Hyde the Sinful

Religion and Abjection in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

Authors

  • Ida Marie Thomsen Krarup Aarhus University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7146/lev82022132071

Keywords:

abjection, religion, Christianity, point of view, Literature in English 1: Form and Genre

Abstract

This article examines the moral duality presented in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and its connection to the Christian morals guiding Victorian society. It suggests that the novella undermines a dualistic Christian perception of human nature through changes in point of view and by replacing a clear duality with an abject ambiguity. It argues that in the novella abjection of part of the self is portrayed as destructive and that the novella is essentially a critique of repressive Christian morals.

References

The Bible. Authorized King James Version, Cambridge University Press & British and Foreign Bible Society, 2011, www.bible.com/bible/1/GAL.5.KJV (March 1, 2022).

Byron, Glennis. “Gothic in the 1890s.” A New Companion to the Gothic, edited by David Punter, Blackwell Publishing Ltd, 2012, pp. 186-96.

Houghton, Walter. “[Hypocrisy].” The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Performance Adaptations, Criticism, edited by Katherine Linehan, W. W. Norton & Company Inc, 2003, pp. 146-49.

Kreitzer, Larry. “R. L. Stevenson's Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Romans 7: 14—25: Images of the Moral Duality of Human Nature.” Literature & theology, vol. 6, no. 2, 1992, pp. 125-44, doi:10.1093/litthe/6.2.125.

Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon S. Roudiez, Columbia University Press, 1982.

Lutz, Deborah. “Introduction.” Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: An Authoritative Text, Contexts, Criticism, edited by Deborah Lutz, second ed., W. W. Norton & Company Inc, 2020, pp. xiii-xxix.

Mason, Emma. “Religion, the Bible and Literature in the Victorian Age.” The Oxford Handbook of Victorian Literary Culture, edited by Juliet John, Oxford University Press, 2014, doi:0.1093/oxfordhb/9780199593736.013.015.

Melnyk, Julie. Victorian Religion: Faith and Life in Britain. Praeger, 2008.

Redfern, Nick. “Abjection and Evolution in The Island of Doctor Moreau. ” The Wellsian, vol. 27, 2004, pp. 37-47.

“The Rev. Dr. Nicholson on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.” The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: An Authoritative Text, Backgrounds and Contexts, Performance Adaptations, Criticism, edited by Katherine Linehan, W. W. Norton & Company Inc., 2003, pp. 102-104.

Stevenson, Robert Louis. “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. ” 1886. The Norton Anthology of English Literature: The Major Authors, edited by Stephen Greenblatt, 10th ed., vol. 2, W. W. Norton & Company Inc, 2019, pp. 887-930.

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Published

2022-03-22

How to Cite

Krarup, I. (2022). Hyde the Sinful: Religion and Abjection in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Leviathan: Interdisciplinary Journal in English, (8), 45–51. https://doi.org/10.7146/lev82022132071

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Articles