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Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde Narrative

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The various level or narrator positions in the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are frequently changing; this can lead to confusion for the reader. Stevenson does also use changes of narration to provide a clearer duality of man. Furthermore, this kind of divided self is well known in the Gothic literature. Gothic literature uses doppelgängers or duality to create a feeling of instability. The Gothic fiction’s doppelganger reflects the inescapable anxiety through a malevolent other that destabilizes the cohesion and leads to a self-destruction(Dryden p.39 ).In the case of Dr. Jekyll, he is using his divided self to "Hyde". Jekyll is able to “Hyde” his forbidden pleasures like killing or sexual desires from the public because he created his own dark side. This dark …show more content…

This plot development by the usage of Utterson can be found in chapter 6: "I have buried one friend to-day," he thought: "what if this should cost me another?" And then he condemned the fear as a disloyalty and broke the seal”(Stevenson p.30). The function of this narrator is customary to help the readers to get a more broad view of what is occurring in the story. Moreover, this kind of narration allows readers to be privy to all actions of the characters, events that take place in the story, and many of the character’s thoughts throughout the story. Besides this, Mr. Utterson is not just there to develop the plot as he finds answers, he is also an important person, which means he needs to be described as a trustworthy person to maintain the style of discovery through his eyes. But he never gets described as a person you can or cannot trust. This stylistic choice helps the reader to be more invested in the plot because he needs to find out if he is trustworthy or not. The narration does also provide more information about Utterson. The narrator does share the darkest secrets of Utterson and his misjudgments Utterson would never tell, a good example for one of his mistakes is his loyalty to

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