How Does the Use of Setting and Imagery Affect the...

Introduction Robert Louis Stephensons masterpiece, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886) symbolizes Hyde as a representative of the specific Victorian anxieties. He is seen as the ugly, deformed, apelike, but also reflecting Victorian fears about Darwinian evolution theories of humanitys deform from ape, and fears the newly enfranchised working classes. This essay will explore the function of the narrative which helps the readers to perceive the meaning of the narrative. It will do so in terms of the point of view, narrative voice as well as the structure of the narrative. Furthermore, the setting of the story will be another focus which exploits the generic convention which reflects the social anxiety behind the story at the time. I†¦show more content†¦Dr. Paul Dawson once states in the lecture, Gothic fiction explores and dramatizes the contemporaneous to cultural anxieties, in effect to resonate readers. Stevenson symbolically exploits and sublimated fiction forms the board fears of the whole society. Abrams suggests that gothic fiction often refers to its setting in a catholic country, especially Italy or span. The locale was usually a gloomy castle furnished with surgeons, subterranean passages, and sliding panel. However, the setting of the novella is considered to be disrupted against the traditional convention of t he gothic genre, where it is based in the late Victorian London city. Stevenson suggests the sense of fear and cultural anxieties of late Victorian England through depiction of the unreal city, in particular, fog in the novella. The fog has gripped London, and it swirls and eddies through the gloomy neighborhoods, describing them seem like a district of some city in a nightmare. Stevenson shape an eerie aura through portrayals of the great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over heaven ... here it would be dark like the back-end of evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown ... and here ... a haggard shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths. The haggard and swirling fog and somber hues combine to form a murkiness that displays