ENG 510 Lecture Notes - Lecture 15: Smog, Eugenics, Social Darwinism
Document Summary
The novel is light on jekyll"s struggle. His voice only appears in the letter at the end. Like a police file, having witness testimonies, declarations, etc. It waits for some sort of overarching perspective. We are at the cusp of the rise of psychology. Stevenson is aware of all the ideas that are beginning to coalesce in the world at the time. A psychiatric case that looks at hidden desires in even the most respectable people. Touches upon different fears of the victorian era: written in the wake of the jack the ripper murders. Theories were formed about jack the ripper being a sort of. Jekyll/hyde, where he was a respectable man who would moonlight as a serial killer: posits the possibility of someone"s depraved double roaming the streets and committing horrors. Most well-known for jekyll and hyde and treasure island. Travelled extensively in the south pacific from 1888.
