Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

1
Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll
and Mr. Hyde

• The Gothic Novel

2
Romantic

• Romantic elements
• Existentialism reason to exist
• Childhood/innocence
• Stopping/reflecting enjoying life
• Byronic hero mysterious, nameless guilt

3
Gothic

• Gothic elements
• Weather wind, clouds, fog, thunder, lighting
• Supernatural
• Lots of emotion fear, terror, sorrow, guilt
• Ancient tales
• Mysterious/unknown places
• Women in distress
• Monotony of gloom and horror footsteps, wind,
  hard rain
• Houses beyond repair
• Late night aspect
• Gigantic, enormous, large

4
Frankenstein

• Written by Mary Shelley in 1816
• Subtitled The Modern Prometheus
• Criticism that she didnt/couldnt write such a
  horrifying ghost story
• Monster Victors feelings externalized
• A doppelganger double/second self

5
Frankenstein

• Romantic nature aspect, monster and feels safe
  in nature, Victor returns to nature, both feel
  isolated
• Gothic cold, fog, ice, isolation
• The summer Frankenstein is written is the coldest
  recorded

6
Mary Shelley

• 1797 born daughter of William Godwin and Mary
  Wollstonecraft, both prominent writers
• 1814 Mary meets Percy Bysshe Shelly, they leave
  for France
• 1816 Mary gives birth to William, begins
  writing Frankenstein as a novella, encouraged by
  Percy to create novel

7
Frame Tale

• More engaging, listener embodies reader, makes it
  seem more realistic
• Wraps ordinary story in ghost story
• Makes story more credible, believable,
  verisimilitude
• Provides didactic function instruction and
  entertainment
• Universalizes story

8
Correlation to Birth/Gestation

• Confinement laying in for birth
• Novel took 9 months to write, takes place over 9
  months (pages of novel)
• Dilation of novel dilation of cervix during
  birth
• Mary had four miscarriages before 25 which almost
  killed her

9
Themes and Allusions

• The dangerous pursuit of knowledge
• Prometheus (gives fire to man, painful liver
  pecked out daily)
• Adam and Eve - eat and suffer the consequences
  (childbirth)
• Paradise Lost And now with the world before
  me
• Platos Symposium we are unfashioned
  creatures
• Globular man, split

10
Motifs and Symbols

• Lack of mothers
• Meaning of names
• Lightning/storm (weather)
• Texts/books
• Fire
• Nature

11
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

• Written by Robert Louis Stevenson in 1886
• Significance of names
• Jekyll I kill
• Hyde hiding
• Jekyll says he can be rid of Hyde whenever he
  wants
• Tragic flaw Jekyll lets Hyde continue to take
  over
• Will uses word disappearance to describe Jekyll
  going away

12
Unreliable Narrator

• Utterson
• Narrates novella, receive all info through him
• Trusted with secrets and wills
• Reader does not get details because Utterson does
  not know everything
• Inquisitive (plays Sherlock)

13
Themes and Symbols

• Doppelganger Jekyll and Hyde
• Symbols night, houses, documents, cane
• Themes duality of man, consequences of the
  pursuit of knowledge