Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Literary Element (2)

The literary element chosen by me to talk about is mood. If you have not figured it out by now, the main mood of the novel is eerie and mysterious. On page 14 the author quoted "London was startled by a crime of singular ferocity, and rendered all the more notable by the high position of the victim. The details were few and startling" in which this caught my eye, after various other time, and allowed me to think about the emotion or mood of the situation. When I thought even more in dept about the mood I started to wonder about the mood of the people in the story, even just unlisted characters. That mood told me that the people of London were terrified of Mr. Hyde as well as they hated him. Even as time passed "thousands of pounds were offered in reward" to find Mr. Hyde (Stevenson 22). So to really sum it all up, the mood of the story tends to get more aggressive towards the end along with the somewhat shocking end. So there is a lot of different things going on and making you think and that is what makes it a great story.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - Historical Context

On page 6 of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde the narrator quoted "the clock of the neighboring church rang out the hour of twelve, when [Mr. Utterson] would go... gratefully to bed. On this night., however,as soon as the cloth was taken away, he took up a candle and went into his business room." To me, of course, this shows a little bit of historical elements by two things, one it was said in the text that the church next door rang it's huge clock at the hour of twelve and not many town churches have a huge clock, let alone the small wooden churches. So if you peice this together then you can conclude tis church was a tall and wide stone church that had a huge yet simple clock on it's tower. Also it was said that Mr. Uterrson picked up a candle and walked to bed. Now I am not completely sure if this is historical but it does tell us that there is no usable electricity so he used a candle to see at night. So I would say this dates the time in the book at about the mid 1800's.

This is only minor evidence to show that this novel is in past times but it is still imporant to us, the readers, to know when and where the story takes place. Also it is important because it really helps the reader visualise most event going on, along with the surroundings. Without all of this historical background and evidence it would be very hard to think of the surroundings. So you need to be let known of what period in time the novel or whatever you or someone else is reading to get a hold of that imagination and think of the surroundings and everything else.