Roles Of Women In Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde

It has often been said that dogs are man's best friend. In reality, this is not an accurate statement; a man’s best friend is man himself. A perfect example of the bond formed by a male companionship in literature comes to us in The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, written by R.L. Stevenson in 1886. In this novel, men are the only focus, but that doesn’t mean Stephenson was trying to make a statement by doing this. At the current period, there was just no reason to include a strong female presence in the book. R.L. Stevenson merely wrote the book for the audience that he wanted to read it, which was men. Due to the nature of the Victorian era, women were not represented in literature and men took the center stage. To best understand …show more content…
Due to this fact, these female characters are undynamic. They are simply examples that provide a good moral influence on the male leads. For example, in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, there are the female roles of Elizabeth, Caroline, Justine, and Agatha. Each of these female roles holds emotional significance to Victor or his monster. Their role is to inspire love and moral justness. In this case, it makes sense to have these female roles so that they can provide motivation. When they die they do so to create immense pain and loss. However, other than being good and innocent these characters play no role in the story. They are mere objects of moral integrity and emotion. Not all Victorian age stories required a source of moral goodness or innocence …show more content…
The entire book unfolds because of Mr. Utterson's devotion to his friend Dr. Jekyll, and his worries about Jekyll’s life going awry. The upper class in this time period had very professional relationships, mainly revolving around economic status and employment, rather than emotional connection. Despite this, though, people of the era still felt a strong attachment to one another but rather than love they had a sense of duty to their friends. Utterson, as Jekyll’s lawyer, comes to have his will in which everything is given to Hyde. This leads Utterson to suspect foul play as the will “offended him both as a lawyer and as a lover of the sane”(6). As a result of this will, Utterson goes into a full investigation, all the time worried about his friend and the way he has been acting. The truth gets uncovered that Hyde and Jekyll are one in the same. While another friend of Jekyll's, Dr. Lanyon, condemned him when he learned the truth, Utterson remains a true friend to the very end in his attempts to save Jekyll. This exact devotion is a major reason why the book was so successful. No matter what Utterson uncovered he was loyal to his friend and nothing more could be sought after in a Victorian age upper-class friend. Having the ideal male companionship in the novel would have made a fiction book much more appealing to a male audience. The very same audience that

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