Author

Book online

Story

Chapters 1-10

Characters

Setting

Themes

Links

Frankenstein and Jekyll (1)

by Dhruv Mahajan and Siddharth Rajan (India)

Dr. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde begins with Mr. Utterson Mr. Richard Enfield on a walk in London. Although the two men are initially silent, after passing a mysterious cellar door in a basement, Mr. Enfield launches into a strange occurrence that centered around the door. Late one night, while he was on his way home, he chanced upon a deformed, short man who trampled a girl in the street who was on her way to get a doctor. The girl's family and Mr. Enfield catch the mysterious man and instead of getting the police, they decide to blackmail him and force him to give the girl's family money. Agreeable, the mysterious man disappears into the same cellar door and comes out with a check bearing not his own name, but that of the respectable Dr. Jekyll. Surprisingly, the check was not a forgery.
After hearing the story, Utterson returns to his home where he removes Dr. Jekyll's mysterious will, which he recently filed with Mr. Utterson. Jekyll's will stated that in case of his death, his substantial estate will pass to Mr. Hyde, but even stranger, in case of his disappearance for more than three months, Hyde will assume Jekyll's life without delay. He also realizes that the mysterious door is connected, in an L shape way, to Jekyll's home. Utterson decides that Jekyll is being blackmailed by Hyde. After tracking Hyde down, he is initially civil but turns angry when Utterson proceeds in the conversation.
One year later, Hyde murders Sir Danvers Carew with a cane. With help from Utterson, the police find Hyde's apartment ransacked. After leaving, Utterson proceeds to Jekyll's and confronts him for harboring a murder. Jekyll claims that he is done with Hyde and promises that he has nothing left to do with him. He does, however, have a farewell note from Hyde. Utterson examines the note and his clerk, Mr.Guest, later discovers that the handwriting from the note matches a dinner invitation written by Dr. Jekyll. Angrily, Utterson assumes that Jekyll has forged a letter for a murderer.
More time passes, and we learn that although Hyde has not been located, Dr. Jekyll becomes more and more social until one day Utterson attended a dinner party at Jekyll's where Lanyon was present. Shortly there after, Jekyll secluded himself and Dr.Lanyon fell ill and died. After his death, Dr. Lanyon left Jekyll a letter than instructed him not to read it for ten years. After these mysterious events, Enfield and Utterson again walk by the mysterious door. Through one of the windows, they witness Jekyll having a frightening seizure through the windows of the cellar.
About a week later, Poole, Jekyll's butler, approaches Utterson, who is afraid because Jekyll has locked himself in the basement and the only things that hear is strange sounds, including crying. The only communication that has come is letters desperately asking for a specific type of salt. Utterson follows Poole to Jekyll's house and breaks down a red cabinet where the body of Hyde is found. In the laboratory, the two discover a large envelope addressed to Mr. Utterson. Inside, Jekyll urges Utterson to read the package from Lanyon and if he wished to know more, read the further description that Jekyll provided within the envelope.
Lanyon's narrative begins by describing a strange letter he received from Henry Jekyll, the night after a dinner party at Jekyll's residence. The letter urges Lanyon to go to Jekyll's house and get the contents of a drawer in the laboratory. Afterwards, a strange caller will come to Lanyon's house in Jekyll's name and recover these same items, powder, a phial, and a paper book. Lanyon does as much, thinking that Jekyll is crazy, and Mr. Hyde appears at the subscribed time. He gives Hyde the ingredients; Hyde mixes them into a potion, and after drinking it transforms into Dr. Jekyll. This shock, the pure evilness of the situation, was what brought about Lanyon's subsequent death.
After reading the account of Dr. Lanyon, Utterson then reads Jekyll's own account of his failed experiment. Jekyll believed that the soul is made up of two separate distinctions: evil and the good. These two separate beings live in continuous and inherent conflict with each other. Slowly, Jekyll begins an experiment where he makes two potions and transforms himself into Edward Hyde. Shortly after becoming Hyde, he drinks a second potion and once again becomes Henry Jekyll. This experiment begins Jekyll's exploration of his other self, a side that he freely explores and feels no remorse for the negative and evil actions of Mr. Hyde.
For some months, this behavior continued until one moment, "I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened Edward Hyde." Alerted that the character of Hyde might irrevocably stay, Jekyll chose to give up the freedom of Hyde and for two months his decision held weight. Unfortunately, he was tortured with Hyde's longing and he once again took the potion and brutally murdered Carew. Because of the manhunt for Hyde, he swore this character off forever and set out to try to remedy the evil.
This, however, failed because Hyde was an irrevocable part of Jekyll's character. One night, while contemplating the deeds of Hyde, Jekyll was once again transformed into Edward Hyde. Realizing that he could not return to his house, he sent the letter to Dr. Lanyon and Mr. Poole and went immediately to a hotel. He went home once again but every time he would fall asleep, he would revert to Mr. Hyde. Soon, his potions began to fail to work and he ran out of the salt needed for the potion. Hyde launches a desperate search across London for this potion, but was unsuccessful. In the end, Hyde kills himself and therefore lets both Jekyll and Hyde free.

FRANKENSTEIN

Frankenstein begins with the letters of Captain Robert Walton to his sister. These letters form the framework for the story in which Walton tells his sister the story of Victor Frankenstein and his.

Walton set out to explore the North Pole. The ship got trapped in frozen water and the crew, watching around them, saw a giant man in the distance on a dogsled. Hours later they found Frankenstein and his dogsled near the ship, so they brought the sick man aboard. As he recovered, Frankenstein told Walton his story.
Frankenstein grew up in a perfectly loving and gentle Swiss family with an especially close tie to his adopted cousin, Elizabeth, and his dear friend Henry Clerval. As a young boy, Frankenstein became obsessed with studying outdated theories about what gives humans their life spark. In college at Ingolstadt, he created his own "perfect" human from scavenged body parts, but once it lived, the creature was hideous. Frankenstein was disgusted by its ugliness, so he ran away from it.
Henry Clerval came to Ingolstadt to study with Frankenstein, but ended up nursing him after his exhausting and secret efforts to create a perfect human life. While Frankenstein recovered from his illness over many months and then studied languages with Clerval at the college, the monster wandered around looking for friendship. After several harsh encounters with humans, the monster became afraid of them and spent a long time living near a cottage and observing the family who lived there. Through these observations he became educated and realized that he was very different from the humans he watched. Out of loneliness, the monster sought the friendship of this family, but they were afraid of him, and this rejection made him seek vengeance against his creator. He went to Geneva and met a little boy in the woods. The monster hoped to kidnap him and keep him as a companion, but the boy was Frankenstein's younger brother, so the monster killed him to get back at his creator. Then the monster planted the necklace he removed from the child's body on a beautiful girl who was later executed for the crime.
When Frankenstein learned of his brother's death, he went back to Geneva to be with his family. In the woods where his young brother was murdered, Frankenstein saw the monster and knew that he was William's murderer. Frankenstein was ravaged by his grief and guilt for creating the monster who wreaked so much destruction, and he went into the mountains alone to find peace. Instead of peace, Frankenstein was approached by the monster who then demanded that he create a female monster to be the monster's companion. Frankenstein, fearing for his family, agreed to and went to England to do his work. Clerval accompanied Frankenstein, but they separated in Scotland and Frankenstein began his work. When he was almost finished, he changed his mind because he didn't want to be responsible for the carnage another monster could create, so he destroyed the project. The monster vowed revenge on Frankenstein's upcoming wedding night. Before Frankenstein could return home, the monster murdered Clerval.
Once home, Frankenstein married his cousin Elizabeth right away and prepared for his death, but the monster killed Elizabeth instead and the grief of her death killed Frankenstein's father. After that, Frankenstein vowed to pursue the monster and destroy him. That's how Frankenstein ended up near the North Pole where Walton's ship was trapped. A few days after Frankenstein finished his story, Walton and his crew decided to turn back and go home. Before they left, Frankenstein died and the monster appeared in his room. Walton heard the monster's explanation for his vengeance as well as his remorse before he left the ship and traveled toward the Pole to destroy himself so that none would ever know of his existence.

COMPARING BOTH BOOKS
Both Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ‘ and Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ tell 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 transforms into Mr. Hyde ,the double of each protagonist progressively grows . By doing so he symbolizes his creator’s repressed desiers in a stifling society .

The stories have parallel structures in four main ways . First, both Dr. Jekyll and Frankenstein are scientists who, though welcomed by society , find it constraining and often alienated 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.
Both Hyde and Frankenstein choose children for their first victims.

Frankenstein has a penchant for working alone ; like Dr. Jekyll, he is also emotionally detached from a society that expects him to fulfill various obligations, and he accordingly responds with physical detachment .

Frankenstein and Dr Jekyll (2)

by Martina and Fabrizio (Italy)

From the comparison between the novel by Stevenson and the novel by Mary Shelley we noticed some important analogies. One of these regards the theme of the limits of Nature. Walton’s only aim in life is to travel towards the unknown; Frankenstein has the ambition of distinguishing himself in science and so he creates a living being by joining parts selected from corpses without respecting the rules of Nature; Dr Jekyll creates a potion able to release his evil side, Mr Hyde. But at the end everyone is punished: Walton’s expedition fails; Frankenstein remains lonely, the monster kills his friend and his wife and at the end also Victor dies; Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde are in perpetual struggle, but once Hyde is released from hiding, he achieves domination over the Jekyll aspects so the individual has only two choices, on the one hand the man may choose a life of crime and depravity, on the other hand the Jekyll aspect must eliminate Hyde in the only way left, by killing him.
In these cases we noticed an analogy with the myth of Prometheus: in the Greek mythology he was a giant who stole the fire from Gods in order to give it to men; in so doing, he challenged the divine authority and freed men from Gods’ power. He is a clear example of an overreacher, just like the previous characters.
Another important theme is the double. In Frankenstein the three main characters are linked by that idea: in fact both Walton and Frankenstein have the same ambitions, the wish to go beyond the limits of Nature travelling towards the unknown, the wish for loneliness and pride of being different; the monster is Frankenstein’s negative side, they are complementary, initially they are both good but then they become obsessed with hate and revenge. One sure sign of the double is the haunting presence of the monster: although at the beginning Frankenstein flees from his creature and their direct confrontations are few, the monster is always present in Victor’s life. But Frankenstein rejection of his creature is crucial and this makes the monster an outcast, a murderer and a rebel against society. In the other novel, the theme of the double is more evident: in fact it is the portrayal of “good” and “evil” and its main characters are the stereotypes of people who are “good” and “evil”. As Jekyll has lived a virtuous life, his face is handsome, his body more harmoniously proportioned than Hyde’s. Since Hyde is pure hate and evil, he is pale and dwarfish, he gives the impression of deformity. Though the evil side of Jekyll’s nature is initially less developed, Hyde gradually spoils his good twin: Hyde begins to grow in stature and the original balance of good and evil in Jekyll’s nature is threatened with being permanently overthrown.
Another analogy regards the theme of friendship. The monster’s only desires are love and fellowship, he is initially good, but he is ugly and revolting and nobody loves and admires him: so his unsatisfied need of love becomes hate and desire of revenge. Also Dr Frankenstein at the beginning is so eager to go beyond his limits, is so eager to find out the secret of life, that he refuses friendship and love with the only desire to be left alone in his research; but at the end he will be punished: his friend and his wife will be killed by his own creature.
The same desire for solitude is the one which leads Dr Jekyll to refuse the company and the help of his friends.
 

The Short Biography of Mary Shelly

by Canan (Turkey)

_Mary is born in Somers Town, Great Britain, in 1797.When Mary is sixteen she meets the young poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, In 1816, they go abroad . There Byron suggests that they should all write a ghost story. Mary writes Frankenstein, the only story of the four that was ever to be published as a novel. Percy and Mary marry in December 1816.
The last years of married life are filled with disaster for Mary. Her half sister dies as do two of her children. Mary becomes depressed, a tendency she probably inherited from her mother. She is only partly relieved by the birth of Percy, their only surviving child.
Mary and Percy eventually move to Italy where Percy drowns during a sailing trip in 1822. Mary is determined to keep the memory of her late husband alive. She publishes several editions of Percy's writings and adds notes and prefaces to them.
She also continues writing her own novels, the most famous one being The Last Man (1826). This book deals with human isolation just as her earlier novel Frankenstein did. She writes numerous short stories and contributes biographical and critical studies to the Cabinet Cyclopædia.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley dies in 1851 at the age of fifty-three.