How Does the Setting Enhance the Atmosphere in ‘The Strange case Of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’? Essay

The gothic movement was at its highest popularity, when Robert Louis Stevenson wrote The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. The Gothic movement was close the darker status of life and mans soul, and thus romance, morbidity and death. In the novel this exploration of mans darker side is interpreted to the extreme. Where there is the belief that there are literally deuce sides to a person, in the novel the two sides are split. With that duality, you to a fault beat up a change in circumstance and this enhances the atmosphere. Advance in cognizance and medicine influenced minds and questioned beliefs of the Victorian age.For example, does Mr Hyde ever commence off in the solar day? This is because of the evil in him is accentuated emergeside by night and shadows. He appears in gloomy surroundings in bad circumstances, and situations. For example, in the Carew murder a fog rolled over the city which is like a spread over of gloom and horror descending before you even k now what is about to happen. After its happened you get the great choco upstart coloured pall come over the city. Darkness and night have deeper con nonations, apart from everyone disliking the dark.The murder of Danvers Carew was in any case in darkness, which represents the partnership betwixt dark, blackness and evil. There was a broad(a) moon, which is well known to emphasise eerie context of uses. Dark represents evil and peck are scared of the dark. This is because when youre in the dark you cant bring out and its little-known who or what is around you. Just like it is unknown what actually causes evil. Mr. Hyde himself appears physically evil in his features, because he is the polar glacial of Dr. Jekyll.The relationship between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde coincides with night and day. As Dr. Jekyll is usually in day, in wealthy surroundings and Mr. Hyde, where he lives is a messy old scratchboard in Soho and creeps around in the night. In this house, he has a housekee per with an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy so in fact, it appears that everything to do with him is not good. The house itself that Mr Hyde lives in is in dismal quarter of Soho. forward the book goes on to say what happened on page 27, it sets the scene. It is made out to come along like some hellish underworld, with a glow of prosperous, shameful brown and even the lighten is weak against the darkness in the setting a emaciated shaft of daylight would glance in between the swirling wreaths. This weakness of light could also be telling you that good against the darkness and evil in the book is powerless.This is like with Dr. Jekyll ending up taken over by the badness- Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll actually likes being Mr. Hyde more than himself, because he is younger and free compared to the restraints of Victorian middle phase respectability. He is younger in Mr. Hyde because his bad side has not yet been fully developed. He calls it haggard because he wants to give the impressio n that its old and tired. Then, when Mr Utterson is visiting Dr. Jekyll, it is late in the afternoon, so this could be symbolising that there is light now plainly soon there will be darkness, i.e. evil. I believe that when Robert Louis Stevenson was writing this book, his own life has influenced the setting, as he apply to live in Edinburgh where there were two part, the old, grimy and poor parts in the centre of the city and the rich, posh suburban houses.These opposites in setting- the rich suburbs contrasting with the dark bottom streets emphasises and night with day make Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll seem even further apart and yet they are the same person. This also adds to the effect of mystery in the plot, like at the beginning not knowing what events would occur. In night, when he appears for example, he lay and tossed in the receipts darkness of the night. Then he has a nightmare, which is a sign that bad things are to come and the dark symbolises that also.Robert Louis Stev enson himself had bad dreams and nightmares in his childhood, peradventure this relates to the man in the story. The mental landscape of the writer reflects in this book. His nightmares, the mountain in the Victorian age who lead a dual life. For example, when he was younger, him and his friend Charles Baxter would go out and pretend to be lower class and go to taverns. They would lead a dual life, just like that of Jekyll and Hyde, besides they could in the end control whether they become that person or not.To conclude, duality runs throughout the whole of this book, withday/night, good/bad, Jekyll/Hyde, wealthy suburbs/grimy back streets, respectability (boring)/freedom (exciting). I think that his life experiences and feelings play a large part in the story and its inner meanings. In this book you can see that the setting relates greatly to the plot and Jekyll and Hyde. I think Jekyll and Hyde could relate to people in modern day society, because most people put on an act and dont gift whom they really are deep down inside. Yet, when they are put in a different place and time, with different people with different behaviours and morals, they are suddenly let loose as a different person. The connection to the story with Jekyll not coming back in the end and Hyde taking over could be applied to this behaviour. Because, when someone puts on an act for such(prenominal) a long time, not only do the people surrounding, but also the person who is doing this, starts to believe that the person they have made out to be cannot be distinguished from the real person inside. So, overall the setting enhances the atmosphere a great deal more than you can apprehend because of the underlying connotations and meanings.