Jessica Goriah

Gothic Literature 3407

Oct/26/2020

The strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde/The Black Cat

Gothic can be found or felt anywhere, whether it’s a book your reading, favorite horror movie or that feeling of fear at night when you think you see a person in your room when really, it’s your clothes on your chair. I mean haven’t we all been there before? Gothic creates a gloomy, suspenseful, fearful, horror, and negative feeling. Gothic is present in the story “The Black Cat”, written by Edgar Allan Poe, is published in 1843. This story is written in the first person and is taken place at home. Gothic is also present in “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, it is a novel that is written by Robert Louis Stevenson and published in the year 1886. The narration is in the first person. Although both stories, “The Black cat” and “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, shared a similarity of self-sabotage, brutality, and redemption, there were some scenes where their actions were different. The characters teach us about gothic limits, violence, death, and a return to normalcy is Mr. Edward Hyde from the novel and the narrator which remain nameless throughout the story. The other two charters that will be mention are Dr. Jekyll and the black cat; they have their own ways of teaching us Gothic limits.   

In “The Black Cat”, the narrator starts off as gratified with his life, he is happily married at a young age, and he is surrounded by animals which he loves, however at some point, the narrator life takes a turn for the worse when he begins to develop a drinking problem known as alcoholism. Spirit of perseverance than comes into play leading the narrator to abuse his most loved ones and leaving the narrator in guilt which lead him to more violence and brutality. In the novel “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, the main character Dr. Jekyll is a doctor who was a very fortunate man but felt guilty about having a dark side, so he decided to take it upon himself to try and separate the good and evil side, which lead him to create a potion to drink but little did he know he would be giving his bad side a shape and form. He turned into a short ugly looking man who took on the identity of Mr. Edward Hyde and from that point on violence and death followed him.   

According to Poe, the spirit of perseverance is what causes people to do things that they know is wrong and can be deleterious to others including himself. Spirit of perseverance is token place in both stories, particularly the narrator and Mr. Hyde. In “The Black Cat”, due to the narrator disease, alcoholism, the narrator abuses his animals especially the black cat Pluto, who was the closest to his heart. One night the narrator gets frustrated with Pluto and ends up digging his eye out, but that was not enough “to do wrong for wrong’s sake” (6) made him to continue to do wrong and eventually he “slipped a noose about its neck and hung it to the limb of a tree;” (6). By hurting Pluto and other animals, he hurts a part of himself. In “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, Mr. Hyde accidentally bumps into a young girl, but the worst part is when he “trampled calmly over the child’s body and left her screaming on the ground” (1).  He had full knowledge that what he did was wrong, and he hope to get away with such brutality.   

While reading both stories the emotions that are felt through Mr. Hyde and the narrator are dark and has a sense of negative energy. Both characters carry a sense of hate and anger with and they tend to take their anger and hate out on others. In “The Black Cat”, the narrator He keeps having an urge to hurt this cat like it’s the problem, but the truth is, the narrator is the problem. The black cat symbolizes the narrator’s guilt, darkness, evilness, violence, and aggression. This symbol affects the understanding of the overall meaning of the story because the narrator sees his reflection in the cat. Because Mr. Hyde is Dr. Jekyll suppressed dark side; it’s clear to say that Jekyll does not like him because he has only evil intentions however, Hyde dislikes Jekyll because he suppressed him his entire life and threatened to get rid of him once and for all by committing suicide has Jekyll. Hyde represent Dr. Jekyll evil side there is no inch of good in him.  

Redemption is the action of saving or to be saved from sin and sometime redemption can be selfish, in both stories’ sins were committed. Dr. Jekyll does the redeeming, in the end Jekyll has had enough and is fluster with guilt, he writes a letter telling his side of the story and then commits suicide by drinking poison and killing both Hyde and him. He is redeemed by being stuck in Hyde form forever and dying as Mr. Hyde as he will be prosecuted by the law. In “The Black Cat”, rather than the narrator doing the redeeming the cat does the redemption. At the end, when the narrator kills his wife and buries her in the wall in the cellar, he doesn’t notice when the cat sneaks in the cellar with the wife. when the cops come looking for the missing wife, they hear the cat inside the basement. By doing this they find the wife, cat, at puts the narrator away in jail.      

Another similarity between Mr. Hyde and the narrator is that they both ended up self-sabotaging themselves. Although Jekyll gave his evil side a form, Hyde unknowingly caused his own demise by going on this self-centered path to evil. Hyde committed cold-blooded murder on Sir Danvers Carew, hurt a friend, including trampling over a girl, tried to take over Jekyll and his life. Both stories share a similar path, almost as a splitting image to the narrator in “The Black Cat”, who killed his wife along with the cat. Both result in their selfish motive of evil. Unconsciously to the fact that justice would prevail in both stories, Jekyll ends up killing hide and the narrator getting arrested. In both stories, they show ignorance of their actions that led to their own death or punishment. In both stories Self-sabotage lead to a return to normalcy. In “The black cat” the central gothic irony is when the narrator tries to act like he didn’t commit any crimes or cruelty. When he abused the cat and soon resulted in killing the cat, he continued with his day and act like none of it happened. When he killed his wife, he covered up the murder and carried on with his day and said, “I soundly and tranquilly slept; aye, slept even with the burden of murder on my soul” (13). In “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” the central gothic irony would be when Hyde killed Sir Danvers Carew and went into hiding leaving Jekyll alone for a while. When Hyde left, Jekyll returned into his old self he “came out of his seclusion, renewed relations with his friends, became once more their familiar guest and entertainer;” (6). Mr. Jekyll acted like nothing happened as if Mr. Hyde was not a part of him. Sooner or later he started transforming into Hyde again and went back into isolation. Dr. Jekyll at this point desire his old normal life back.     

Although both stories have similarities there are some differences that help to organize and limit the gothic in each story. Todorov defines gothic literature as transgression boundaries so to have a better understanding of the story it is important to distinguish the difference between the natural and supernatural world. Todorov used three terms, uncanny, fantastic, and marvelous. In the story “The Black Cat” it would be considered uncanny which means it is the closest to reality, where it is possible for a man to have an alcohol problem than leading to violence. In “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” it is considered marvelous which means it is not possible it to happen on earth. The scene that made me think that this is not possible is in Dr. Lanyon narrative when his Hyde drinks a potion and turn “pale and shaken, and half-fainting, and groping before him with his hands, like a man restored from death — there stood Henry Jekyll!” (chapter 9). It isn’t possible for a man to drink a mixture of substance and transform into their evil side. Another difference that each story had that also help shaped the stories was the theme.  In “The black cat”, the theme was justice, after all the crimes that he committed, in the end of it all justice is served which is how he starts the story, by saying “Yet, mad am I not—and very surely do I not dream. But to-morrow I die, and to-day I would unburden my soul” (1). In “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” the theme is human nature, where man makes his own decisions and that would tell you the kind of person he is. Mr. Jekyll was a social man who help others and donate money to charity which made him a good man. Mr. Hyde would hurt and kill others which made him a bad man.   

In both stories, there were some differences and similarities that help shape the gothic in each of them. There is no doubt that Mr. Hyde and the narrator both committed violence, cruelty, and murder, however without these characters playing the bad guy it wouldn’t be gothic and you wouldn’t have seen the hidden message which is also known as allegory. The moral of “The Black Cat”, is that you cannot hide the damage you caused and the sins you have committed. Everything will be brought to light and justice will be served. The narrator not only got caught but the guilt he carried with him was eating away at his subconscious. The moral of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, is that we all have a good and bad side, the important thing is to never let our bad side take us over, or else we would self-sabotage ourselves.