Monthly Archives: November 2013

Falling into the genre of science fiction, H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine takes words beyond the page and transports us to an unusual world full of mysterious people and landscapes. The Time Traveller, who narrates for the majority of the novella, describes … Continue reading →

All the characters describe Hyde’s character as deplorable, disfigured, or in some other way just wrong, but all the characters describe Mr. Hyde. Although there is agreement about the evil or at least off nature of his character, the characters … Continue reading →

After finishing Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, I immediately recalled Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Both novels follow the lives of initially well-meaning men who ultimately devolve into these soulless individuals … Continue reading →

“Mr. Hyde was pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he … Continue reading →

Barbara Herrnstein Smith’s article discusses the problem of “beings…who are recognizably our own kind but not yet, not quite, not just now, or no longer what we readily think of as what we ourselves are.” Just why is this a … Continue reading →

As we discussed in class, Mr. Hyde elicits strong physical reactions from those around him, separating and isolating him from all of the other characters, who form their own group as insulation.  Barbara Smith’s explanations related quite clearly to this … Continue reading →

Something that I have always found particularly compelling about Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are the ape references. The reason I like this comparison so much is because there is a conflict. Does this humanize or dehumanize Hyde? An ape … Continue reading →

“I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because … Continue reading →

Many analyses of Jekyll and Hyde discuss the duality of human character and the obsession with the primitive, evil man inside us all, begging to be let out, but many critics do not discuss how incredibly disturbing the transition actually is. … Continue reading →