I believe that The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a work of Victorian Realism. The Broadview textbook defines some of the aspects of Victorian Realism as including “Detailed descriptions of landscapes, city streets, and domestic interiors” along with “moral progress, and inner struggles of an ordinary individual” (615). These aspects can be seen throughout Jekyll and Hyde in the descriptions of Dr. Jekyll’s living quarters, his realization of the evils that occur when Hyde takes over, and his decision on what should be done regarding Hyde in order to keep others safe.

The detailed descriptions occur the most frequently in this story and can be seen as early as the second page where Mr. Utterson describes seeing Mr. Hyde walk over and injure a young child in a street “where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps” (1123). These street descriptions occur multiple times when talking of Mr. Hyde and his atrocious acts. Another example of this is on page 1131 when a woman observes Mr. Hyde beat a man to death with a cane in the middle of a street one night. I believe the most important descriptions occur in Dr. Jekyll’s living quarters. It allows readers to get a more intimate sense of a character who is otherwise very elusive until the end of the story. It also shows how different both Jekyll and Hyde are. Where Hyde is sporadic and angry, Jekyll is clean and organized making him seem highly unlikely to cause any kind of harm.

            Dr. Jekyll’s inner struggles and the moral processing he must consider also makes this story reflect Victorian Realism. These aspects can especially be seen in the “Henry Jekyll’s Full Statement of the Case” section beginning on page 1147. It is in this section that Dr. Jekyll reveals that he turns into Hyde and that Hyde is a completely evil force that he can not control. This proves to be a pull of forces that Jekyll can not seem to find a solution for. Especially when he begins transforming between the two men uncontrollably. I believe this is why Jekyll asks Utterson to break into his quarters. He knows that it will end in the murder of Hyde. Although this means that Jekyll will also die it also means that innocent people will be saved from Hyde’s evil. Although this is an impossible decision to make, Jekyll sacrifices himself, his experiment, and a lifetime of hard work for the safety of others.  

Victorian realism has adjusted the way literature exists because of the influence it has had. Although The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a tale that seems rather exaggerated, the first time I read it I did not think it fit into the category of Victorian realism, after rereading it and further analyzing the definition of Victorian realism I decided that  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is an example of Victorian realism. 

In The Broadview Anthology it mentions that Victorian Realism “tended to center on the everyday experiences, moral progress, and inner struggles of an ordinary individual, while giving a sense of the connections between that individual and his or her broader social networks”(pg.615) this can be seen through the strange relationships between Mr. Utterson and Enfield, through the story that is told this is an example of “everyday experiences”. In The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde it mentions that Hyde beat to death an older man who went by the name Sir Danvers Carew- this act alone is an example of Victorian Realism because it centered on “inner struggles of an ordinary individual”. (pg. 615) In the Broadview Anthology it mentions that “Many victorian readers sought moral and ethical guidance from their authors” (pg. 615) I believe this applies when Utterson visits Jekyll and Jekyll explains that he has cut all relations with Hyde. If Hyde was the murderer this would be the right thing to do, by cutting ties, Victorian readers can interpret “ethical guidance” from this scene.

The story I chose is a reflection of Victorian realism because in the Broadview Anthology it says that “in the nineteenth century people longed for a sense of verisimilitude in their literature in order to guide them through the changes and upheavals both private and public, which they themselves faced.” I believe that this can be applied to The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, because the story is somewhat random, it is fair to say that readers could turn to this novella to take their minds off of reality. However this story also can give moral guidance, so in both of those ways it can be thought of as an honest reflection of Victorian Realism. 

While reflecting on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and reading through the definitions set by the  Broadview Anthology I can confidently say that the novella,  The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde can be thought of and considered a work of Victorian realism. 

Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is more often than not categorized as a supernatural tale. However, after reading the novella I have come to the conclusion that it is a work of Victorian Realism based on the definition of the genre set forth in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature.

To be a work of Victorian Realism the piece needs to be “a picture of real life and manners, and of the times in which it was written” (p 617). The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde exemplifies this in a multitude of ways. It takes place arround 1886 and reflects the manners and social constructs of the time period that aren’t necessarily found anywhere else. Letters play a large role throughout the novella not only in the traditional form of sending them in the mail, but also through messengers. An example of this is  when Dr. Jekyll sent Hyde as a messenger to Lanyon in order to reveal to him what was actually going on with him. This actively reflects how communication worked within society at the time. The social constructs of their society is also shown through the character of Poole. He is a servant (along with many others) to Dr. Jekyll, whom he calls “master.” This reflects how people at the time who were rich and a part of a higher standing in society typically had multiple people who lived in their home and worked for them. 

In addition to painting an image of everyday life, a piece of Victorian Realism “tend(s) to center on the everyday experiences, moral progress, and inner struggles of an ordinary individual” (p 615). At first glance, someone might think that The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde does not meet that criteria because Dr. Jekyll/ Mr. Hyde is no ordinary person, but the story does not focus on them alone. Mr. Utterson is just your average lawyer in 18– and he is the character the audience gets the most insite about. The audience follows his everyday experiences of going about the town and trying to converse with his friends and the struggle he has with wanting to make sure his close friend, Dr. Jekyll is ok and isn’t being harmed or taken advantage of by the suspicious new acquaintance of Mr. Hyde. 

It could be argued that because something as wild as splitting yourself into two personas is something that just wouldn’t happen now, let alone in 18– and therefore it isn’t very realistic. This is true, but as I mentioned earlier, it accurately depicted the daily life of the era it was set in and aside from the fact that the Doctor drank a strange elixir and turned into an evil version of himself it was realistic to the time. Multiple of the most well known pieces of Victorian Realism novels “contain elements of the fantastic, the supernatural, or the mysterious” and that is exactly what happens in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (p 617). It inserts a supernatural occurrence in a natural setting.

Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is the story of an average lawyer in 18– who is concerned about his friend, but has a supernatural twist. Based on this and the definition of Victorian Realism within The Broadview Anthology of British Literature the novella meets the criteria of the genre.

Victorian realism has impacted many authors and novels since being explored in the Victorian Era. It’s themes, perspectives, and plot lines enhance the reader’s experience as it is something that they can relate to in one way or another since the literature reflects an aspect of everyday living. One text that we have read this semester which falls into the category of realism work is The Adventure of the Speckled Band written by Arthur Conan Doyle. This text has a strong relationship with Victorian realism because of its plot, characters, point of view, and overall  “objective representation of real life that [reflects] the habits, desires, and aspirations of the reader” (Broadway 615). 

While there are other themes, such as mystery, present throughout the selected text, it’s evident that realism plays a major part in the plot and characterization. The Broadway Anthology of British Literature includes a section titled “Realism” which captures and describes the common qualities of plots and characters within realism works. Authors often wrote realist fiction that was centered around the everyday experiences an individual would have, along with their inner struggles and moral progress. Additionally, these texts would include habits and desires of the common reader as well. In The Adventure of the Speckled Band, we see Helen Stoner ask Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson for assistance as she suspects her stepfather, Sir Grimesby Roylott, will take her life just like her sister’s when she was engaged to be married. Doyle included realistic situations in the plot and with characteristics as we often see familial problems when it comes to financial restitutions and weddings. While this is particularly true in the Victorian Era, it still holds relevant today. Readers can sympathize with Helen who is feeling lost, confused, and in danger with her only desire to get married and live happily ever after. The common reader can also relate to the fact that Helen has lost a sibling and is paranoid being back in a place, especially a specific room, that is haunted with such emotions and memories. While we may not use a novel like this for guidance the way Victorian audiences did, it shows us how Helen and the other characters were able to navigate the changes occurring in their lives and allow for the reader to feel what they felt. We are able to connect with Helen’s and Sherlock Holmes’s inner struggles with such a detailed account, like when Helen says, “It is easy for me to be so [detailed], for every event of that dreadful time is seared into my memory. The manor-house is, as I have already said, very old, and only one wing is now inhabited. The bedrooms in this wing are on the ground floor, the sitting- rooms being in the central block of the buildings” (Doyle 3). The reader can picture the everyday descriptions of her experience as well as the realistic environment in every moment of the text when characters are speaking or at a new location.

Another common quality amongst realistic literature is having a single narrative perspective, which comes from Dr. Watson who holds a less observant perspective than Holmes. This allows for the reader to have one narrator without exposing all of the information that Holmes has that could make the story less mysterious. The realism which comes from using the “red herrings” also adds elements of suspicion to this realistic text as the clues allow the reader to process the text like they would process their own thoughts in real life. There are other thoughts that may take the reader off course just like Holmes. This type of writing make the account similar to the way a reader would process a case with the daily activities and thoughts leading from one clue to the next. This text holds many similar elements that other realist writings have which allow the readers a greater connection to the plot and characters. 

“The Rector” by Margret Oliphant is an example of Victorian Realism in regards to the way character’s operate within the social world and their struggle with morality, as well as the story’s representation of life as it would have most likely been like.

In The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Victorian Realism is described as a means to “present an objective representation of real life that reflected the habits, desires, and aspirations of readers” while also focusing on the “everyday experiences, moral progress, and inner struggles of an ordinary individual, while giving a sense of connections between that individual and his or her broader social network” (pg. 615). The story opens up by describing the scene in which it takes place, the town of Carlingford, and how society typically operates there. The narrator describes the town as having a “very good society” and a “pretty place — mild, sheltered, not far from town.” The narrator then describes the temperament of the town’s people in relation to the coming of the new Rector, saying those “devoted to the Church it may be well imagined that the advent of the new Rector was an event full of importance, and even of excitement.” The description of how the town operates and excitement for the Rector’s arrival are important when talking about the story’s relation to Victorian realism. First, it shows what the town’s habits and what life was like during this time, something that readers at the time could have heavily identified with, and would have been able to see this story (from at least this very early description) being not only plausible but likely to have occurred in real life. Second, this description would not only describe life as it was, but also the aspirations of readers, most of whom could relate to religious habits of the time and being excited for an event like a new Rector coming to town.

The story also embodies Victorian Realism because of the inner struggles that the Rector undergoes, as well as his social connections and the expectations he meets (or more often fails to meet) in the fulfillment of his role. Some of the struggles the Rector experiences include the pressure from his mother to find a wife (and his interactions with women in general), as well as his struggle to fulfill his role as a spiritual leader for his people, specifically in the deathbed scene. Victorian realism is defined by its movement within the confines of what social expectations are for a character, and what actually happens in the story (something that past and current readers can relate to with the social roles we find ourselves filling today in our personal and professional lives). In the death bed scene, the dying woman is looking for spiritual comfort in her time of need, but the Rector handles the situation awkwardly and not the way readers would typically expect a man in his occupation to. Rather, it is Mr. Wentworth who fills this role, and although he is not professionally expected to fill this role, his social ties and experience in the community makes him the most qualified in this sense to act.

During the Victorian period, realism was one of the most popular forms of literature.  Victorian realism focused on everyday experiences, the struggles of an ordinary individual, morality, and social networks, and many novels focused on these topics.  However, realism was not the only form of literature produced during this area.  Some literature looked to challenge the ideas about what made good stories and looked beyond the limits of realism to do so.  In one Sherlock Holmes story, Watson and Holmes must solve the death of one sister and prevent the death of the surviving one, who is having similar experiences to her sister before her death.   The genius detective must shift through the highly unusual circumstances to get to the truth.  The Adventure of the Speckled Band by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is one example of a Victorian story that does not fit the period’s criteria for realism.  Though it does take place in a world familiar to readers, the events of the story are too extraordinary to fit in the box of realism.

One of the most obvious criteria of realism that The Adventure of the Speckled Band fails to meet is the depiction of everyday experiences.  At first glance, it is a basic detective story, and while solving crime might not be a part of everyone’s everyday experiences, it would be an ordinary event to see fold out in real life.  That being said, the nature of the crime is so out of the ordinary that it is hard to call it realistic.  It is true that it would be believable for an aggressive man previously convicted of serious crimes to murder his stepdaughters for money.  However, the idea of a man using milk to train a deadly snake from India whose poison no test could detect, using a ventilator hole and a fake bell rope to get the snake into the next room, bolting his stepdaughter’s bed to the floor, relying on the snake to bite the occupant, and getting the snake back and putting it in a metal safe, all to commit a murder, seems very farfetched.  The man who attempted that crime would have to have a huge amount of foresight and cunning while also relying on a great deal of luck.  It is worth noting that Dr. Roylott had a habit of getting into violent brawls and did not seem to be able to exercise the patience and restraint it would take to perform such a complicated murder.  Additionally, it seems very unlikely that a snake could be trained in that way and could survive living in a safe.  Because of all these unbelievable circumstances, the crime does not fit in with the idea of everyday experiences.  Even if readers suspended their disbelief enough to ignore this implausibility, the way Julia Stoner addressed the cause of her death was unrealistic.  Helen Stoner claimed that as Julia was dying, she cried out “’It was the band! It was the speckled band!” (Conan Doyle, 1214).  Presumably if she saw the snake well enough to describe it as speckled and had felt it bite her, Julia probably would have known that it was a snake that attacked her.  If that was the case, it seems odd that she would refer to it as “the speckled band”  and not simply say that a snake bit her.  The cryptic message that clouded the circumstances of her death would not likely have been so vague coming from an actual person, giving investigators much more to go on to solve the case.  This demonstrates that even the reaction to unusual circumstances was not entirely realistic.  Though the story is grounded in things that could theoretically happen, it is so far out of the realm of everyday experiences that it cannot be classified as realism.

The other main aspect of Victorian realism that The Adventure of the Speckled Band doesn’t include is the internal struggle of an ordinary person.  Technically, Watson is the narrator of all the Sherlock Holmes story, and one could call Watson a fairly ordinary person.  However, Watson’s narration does not focus on his inner thoughts, but rather on the actions of Holmes.  There are two ways in which this rejects elements of Victorian realism.  The first is that the protagonist of the story, Sherlock Holmes, is no ordinary person.  Readers identify Holmes as a genius, and rightfully so, as in this story he unravels a highly complicated crime that had gone unsolved for years and prevents another by using just the witness account and the observation of two rooms.  His detective skills and reasoning powers are much higher than average, certainly not the characteristics of the ordinary people that Victorian realism favors.  The second way the story fails to meet this requirement is that it does not describe an internal struggle.  The closest it comes is when Watson describes his anxiety waiting in the sisters’ room at night, wondering “How shall I ever forget that dreadful vigil?” (Conan Doyle, 1223).  This is the most expressive Watson gets about his internal thoughts and feelings, and the only time Holmes’ inner thoughts are described is when he explains how he solved the case.  Very little is described in the way of internal thought; most of the narration describes the action of what happens.  The conflict of the story is primarily external.  Neither Watson nor Holmes go through some big moral quandary or make some kind of life changing decision.  Their challenge is to solve a crime, and while it does require a great deal of thought, their struggle is with the events occurring in the world, not something internal.  This goes against Victorian realism which emphasizes moral progress and internal struggles, as next to nothing in the story describes internal conflict.

Though realism was incredibly popular during the Victorian age, The Adventure of the Speckled Band rejects the confines of realism in order to tell an interesting story.  The events are highly extraordinary and unbelievable, a far cry from the everyday events that Victorian realism seeks to depict.  Furthermore, there is no moral or internal struggle for an ordinary individual.  The protagonist of the story is nowhere near ordinary and the story is about the external conflict of solving a crime, not any internal turmoil.  Although it was written in the Victorian period, The Adventure of the Speckled Band steps out of the realism movement to describe a truly extraordinary tale.

Garrett Enea, ENGL 277

The narrative of Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, while a supernatural and grisly tale is still bound by the tropes that classify Victorian Realism literature. This style of realism is most apparent in Mr.Utterson’s and Dr. Jekyll’s shared friend group, where Mr.Hyde lives in Soho, and the overall moral implications of Jekyll.

The textbook, The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, gives readers a definition of Realism, specifically within the context of the Victorian era. Victorian realism was meant to “present an objective representation of real life that reflected the habits, desires, aspirations of readers” and centered “on the everyday experiences, moral progress, and inner struggles of an ordinary individual, while giving a sense of connections between that individual and his or her broader social networks” (pg.615). This is showcased in Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr.Hyde, with the narrator, Mr Utterson, a lawyer, who only associates with colleagues of a similar stature, like doctors and bankers. At this time social classes were divided and did not interact; it would look odd if Mr. Utterson participated in leisure activities with those deemed lower than him. Mr. Utterson and others close to Henry Jekyll struggle with comprehending how a man like Jekyll, who is seen as calm and friendly, could be so intimate and trusting of a brute like Mr. Hyde. This dynamic is what forms much of the mystery within the story. Additionally, how Mr.Hyde’s living conditions in Soho are described are very realistic when compared to the real Soho of this time period. In the footnotes on page 1128 of our textbook Soho is described as a “Central London district known for bohemians, criminals, and sex workers”. Mr. Utterson is shown to be very hesitant when venturing into the district to find Mr. Hyde.

Also according to The Broadview Anthology, Victorian realism can also reject the “heroic and sentimental” and “contain elements of the fantastic, the supernatural, or the mysterious”(pg.615-617). While Mr. Utterson narrates the story and readers follow his perspective I would argue that this story is truly about the duality of Jekyll. The character of Henry Jekyll is one that is deeply flawed and potentially dangerous. On page 1152 Jekyll admits that he likes certain aspects of his split personality; the “cherishing honest hopes” and friends of Jekyll and the “liberty, youth, light step, leaping impulses, and secret pleasures” of Hyde. Based on what the reader sees in the material Mr. Hyde is a vicious, evil man capable of killing at random yet Jekyll ignores the morality of this because it’s a more exciting existence compared to his normal one. He describes himself as a “secret sinner” and when he would think of sin he would convert to Mr. Hyde. This is obviously supernatural and fictional but follows themes seen in Victorian realism as Jekyll is neither heroic or sentimental.

According to The Broadview Anthology, Victorian realism consists of a combination of reflections of the individual and society. Robert Louis Stevenson’s The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde exemplifies the use of Victorian-based realism in literature. 

Dr. Jekyll’s wrestling with Hyde addresses one of the main components of Victorian realism: the struggles of morality in an individual. Dr. Jekyll lives out his devilish fantasies vicariously through Mr. Hyde. The society Dr. Jekyll lived in made him repress his desires, thus causing them to manifest into Mr. Hyde. Jekyll reveals in his letter, “…I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life. Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of… I regarded and hid them with a morbid sense of shame.” (Broadview 1147). This reflects the notion of “moral progress” that characterizes the Victorian realism genre. Jekyll goes from a notable and well-liked member of society into a feared, murdering monster. 

This story acted as a moral guide to contemporary readers. It fabricates a personified entity of immoral behavior in the form of Hyde. The reader, now as well as in the 1800s, is disgusted with Hyde’s personality and actions. Jekyll represents the loss of morality as he is slowly taken over by his evil side. The audience would see the fall of Jekyll as a cautionary tale to giving in to indulgences that are considered “immoral” by society. 

Victorian realism also focused on the connection of the individual to society. Stevenson’s use of Dr. Jekyll’s status as a respected member of the community juxtaposes Hyde’s mysterious background. At one point, the narrator becomes concerned that Hyde is taking advantage of the rich doctor by some horrible means of threat. This reflects the divide in society between the haves and the have-nots in England during the Victorian era. According to Broadview, “Hyde’s dwelling in Soho reflects… fears about the impoverished regions of London and the crime and vice they bred.” (1121). Much like the narrator, British society drew negative conclusions about people based on their background and status. The narrator’s suspicions of Hyde using Jekyll for money reflects the distrust members of higher British society had against the lower classes. Stevenson placed Hyde’s place of residence in a well-known bad part of town due to the belief that such types of people already lived there.  Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is considered victorian realism, with a supernatural twist, due to its focus on the morality of the individual and society.

The Victorian era of literature spawned many different literary movements. Two of the major literary movements that came out of this era were realism and, to oppose this movement, anti-realism. While realism inserts aspects of day-to-day life of an ordinary person at this time into the setting and characters with thorough descriptions of landscaping and surroundings without using flowery language to describe events to give people an idea of life as it was, anti-realism conveyed out-of-the-ordinary events that the reader knows could never happen in their everyday lives. Anti-realism does not go in-depth on the setting of the story, and the characters are not described in full detail either. Because of the traits of anti-realism, this movement sparked many different mystery novels, one such novel being The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. 

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is more event-oriented than setting-oriented, which is one of the traits of anti-realism. In the first chapter of the story, “Story of the Door”, it may sound like this chapter will be setting-oriented, with more attention paid to the surroundings of the characters and less attention being paid to the characters or the events surrounding the door. However, when Mr. Enfield asks his cousin Mr. Utterson, “did you ever remark that door?” (1123), instead of describing the door in detail, Mr. Enfield goes right into telling his cousin about the event that took place surrounding that door earlier on. The event, which is when Mr. Hyde is mentioned for the first time, is far more important than what little description the setting gets, which is why Stevenson decides to put the story’s focus on the events that transpired rather than a heavily-detailed description of the characters’ surroundings.

Another example of the story’s event-focused nature is how the characters are not gone into very deeply, at least not until the end, which is another trait of anti-realism. We know that Mr. Utterson is a lawyer who is trustworthy and well-liked, Jekyll is a wealthy doctor, and Mr. Hyde is hated, and he is evil. His evil nature is seen slightly through description, but every person who describes him in the story says that they only have a bad feeling about him upon looking at him and do not know why, or “ “ (…). The reader understands that Mr. Hyde is evil mainly because of the events that occur, such as Hyde stepping over the little girl or the murder of Sir Danvers Carew. The events of the story again are more important than the descriptions of either the characters or of the setting.

A different and very important trait of anti-realism that is embodied in this story is that it is not trying to capture events of an ordinary person’s day-to-day life, but rather it resembles a science fiction mystery, which is a very fabulist-fiction genre. In this story, a man leaves all of his money and his practice to a man who is hated throughout the rest of the community, and, at the end of the story, the reader finds out that, when Mr. Hyde “…put the glass [of medicine] to his lips and drank it at one gulp… there stood Henry Jekyll!” (1146-1147). Dr. Jekyll had created a potion that would make him younger and unrecognizable to the public, and he figured out that he could do his own dirty work without being caught or recognized by anyone. This feeding into the evil side of his human nature, he kept transforming until he started becoming Mr. Hyde without taking the potion, at random times, until he finally dies as Mr. Hyde and not himself. None of these events could ever happen in reality, which is a big reason why this story is opposed to the realist movement.

The story The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson is an excellent example of anti-realism. This is because the focus of the story is not on heavily-detailed or in-depth descriptions of characters or of setting and surrounding, but on the events that occur within the plot of the story. It is also because most of the events that the story focuses so much on cannot occur in a person’s regular day-to-day life because these events are more fabulist than realist fiction. Overall, the events of this story make it a perfect example of an anti-realist fiction piece.