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Context of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
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AQA English Literature resource for GCSE A 4 page context analysis on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde Includes quotes and analysis of context throughout the book
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Context of Dr Jekyll and Mr HydeQuotes are in red.
Notations of where each quote is from are in purple.
A rough overview of Stevenson’s life and what influenced his
writing:
The author was born in Edinburgh Scotland which was a city divided in
two. A prosperous and wealthy new town and a sordid downtrodden Old
Town his family included engineers, scientists, a professor of philosophy,
and a religious minister. The scientific and religious sides of his life were
reflected through Dr Lanyon and Dr Jekyll.
Science
The idea of a scientist playing God and suffering the consequences
suggests influence from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein.
Many scientists in Victorian England would carry out bizarre experiments
that would have shocked the public if they found out so were only shared
among respected members of the profession in private houses around
Britain.
These themes also carry through to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde where we
see Jekyll in his London home in his lab with his powders and potions
carrying out experiments in private.
The public had a great fear that meddling with science would one day
release or create something monstrous in the East end of London like
most of the shilling shockers.
Stevenson explores this idea by releasing something monstrous within, it
already exists.
When Stevenson was 9 years old Charles Darwin published his origin of
species which highly opposed the religious beliefs at the time; the
novella itself was also published at the same time when there was an
extreme controversy between religious and scientific principles.
Shilling Shockers
Stories were written about the lower class in order to appal and entertain
the upper class. The lower classes were largely illiterate so they weren’t
the intended audience of the stories, just the subjects.
Contrasting to this Jekyll and Hyde was written about the upper-class
gentleman whose wives would have read these shilling shockers and as
a result, it caused quite a controversy as the things in the book were
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