Mr.Hyde

Both Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein tell cautionary tales of scientists abusing their creative powers to exist in another sphere where they cannot be directly blamed for their actions. Though Frankenstein's creation is a "Creature" distinct from his creator while Dr. Jekyll metamorphoses into Mr. Hyde, the "double" of each protagonist progressively grows more violent throughout his story. By doing so he symbolizes his creator's repressed desires in a stifling society.

The stories have parallel structures in the three main ways. First, both Dr. Jekyll and Frankenstein are scientists who, though welcomed by society, find it constraining and often alienate themselves. Each creates an alter ego for himself to live out his liberated passions, Hyde for Jekyll and the Creature for Frankenstein. Jekyll creates his with intention for evil and Frankenstein with the idea of building a supreme being. However, it could be argued that Frankenstein unconsciously wishes his creation to commit acts of sin. Hyde's and Frankenstein's first victims are children. They each evolve over time and develop their violent tendencies, culminating in the murder of a well-esteemed man for Hyde and Frankenstein's family and friends.

The first mention of Dr. Jekyll comes in a discussion between his longtime friends, Lanyon and Utterson, men whose names imply a traditional, hampered society. "Utterson" combines both "utter," connoting a squelched speech, with "son," defining the society's patriarchal structure, and "Lanyon" casts images of sprawling canyons that are noticeably absent in the gray, foggy London Stevenson depicts. Lanyon admits he sees little of Jekyll anymore; according to Lanyon, "'He began to go wrong, wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest in him for old sake's sake, as they say, I see and have seen devilish little of the man'" (12). Jekyll's associations with demonic and insane imagery contrasts with the well-polished society from which he struggles to extricate himself. His self-imposed isolation is the least harmful manner he uses to show his displeasure with society.

Frankenstein similarly isolates himself. Under the guise of protecting his friends and fiancйe from the Creature that stalks him, the scientist decides to leave England instead of marrying: "My journey had been my own suggestion, and Elizabeth, therefore, acquiesced; but she was filled with disquiet at the idea of my suffering, away from her, the inroads of misery and grief" (149). However, Frankenstein cannot muster the same emotion: "I remembered only, and it was with a bitter anguish that I reflected on it, to order that my chemical instruments should be packed to go with me" (149). Frankenstein also has a penchant for working alone; like Dr. Jekyll, he is emotionally detached from a society that expects him to fulfill various obligations, and he accordingly responds with physical detachment.

Both Hyde and the Creature choose children for their first victims. According to an eyewitness, Hyde "trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on the ground...He was perfectly cool and made no resistance, but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me like running" (4-5). Hyde is a deformed character who evokes horror and disgust in those who contact him. He lashes out in this seemingly chance encounter, but his trampling a child's body, a figure of innocence that would find his scarred visage doubly repugnant, is indicative of his deep-rooted discontent

with his environment and his own psyche. The reaction he provokes from the crowd confirms his masochistic tendencies. As an eyewitness reports, "I never saw a circle of such hateful faces; and there was the man in the middle, with a kind of black, sneering coolness-frightened too, I could see that-but carrying it off, sir, really like Satan" (5). The very name "Hyde" serves a double meaning: both a haven, a "hyde" where the upstanding Jekyll can sequester himself, and an animal's skin. Hyde is incredibly animalistic; simian elements are conjured up when he is described in a later confrontation: "Hyde broke out of all bounds and clubbed him to the earth. And next moment, with ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing down a storm of blows" (27). Words like "bounds," "clubbed," "earth," "ape-like," and "storm" all reinforce the reader's idea of Hyde being a thoroughly primitive savage, and the repetition of "trampling" serves as an excellent mini-motif. Though Hyde tramples his victims, has he not been trampled in the same way by the oppressive society that