Key Themes in Jekyll and Hyde

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  • Jekyll and Hyde
    • Violence
      • 'he broke out in a great flame of anger'
        • verb: broke
          • animalistic connotations
            • breaking out of a cage
            • link: troglodytic
              • made Hyde unlikable; Darwin's theory very unpopular
                • Highly religious England
        • noun: flame
          • connotations of hell
            • associates Hyde with the devil
              • disliked by reader
                • Highly religious England
      • 'the man trampled calmly over the child and left her screaming on the ground'
        • verb: screaming
          • suggests extreme pain
        • location: ground
          • relates to burial
        • oxymoron: trampled calmly
          • portrays Hyde's ignorance
        • noun: child
          • evokes empathy from the reader
            • makes Hyde less likable to the reader
      • 'Mr Hyde broke out of all bounds'
        • verb: broke
          • animalistic connotations: see above
        • metaphor/noun: bounds
          • could be referring to the restraint Jekyll keeps him under
            • LINK: theme of duality
      • 'clubbed him to the earth'
        • verb: club
          • connotations of cavemen
        • noun: earth
          • conveys Hyde's sheer cruelty
    • Reputation
      • 'rendered all the more notable by the high position of the victim'
        • adjective: high
          • capitalist society of 19th century
          • juxtaposes criminal offence
        • noun: victim
          • evokes empathy before character is introduced
          • presenting Hyde as a villain
      • 'he was wild when he was young'
        • adjective: wild
          • animalistic connotations
            • LINK: Hyde broke out of all bounds
            • foreshadows revelation that Jekyll + Hyde are the same
          • shows there were certain expectations of young men in 19th century
        • second person objective pronoun: he
          • repeated
          • shows the nature of the 19th Century
            • constantly being watched + judged
          • portrays Utterson's distance from the situation
            • reminds the reader that they only know as much as Utterson
              • emphasises Gothic theme
                • Victorian fear of the unknown
      • 'all intelligent, reputable men, and all good judges of wine'
        • noun: wine
          • implies they are all upper class
            • the majority of London/Edinburgh was living in poverty
            • suggests only upper class were reputable
              • or that only the rich were concerned with reputation
        • adjective: reputable
          • directly referencing key theme
        • adjective: intelligent
          • juxtaposes Jekyll's own stupidity in creating Hyde
    • Science
      • 'unscientific balderdash'
        • Lanyon's differing opinion foreshadows end of novel
        • noun: balderdash
          • senseless: Lanyon juxtaposes Jekylll
            • Completely represses dark side + implies men don't have one
      • 'shook the very fortress of identity'
        • verb: shook
          • suggests it was unnatural, caused by man
        • noun: identity
          • link: theme of identity, man is not truly one, but truly two
          • Biblical link; man made in the image of God
            • Suggests to likely religious reader that Jekyll opposed God + the natural world

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