Rachel Xie
Gothic Literature 3407
“ Mr. Hyde/Invisible Man/Dr. Jekyll/Blond Hair Man “
In “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” by Robert Louis Stevenson and the “Invisible Man”, by Ralph Ellison, we can see that there are many differences and similarity traits between each characters. Each characters were portrayed differently but they also have some similarities, and one of the character is Mr. Hyde, he was created by Dr. Jekyll when he was experimenting and now there’s two different character in one body. In the story, of the “Invisible Man”, his was just a normal human being until the unexpected night occurred that changed him. Throughout the story there are horror, spirit of perverseness, gothic actions, uncanny, coming from each character.
“The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, Mr. Hyde was described as small, very plainly dressed, pale, deformed and was evil looking. There wasn’t much description about Mr. Hyde appearance, but it was described enough about Mr. Hyde’s personality and that he was pure evil and cruel. During the story, it shows how violent and cruel Mr. Hyde can be. Dr. Jekyll has the opposite character trait of Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll was a scientist, who is wealthy and an intelligent man who had a butler named, Poole. The narrator from the “Prologue to the Invisible Man”, described himself as a man with substance of flesh and bone, meaning he is a real human being, but people simply refuse to see him, like he doesn’t exist. He feels like a bodiless head in the circus like he was surrounded by the mirror of hard, distorting glass. Although not much was described about his appearance but he does see himself as a great American tradition of tinkers.
In the story of, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” one of the gothic term describing Mr. Hyde, is spirit of perverseness, with Mr. Hyde’s personality traits he is capable of doing things without caring about the consequences. He was evil, as he tramped over a little girl’s body as she screamed in horror and he murdered a man named, Sir Danvers Carew. That shows Mr. Hyde’s actions of being irrational, acting chaotic, going against prohibitions, and being sacrilegious. According to the text, “All at once, I saw two figures: one a little man who was stumping along eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street. Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground.”[1] For the “Invisible man,” one of the gothic term is uncanny, it was based on the narrator, who was telling his story. The narrator does show that with his existence, he was being insulted or we can say treated differently, and because of how he was treated, he uses violence to suppress his anger. For example, in the text of the story, he said “One night I accidentally bumped into a man, and perhaps because of the near darkness he saw me and called me an insulting name. I sprang at him, seized his coat lapels and demanded that he apologize. He was a tall blond man, and as my face came close to his he looked insolently out of his blue eyes and cursed me, his breath hot in my face as he struggled. I pulled his chin down sharp upon the crown of my head, butting him as I had seen the West Indians do, and I felt his flesh tear and the blood gush out, and I yelled, “Apologize! Apologize!” But he continued to curse and struggle, and I butted him again and again until he went down heavily, on his knees, profusely bleeding. I kicked him repeatedly, in a frenzy because he still uttered insults though his lips were frothy with blood.” [2] The man with blond hair and blue eyes, must have said something very insulting that the narrator would react the way he did, but in the end the narrator did feel bad for beating him up, but what would the insulting words be?.
The similarity between Mr. Hyde and the Invisible Man was their actions of violence. This is an example of horror, they leave their victims screaming in pain and unable to move with fear. In the text of, the “Invisible man” the narrator said, ” He lay there, moaning on the asphalt; a man almost killed by a phantom.”[2] The difference between Mr. Hyde and Invisible Man was that Mr. Hyde doesn’t feel remorse and as for the Invisible man, he does feel bad, in the text of the story he says, ” It unnerved me. I was both disgusted and ashamed.” [2] . And another differences between Mr. Hyde and the Invisible Man was that Mr. Hyde did murder someone, and the Invisible Man was prepared to slit his throat, but left the blond man with blood and bruises lying on the floor moaning in pain. Dr. Jekyll was different from Mr. Hyde and most certainly was different from the narrator of the ” Invisible Man”, he was a very well known scientist and he redeemed himself and Mr. Hyde in the end, by confessing everything. According to the end of the text, ” God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death, and what is to follow concerns another than myself. Here then, as I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.”[10]
This concludes, in the story, “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” by Robert Louis Stevenson and the “Invisible Man”, by Ralph Ellison, we can see that there are many differences and similarity trait that are shown between each characters. Each characters were portrayed differently and they do have some of their similarities and one of the character is Mr. Hyde, he was created by Dr. Jekyll due to an experiment and now there’s two different character in one body. In the story, of the “Invisible Man”, his was just a normal human being until the unexpected night occurred that changed him. Throughout the story there are horror, spirit of perverseness, gothic actions, uncanny, coming from each character.
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