good
Hyde is closely associated with darkness in both his personality and setting, Dr. Jekyll is mostly associated with light. In Jekyll’s physical appearance, he is the opposite of Hyde. Hyde is described as a hunched over dark figure, while Dr. Jekyll is said to stand tall and give off positive vibes, as well as not have an ugly face. Because Hyde’s physical appearance is associated with darkness, Dr. Jekyll’s physical appearance must be considered as light because the opposite of dark is light. Notice how it was stated earlier that Dr. Jekyll is mostly associated with light. He is not always associated with light because in Jekyll, Mr. Hyde exists; hence bad exists inside of Dr. Jekyll along with good. Nabokov points out this mixture of good and bad in Jekyll repeatedly in his essay. The three following quotes from his essay, “Is Jekyll good? No, he is a composite being of good and bad, a preparation consisting of a ninety-nine percent solution of Jekyllite and one percent Hyde.”(10), “Jekyll’s morals are poor from the Victorian point of view. He is a hypocritical creature carefully concealing his little sins. He is vindictive, never forgiving Dr. Lanyon with whom he disagrees in scientific matters. He is foolhardy. Hyde is mingled with him, within him.”(10), and “Jekyll is not really transformed into Hyde, but projects a concentrate of pure evil that becomes Hyde, who is smaller than Jekyll, a big man, to indicate the larger amount of good that Jekyll
There is a dependence on society from both Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dan Chaon notes in his essay, “Mr. Hyde could not exist without the modern city. He needs the anonymity of the masses, and he needs the newly gaslit streets, the flickering nighttime land-scape of pubs and brothels and beggars, the urban underworld that would later transform into the world of film noir. He needs and expanse of amoral territory to slink through...”(133). Chaon also brings in personal relationships to the idea of society. For Dr. Jekyll’s dependence, he says, “just as Jekyll needs a society in which his disaffection can go unnoticed, a world in which most neighbors are strangers.”(133). Hyde needed the physical attributions of society to be able to thrive. The gloomy and mysteriousness of the freshly developed cities made it easy for him to seem creepy and be able to act in the ways that he did. Dr. Jekyll, however, needed the personal attributions to be able to thrive. Because neighbors weren’t all extremely concerned with one another, he was able to go missing for long periods of times without a huge uproar. If Dr. Jekyll’s neighbors were concerned with his actions, he wouldn’t have had the chance to sneak around as Mr. Hyde or even begin to dabble in the