Jekyll and Hyde-Religion and Science

Exam tip: Show how context is linked to the events in the novel, talk about how science and religion might have influenced Stevenson’s writing.

^^Victorian society was very religious^^

• Christianity had a strong influence on many areas of everyday life in Victorian England, one particularly influential branch was Evangelicalism
• Evangelicals taught that all people are naturally sinful, and it’s up to individuals to seek forgiveness from God. They should do this by living according to a strict moral and religious code-with emphasis on total morality and avoiding sin

  ^^Character- Jekyll^^

• Jekyll is particularly critical of his own sinfulness, more so than any other character. He thinks of sin as ‘the doom and burden of our life’. He creates Hyde in an attempt to rid himself of his ‘extraneous evil’.

\ ^^Darwin’s theory of evolution was controversial^^

• In the early 1800s Christianity was the only thing taught and believed.
• However in 1859 wrote in ‘on the origin of species’ his theory that creatures evolves through natural selection, and that humans shared ancestor with apes
• This went against Christian idea, it’s an unsettling idea, at the time, that there may be an animalistic side to everyone, capable of uncivilised acts and violent crimes.

  Stevenson used this idea in the novel. Hyde is described as the ‘animal within’ Henry Jekyll. He ‘seems hardly human’, lets out a scream of ‘animal terror’ and Poole says he is ‘like a monkey’. Hyde is also shorter than Jekyll, which could suggest he’s a less evolved version of the doctor.

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