Stevenson - dr jekyll & mr Hyde

Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850-1894) - [libro E, pag Robert Louis STEVENSON (1850-1894) Life & main works : Born in England; Poor health > childhood in bed; Calvinist family; Adolescence > he travelled a lot (in search for a more friendly climate) (Germany, France, Italy) CONFLICT WITH THE SOCIAL ENVIRONMENT (respectable Victorian world); He REJECTS his family's religious principles and the love for respectability Married an American woman > they moved to Australia, Tahiti Popular novelist: TREASURE ISLAND (1883) THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL & MR. HYDE (1886) Short stories Main characteristics in his works: SUSPANCE, SUPERNATURAL WORTHY Strange titles Exotic settings. Less ironical than Dickens (who used also more rhetorical devices and concrete language to talking about also ideals -as corruption in London fog-). THE STRANGE CASE OF Dr. JEKYLL AND Mr. HYDE (1886) TITLE: unusual; “case” refers to the semantic field of investigation > CRIME, DETECTIVE STORY. The people involved are the two mentioned here. “Dr” in England refers only to a medical doctor; here the doctor is a scientific man who does chemical experiments. “-kyll” and “Hyde” have symbolical meanings: Dr. Jekyll will commit suicide for killing his evil part, Mr. Hyde, who hides himself behind the gentle and respectable Doctor. TYPE OF WORK: scientific, GOTHIC novel PLOT: see the book SETTING: Halfway between London (England ) and Edinburgh (Scotland), two capitals with a double nature: the respectable one and the poor, criminal slums. >> DOUBLE NATURE Jekyll's house: the front > respect the proprietor's good side; the rear > evil side. NIGHT, DARKNESS, FOG > mysterious, anguishing atmosphere NARRATOR / POINT OF VIEW: Multi-narrational structure > complex series of point of view. Four narrators: Mr. Utterson: He's a friend of Jekyll and he has the role of a detective (similar to Sherlock Holmes) Enfield: he's Utterson's distant relative with whom he has a strange relationship (>>central theme of the DOUBLE) Lanyon: superficially a good man but he reflects Jekyll because at the end his curiosity prevails and allows him to be tempted by forbidden knowledge and he dies. Jekyll: who narrates in first person only in the last chapter, where he reveals his final decision. LANGUAGE: rather formal CHARACTERS: Dr. Henry Jekyll: He's a respectable man, with a virtuous life. He's a scientist. He is searching for a potion (he finds it) that could separate the good from the evil present in each person because he wants find happiness and so to eliminate the sense of guilt that a good person feels when the evil side of him/her prevails. > see the passage of “JEKYLL'S EXPERIMENT” - first paragraph, page 116. He's handsome (=good-looking), with white and well-shaped hands, his body is proportioned. He wears fine clothes. At the beginning he's higher and larger than Hyde, because his life is controlled by this good side, but then his evil side t